Answer to a question I'm seeing a lot here, and which I got a lot on the Drumeo video - "shouldn't you just feel it". The word "just" is doing a lot of work. Of course you should also feel things. And the purpose of exercises like those in this video is actually to get you to feel better. You don't want to be thinking on the bandstand. You want to be in flow, but also not be surprised when you check out the recording. I think a lot of new viewers of this channel probably haven't seen this video: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/f8d1g82rxr7Nfpc.html

I'll be honest. That first snare beat of the video......that sound was everything!!

Had a lesson with Keith Carlock years ago, met him at the 55 bar. Man was he nice too! So a big take away from him was "giving notes their full value".. He demonstrated with by playing the hits at the end of The Chicken.. Most guys rush those he said, and don't give the figures their full value. We had the lesson in an old basement rehearsal studio in Greenwich Village. The kit was beat up, covered with duct tape, he still sounded absolutely incredible, he made those drums sing!

The parking spot analogy is one of the best I've ever heard to describe playing "ahead", "in the middle", or "behind" the beat. I remember Jeff Porcaro was once asked about playing on "Dirty Laundry" by Don Henley. He said, "That's laying that sucker back as far as I could." Darn near flamming with the drum machine at times lol I'd say his motorcycle was the size of a Hot Wheels car, parking in an SUV parking spot... Keep it up Nate!

Thanks once again for expanding on this topic. I really believe that using a displaced click (as well as a gap click) is one of the most useful tools we musicians have for learning pocket & groove. I have to confess, however, that getting to the point of hearing the click on the 2nd 16th took me months of very slow practice (starting around 40 bpm). In the beginning, I also had to relearn that feel for every new beat I practiced. With each new beat, hearing the displaced click became a little easier. I think it's worth emphasizing the importance of slow practice for learning to find the pocket (parking space), as minor discrepancies are much more audible at very slow tempos.

I always explained it by holding up two parallel drumsticks-each representing beats 1 and 2, and talking about the wideness of said sticks. I enjoy your analogy of the same principle. It’s very, very important in order to get a grasp on feel. Thanks, as always!

Level of detail. Excellent analogy. It's like an engineers "tolerance" as long as it falls within that space, it's on time.

Beautiful exercise! Thanks, Nate!

so cool! and thanks for the playing in time course

This is such an interesting topic. Only people that have a highly accurate INNATE sense of time can just "feel it", and of course, I'm talking about world class musicians. But if you want to TEACH this stuff, you can't rely on everyone "just feeling it", because the reality is that the majority of people do not have the level of precision necessary to play around with note placement unless they work at it (myself included). This means that your ears can'´t really hear those subtle nuances, so therefore you don't know how bad your time feel is. But if you work at it, as your listening skills get sharpened, you start a positive cycle: the more I work at it, the better I get and ALSO the more you hear what you need to work on. Thanks for your videos Nate, keep it up!

Great explanation as always - love the 🏍 analogy, and the way we can “stop hearing” the click after awhile (like we get used to the smell of a house with 🐈 🐈‍⬛ 🐈 😂). You’ve got a way with words, Nate. Will work on the click shift exercises today. 🥰 thx again

Outstanding concept and presentation. I have taught this type of thing many times, so it's always fun to hear another analogy. (parking space) Love the channel.

Steve Jordan has a video floating around somewhere where he stresses drummers knowing "the full value of a quarter note." He uses an analogy similar to the parking space: he says that when Michael Jordan was in his prime, the basketball hoop seemed like it was a mile wide and he just couldn't miss it. Slightly different metaphor, same critical point.

Thanks for the video

I love that you’re using a Snareweight #5 in the Drumeo video! People aren’t using them enough. They’re fricking awesome! (Crazy expensive though)

Nice video Nate. I learned this "flow" and feel through transcribing and traversing Advanced Funk Studies by Rick Latham. It seems R&B and Funk are huge great forms for this feeling; no surprise Steve Jordan is commended here. Can't wait to test out your approach though.

Great lesson on groove.

I’ve always explained this as a number line to 100. Quarters being 25, 50, 75, and 100. If you play BD 1 & 3 at 25 and 75, and your snare on 2 & 4 at 50 and 100, it’s squarely on the beat. If you keep the BD but play backbeats at 28 and 03 of the next measure, the backbeats are a little late but may sound laid back with the BD still propelling the groove forward in time. Most of us play plus or minus 3 or 4 resulting in a range, for example ONE on the BD could be in the range of 23-28 and it’s inconsistent measure to measure. That just sounds like sloppy time and will frustrate a good bass player who’s trying to hear where you’re putting the beat. If you’re consistent playing the ONE at 23, and THREE at 73, then your BD is on top, and it may or may not produce the right feel for the song, but at least it’s consistent. BTW, if you play consistently at 28, 53, 78, and 03 - then you’re just dragging, you’re consistently behind the beats relative the band. If the bass player and band follow you, establishing a “new” 0-100 and you again start dragging, it means you’re not hearing where you are really placing the beat relative to others - no matter where they play the beat, there’s a latency before you play your beat. You can develop this inadvertently as I did by playing along to music and letting the recording “lead” you - you’re actually waiting to hear the beat on the recording. It’s best to record yourself and make sure you sound like you’re leading the band, not following. Alternatively, you could teach the number line to 48 to better accommodate triplets: quarters are 12, 24, 36, 48, and within a quarter, 16ths are 3,6,9,12 whereas triplets are 4,8,12 etc. but hey, this is music not numerology. Reading back, I now realize the numbers for quarters should be 0-25-50-75. Especially b/c if you’re laying back (a little late) with beat 4, you’re NOT in the next measure. So BD on 0, 50, SD on 25, 75. If you are ahead or “on top” of beat 1, you ARE in the preceding measure technically.

finally he's playing on a kit that is not a king kong size pile of garbage! LOVE the 80/20 drummer. He's awesome.

Great

“Thank you for talking to me Africa” by Sly and the Family Stone is the Bible on 2 and 4 pocket playing. 7 minutes of Funk restraint. Any bassist looking to groove ultra hard should also check it out.

Great stuff! Would love to hear your opinion about the balance between this kind of "thinking" exercise and more "feeling" practice like listening and playing along with records

Mmm 16th note off beats that's tricky but I love it

Maybe I just am naturally bad at this, but playing (in) time is probably the single hardest thing about this instrument. Whenever I record myself I notice so many little inconsistencies that I'm just in awe of the really chop heavy players like Thomas Pridgen or Zach Hill because not only do they fart out an absurd amount of notes, it's all in perfect time and they can make it feel good too. Videos like this help demystify it at least, but it's still a difficult thing to get a handle on. Note spacing, note spacing, note spacing...

👍Subdivisions! The more there are, the better you lock into the time..!

You're supposed to play eight notes on the first exercise right? Greetings and congrats for you work Nate

So just a personal observation with a lot of " average" drummers. Don't you see guys like Nate Smith, Steve Jordan, etc.. dancing when they play? I see so many drummers that are so stiff... they don't move anything but their hands and feet; and that's mostly just because they have to. You need to FEEL that beat, not count it. Too many average drummers are going.. 1 and a 2 and a 3, etc. etc... instead of going ' oom bada oom, ofa doom, bada doom ( for a terrible example) . And I actually don't mean that they need to be thinking " oom bada oom, etc..", I just mean that they're naturally thinking like that when they're playing. I guarantee that guys like Nate Smith are not even counting the 1,2 ,3 4... they are filling in the stuff around those numbers.; and the actual numbers are not counted, they're felt in the intervals they naturally occur at. They don't care about 1, 2, 3,..4.. they care about the space in-between. They are still confined by the numbers ( to a degree) but they can do whatever they want in-between ( and around) those numbers... and it will always come out groovy The counting is like an unorganized wave.. sometimes cresting other times rolling... it's not so stiff, and it's certainly not so straight. And maybe that is a natural thing.. I don't really know. I'm not sure if that is something you can buy for $24.99 a month.. It seems like you either really have that feel inside of you, and it will eventually come out on its own after playing long enough, or you don't and you're left counting stiff numbers to yourself in order to keep a time that should be natural

Great video, again. I always thought that Copeland is an example of playing ahead of the beat and Hunt Sales is behind the beat. Anyone, correct me if I’m wrong, it would make this whole thing clear for me.

💪💪💪

Pocket or feel is intrinsic to the idiom one is playing in and is traditionally felt rather than practiced technically. Dennis Chambers when playing with Paliament initially didn't even know what Pocket was. The reason 'those guys' are better than us is usually because they have a natural artistic sense and feel.

My worst habit is playing faster than when I started the song, also when I practice and play beats from songs, they are faster than the original, so when I go back and play to the song, I feel like its dragging

There doesn't seem to be a 'right way' to play cymbals, but there is a 'wrong way' to play cymbals because it breaks them. Of course, that 'wrong way' can also be the 'right way' to play cymbals if you like having broken cymbals or the money to buy unbroken cymbals. Eventually, after being broke and eating ramen for too long, I got better at playing my cymbals so I wouldn't have to be playing broken cymbals and replacing them...saving me some money to buy better food with. YMMV.

Travis Orbin

anybody have a good system for knowing which click displacement to use depending on the groove? like obviously triplet based grooves need triplet based clicks, straight need straight, etc, but what exactly would be the difference between using say full 16th offbeats vs just the 4th 16th?

What about the faster tempos? I find it impossible to play with this placement above 120BPM...

Pheurst

All these terms & ideas on how to drum or how to be a better drummer, it's all just confusing!? Every drummer online has their "own" ideas & if we follow them, guess we become better? Guys just play, play Anything too. It's not really "what" u practice as long as ur playing, focusing on ur timing & technique, & have a practice regular routine u will get better. Repetition repetition repetition, "that's" what will make u a better drummer. Playing with other musicians is about the best way to hone ur skills.But we all need that shed time, playing along to tracks & such. Again just play, repetition is key...

it was a good video until the end

dude , the way you speak is a rudiment. can you play how you talk as an exercise?

i generally dont "count" i just feel timing and i can put anything anywhere anytime.

WTF is he on about?

Are you playing at a new studio?