Drum Part Analysis: Let the Praises Ring

I was recently charting out Lincoln Brewster's song, Let the Praises Ring, for a rehearsal and gig later this week (at the Saturday evening service here) and was intrigued by how the choices the drummer makes in this recording help build and develop the song's energy over the course of the song.

This is a high energy song and has the potential to get out of hand, drumming-wise (no pun intended).  As drummers, when we are faced with a song full of energy, it's easy to over play or use up our most creative fills (aka the more technical and "choppy" stuff) at the top of the song, and then as the song progresses, we run out of ideas (and possibly energy).  Instead of our fills and drum parts helping build the song from the beginning to the middle and finally to the end, we end up with an almost "backwards composed" drum part, where the big fills (and ideas) all happen towards the beginning and middle of the song and we "peter" out as we get to the ending. 

Thankfully, that's not the example shown by the drummer in this song.  He expertly builds the song from the beginning to the end, and for the purposes of my discussion today, I'd like to mostly look at the first part of the song up to the second verse.

As you go through the song, listen (or follow along on my drum chart) to how "restrained" the drummer seems in relation to the energy building through the beginning of the song and up through the first chorus.  Specifically listen for:

• the drum fills and how they deveop from the the intro to the chorus
• how the drummer uses the open and closed (and half-open) hi-hat sounds - and when he uses those sounds
• where the drummer uses the ride cymbal as a way to create more energy and dynamics ( for example:  he waits until the last 4 bars of the chorus to start playing the ride which helps to lift that last bit of the chorus and "drive home" that part of the song)
• how the drummer opens the hat to create a dynamic lift building into the chorus
• notice how the bass drum part is more sparse in the first half and gets a little busier in the second half of the verse and how this small change in the drum part helps build the anticipation for the coming chorus

The key here is how concise and musical the drum part is to setting up the song.  The drum part is composed so that in a similar way to the lyrics, and larger composition of the song, it develops, strengthens and builds from beginning to the end.  This particular drum part serves as a great example of how we need to think when approaching and creating the parts for the songs we find ourselves playing on.  On a certain level, you can hear the "trust" on the part of the drummer - he trusts that it's not up to him to bring all the energy to the song. That if he creates (forms/ composes/ fabricates) his part well, it creates space for the other musicians to add their energy and parts. The end result is an entire ensemble of musicians bringing life to the song as a balanced whole. 

Also of note (throughout the whole song) is the drum fill that occurs in bar 16 of each double chorus (by my count each double chorus is 32 bars/ measures long) and in bar eight of the first chorus.  It might not be apparent on the first listen, but each fill is based on the same rhythmic figure:  a dotted eighth, followed by a sixteenth, an eighth rest and then an eighth note. 

In the first chorus, the figure is stated rather simply and "unadorned" - no toms or big cymbals, just communicated between the kick and the snare.  By the second chorus, we hear the drummer using his toms to play this figure.  And finally in the last chorus he plays the figure with his kick while anticipating the 16th and trailing 8th note with his snare, which syncopates the rhythm in a more complex way from the previous times.  As a listener, you may be tempted to think that these choices were made randomly, but I'm fairly certain, that although the drummer may not have known ahead of time what he was going to be playing in those spots, he was aware that each time he played a fill in that measure, it was going to build, and continue to get more complex as the song progressed.

A note about my drum chart:  I typically chart out songs using notebook paper (though my scanner makes it look as if I'm using typing paper), as it seems more plentiful, and less expensive than regular staff paper.  I use a combination of the rhythmic dictation and transcription skills I learned in college, with the practical charting system I learned of (thank you Mark Nash!) when I was in Nashville.  Using these techniques I can usually chart a new song in one listen.  When I am trying to replicate a drum part from a recording, I usually take more time to write out the exact parts (or close to the exact parts).  In this particular case, I was taken with how well crafted the drum part was on this song, and felt compelled to notate more detail than I normally do, which led to my analysis above.  And about the notation: 

• x = hi-hat (on top line)
• snare is in the middle of the line
• kick is on the bottom of the line
• circled notes are toms
• circled x's are crash cymbals
• "full trash" (seen at the end of the chart) is a term used by the church (The Summit) I'll be playing this song for to indicate a big ending fill, with the final ending hit being led (or possibly directed) by the drummer