(guitar, bass, drums)
- Hey gang, JP Bouvet here with my band, Childish Japes.
We've got Ashur Kurtz on guitar, Jed Lingot on bass,
we're here at Drumeo,
and we've just filmed a bunch of great videos
for both their drum educational site,
as well as their new guitarlessons.com site,
so it's been a productive couple days,
and in this video,
I want to share with you a concept
that helps us push our creative boundaries a lot,
because this band writes a lot,
we jam a lot in our writing sessions,
and we're trying to always think of new ways,
especially as a trio,
to give things a unique twist, and fill up a lot of sound
with just three people.
So this is one method that we've found
has been extremely helpful.
So the idea is establishing and changing roles in the band,
because there are sort of standard roles
that the drummer tends to play,
and that the bass player tends to play,
and that the guitar player tends to play.
Those roles are important,
especially when we start learning the instrument,
because we need to have some sort of framework
to work within as we start to develop our coordination.
But what I'm talking about,
let's just run through a handful of these
sort of basic rules,
and then what we're going to do is break
pretty much all of them,
and we're going to take a fairly boring common groove
as a trio, and turn it into something that we think
is quite interesting.
So let's start with the drums.
Typically we've got the hi hat,
the right hand playing time,
and just keeping the metronome.
We got the back beat on two and four with the left hand.
And then we've got the kick drum playing
whatever the pattern is that one of those guys is playing.
So that's kind of the standard thing with the drum set.
With the bass, they get kind of locked into
playing the roots, and playing the same rhythms
that the guitar player plays
if he brought an idea to the table.
And then, usually Mister Guitar is handling the chords,
or the melody of whatever's going on.
So first we're going to play
an example that follows all those rules.
So Jed's gonna play the bass line, the roots,
Ash will handle the melody,
and I'm going to follow all the standard groove rules,
of right hand metronome, left hand backbeat,
kick drum plays along with Jed,
and let's see what it sounds like.
(playing instruments)
Okay, so there's nothing wrong
with the groove we just played,
especially if you're a beginning drummer,
or instrumentalist,
that might be the extent of your coordination,
and that's fine.
You're working on your groove,
and you're working on pushing things
a little bit at a time.
But what we want to do now as a band
is switch up the roles here,
and change things up in a way that is much more uncommon,
and it's going to accidentally result
in some pretty interesting, an interesting different take
on that same melody and chords that we were just playing.
So between us, Jed's gonna handle the chords and melody,
which is typically what a guitar player
might typically do.
Ash is gonna essentially become a percussion instrument.
And I'm gonna play, I can't play the bass here,
because I only have two notes
that are probably out of tune,
but I'm going to handle lower frequencies here,
and I'm going to sort of set a rhythmic foundation
that a bass player might typically have the role of doing.
So, why don't we,
why don't we play each part individually,
and then we'll put it all together
and we'll see how it sounds together.
So Jed, what are you playing?
(bass playing)
Yeah, Asher?
(guitar playing)
So yeah, that's super percussive,
even when you think about the various hand percussions
that you can change pitch of by squeezing the strings,
or whatever,
that's a very percussion-ish type of guitar part.
And the groove that I'm gonna end up playing is...
(drumming)
So for me the left hand's still playing the back beat,
that's still playing a traditional role,
but my right hand now, instead of being a time keeper,
which no one needs,
because Ashur's kind of serving that purpose,
I'm just playing an interesting rhythm
that's gonna serve as the foundation of this groove
in the low end.
I can't change notes, really,
but I can fill in the low end,
which Jed would typically have that job of, so,
let's put it all together.
(playing together)
Nice, as you can see,
just us redefining those roles,
and trading roles a little bit
forces us to think in a more creative way.
It's gonna push you out of your comfort zone
and out of your box,
and I think that's pretty much always a good thing,
if you're trying to be creative.
So, my challenge for you,
is if you're playing with a band,
if you have an opportunity to jam with even one friend
who plays a different instrument,
and if you don't, even playing along to music,
because if you're listening to music,
and they already have a drum part in the song,
that gives you kind of free rein
to think of a new creative part
and push yourself out of that typical drummer zone,
and say, okay, what if I think of a melodic thing,
or what if I do what a percussion player might do?
Or do what a bass player might do?
So my challenge for you
is to, in whatever setting you can,
try to change up the roles,
not only within the drum set,
but with your bandmates, or your jam mates,
and see what comes from it.
And that song that we just played there,
is actually from our first album.
The song is called "Gorbas,"
and the album is called "After You're Born."
So if you want to find that Childish Japes album,
it's everywhere on Spotify, iTunes,
you can find us on Instagram, Facebook,
everywhere you find people and things,
and huge thanks to Drumeo for having us here.
We've had an awesome time.
And thank you for watching, see you soon.