Drum soloing – some drummers are very adept at them. When I was younger, I often felt like I just fell on my drums when I am pushed to do one.
It was never a priority on my list of things to practice when alone with my drums as I was usually busy working on songs to play in a cover band.
Recently, we saw live music get a reboot after the COVID shutdown had people realizing how much they missed seeing a live band in a club setting. The weekend rock band I was in at the time saw the potential of this and put together a very energetic rock set list that had me playing harder and faster than I had – ever! This group also required me to do a drum solo that I was dreading.
It had been probably more than thirty years since I had done a long solo and, as you know, I had always disliked them. It’s not that I don’t like drum solos that other guys do, in fact I love them - when done well. I just felt that I wasn’t in that category probably because…(drum roll)…I never worked on them! I never had a plan or direction as to how to be more comfortable with drum solos.
I recently found a Drumeo video on Youtube featuring Keith Carlock, which reminded me of the issue I had in the past, and it changed my life as
far as teaching my students drum solo confidence.
Keith has played with Steely Dan and Toto and far too many others to
mention – so you know he has some serious talent.
mention – so you know he has some serious talent.
In the video (his solo starts at 8:30) he goes from 12/8 to 6/8 to 3/4 in a seemingly seamless groove that I am not even going to bother trying to explain.
I’ll just let you watch and see what I mean.
I just love the reaction of the interviewer (similar to my own) at the end of Keith’s solo.
Keith’s detailed explanation of what you just witnessed can be found at 19:36
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