The Benefits of Programming Drums

The Benefits of Programming Drums

I often find people carry a very negative connotation with the word "programming" when it comes to anything musical. It seems we always want our art to be "pure" and free from machine. However, with the recent drastic improvements in technology, it appears art has a new place with machine. In terms of programming drums, I suggest throwing out the negative connotations or negative stereotypes you may have heard and suggest pondering the alternative, how can I use this?

To really understand how to use today's equipment, I'd like you to think back to the most basic technology a drummer could want; a metronome. What benefits come with this? An incredible increase in drummers' overall timing. This is the first step in developing a technological tool to help us advance our timing skills. The metronome eventually gained more and more precision and became more and more widely accessible. The overall affect? Drummers are now expected to have great timing, as are all musicians! But again, another step towards trying to further perfect our mastery of timing with the use of technology.

In today's world, with programs such as Garage Band, Logic, Guitar Pro, Pro Tools, or Cubase, we are allowed extreme precision and tools that were unfathomable to those who had only a simple metronome of the past. These programs offer the ability to change the click tone, how loud the tone is, all kinds of different speeds, and so much more. But really, it's just a fancy metronome. So how can we use this in the most effective way in today's world?

First off, learn to program drums! It's very easy to learn if you spend some time with whichever program you happen to have. Once you've learned to program, you know right off the bat that writing drums on the computer is vastly different than writing drums in your studio. At first this seems obvious because you can obviously program things that are unplayable. Where as this is one way in which the writing process differs, I find that programming drums forces me to think further ahead and construct my drumming in a more organized fashion. In any case, you'll likely find new ideas quickly in programming as the patterns almost create themselves!

Once you have concocted some crazy programmed drums, my suggestion is to try and learn what you've wrote! It sounds crazy -and in many cases it absolutely is! But that's not the point; by practicing things that you program, you're likely to push yourself to play in ways you had never really thought of before. We tend to fall into the same fills and patterns as drummers when we get comfortable with them. This is a great way to force you into thinking differently and possibly constructing fills/beats you may not have otherwise thought of.

Speaking from experience, I've programmed drums to many video game songs and learned many of the parts. It affected my playing so much I completely switched up the way I set up my kit and my entire approach to my current kit. (I'll post a link to video game songs at the bottom)

The other amazing advantage you have over your drummer ancestors is the ability to have a drummer companion playing exercises with you, note for note. Programming drums gives you this ability and by being able to slow it down to any speed, it allows you to play anything your mind could ever think of.  This ability has led tons of musicians to become true masters of their craft and challenge themselves into extremely complicated drum beats and fills.

The other side to programming drums is being able to present something to someone digitally in a quick and coherent manner. Programming drums allows you to work with musicians all over the world! Not to mention you get to write your own stuff whenever you want. It also works great for putting together the framework for an album or EP.

Overall I hope that you see the competitive edge that programming drums gives to drummers and why we shouldn't just scoff at the idea.

Video Game Medley 1

Video Game Medley 2

Modern Drum Lessons


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