If you perform live in a band, you’ve experienced the challenges of keeping everyone moving in the same direction. One of those challenges is keeping everyone together time-wise. If the time is weak, the band is weak.
We all need something to use for our time reference in a band, and we can deliberately work on what that is. We usually make whatever that is a little louder in our monitor mix — if we have one. So much of this can be personal preference, but when I lead bands or when I teach student ensembles, I always encourage keying on three components of the drum set: kick, snare and hi-hat.
The kick pattern generates the underlying basic feel, especially when the bass part and kick are well-organized together. Then the snare is
normally on beats 2 and 4 and gives you a predictable place in each measure to make sure you’re locked in and not rushing, as most humans do, or dragging as others do. Then there’s the hi-hat. In many cases, the drummer is playing some subdivision with the hi-hat that can keep you true in the space between kick and snare attacks.
If every band member pays attention to some or all of the same references, like kick, snare and hat, the band can begin to jell as if it’s one big
instrument. That’s when the groove magic happens and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
