Dynamics

Applying dynamics to your playing can completely transform and elevate your playing, but they are often an afterthought, or perhaps even misunderstood to some degree.

As a drummer, I recommend thinking about dynamics in two main categories: individual and general. Individual refers to the volume of each limb, whereas general is our overall volume with all limbs combined. If you think of a sound desk where music is mixed, the individual faders control the volumes of multiple channels, whilst the master fader controls the volume of all channels.

Your general dynamic should be decided by the style of music you are playing and in what environment you are playing it. If we use the usual dynamic markings p (quiet) and f (loud), they should be relative to these things. For example, if you are playing a big arena show, your loud dynamic is likely to be much louder than the same dynamic playing jazz in a small bar. This is the more obvious dynamic choice, but can sometimes take a bit of experience playing in various situations to find the best volumes.

Individual dynamics are also decided by the style you’re playing in, although in a different way. For the sake of clarity, let’s take two very different general styles, rock and jazz.

In rock music (playing standard grooves), the most important parts of the kit that you want to hear are the bass and snare drum. In styles that need these two drums to stand out in this way, I use David Garibaldi’s method as illustrated in his books. The bass and snare drum are at the top of the scale (ff dynamic marking), the hi hats and ride are in the middle or slightly less (mf marking) and any ghost notes are at the bottom (pp marking). I’ve found that this way of playing really cleans up your groove playing and makes it much easier for sound engineers (less hi hats or ride cymbal bleed to deal with in microphones).

Loud (ff)  Bass Drum & Snare Drum

Medium (mf)  Hi-hat & Ride

Very Quiet (pp) Ghost Notes

In jazz (traditional, bebop, etc), it is often referred to as “top down”. This means that the loudest part of the kit (when playing groove, or “swinging”) should be the cymbals. Jazz has a very different approach (often using snare to “compliment” what other musicians are playing instead of a backbeat) and can be very varied dynamically, but if we think of these volumes as part of general swing playing, you might arrange your dynamics like so:

Loud (ff)  Hi-hat & Ride

Quiet (p)  Bass Drum & Snare Drum

Very Quiet (pp) Ghost Notes

Remember, these are only very general references for groove playing and swinging, and you will often feel the need to adjust things to suit various situations. I have found having these volumes as a foundation - then applying general dynamics - can be a very powerful way to create exciting playing with lots of contrast.

Scott

Midlothian Drum Lessons