Someone has to set the tempo, and for most of us, over the years, it was the drummer, mainly because everyone in the band could usually hear the drummer. The bass player, well not so much. Most of us old rock players were deaf as a post, but we could always hear the drums. And, for the most part, the drummers usually kept very good time.

Gary

I follow the bass. The drummer feels the bass. If you were deaf, it was because of poor speaker placement, bad, or non existence monitors, and that's all unacceptable. You and I have very different pasts, my friend ... but I love having you in my life! We need to get some crabs soon!

If I remember correctly, Gary's hearing was damaged on a battleship, by the volume of the guns.

Actually, it was a heavy Cruiser, USS Newport News, CA-148. It was 760 feet long and about 150-feet wide. When those big guns went off you thought the world as we know it came to an end. The entire ship shuddered.

While onboard the ship, I joined a rock and roll band that was forming, we performed at dozens of locations throughout the Mediterranean area, I played an electric guitar and sang, and I was right in front of the drummer, who was really loud. Had lots of fun back then, but lost a lot of my hearing by the end of my four-year stint in the Navy. Also lost my lungs to asbestos, but didn't know it till later in life.





Gary

I've never heard Can't Buy Me Love like that! How cool!

Big bands I love em’ --- I played guitar with a senior band here in Florida. The leader would allow me to take the band arrangements home so that I could used them to create a sequence on my keyboard.
Drummer???

Every time someone recorded my group the drummer cut through the other instruments. That’s why they place microphones in different areas so that they could be adjusted by a mixer. In church they place a drummer in an enclosure with headphones. Why? You heard the drummer out front and it did not sound very good. If you were there listen to the big band, under the same conditions it would sound different.

I have always believed that: The bass is the heart of the group and the drummer sets and holds the beat.
I had a 4 and sometimes 5, piece group. I told the drummer to hold the beat no matter what my guitar was doing. In reality I was playing on top of the beat (just before it) giving the song we were playing a lift. You would not try to measure the difference; it was more like a feel. Same thing when we played a ballad; I played behind the beat forcing the beat to drag – but the drummer held the beat.

Only my opinion.
Oh how I miss those days, John C.

PS, the best senior band I have ever heard here in Florida was The Second Time around. Fantastic.

Second Time Around Band

Bill, good to see you posting again.

Gary