(energetic rock music) (metronome ticking) (relaxing instrumental music) – Fantastic, ladies and
gentlemen, Billy Cobham. Welcome to the Drumeo studios. – Thank you. – Now, it's been a pleasure
just getting to know you a little bit, going
out, having some food, getting a chance to sit down with you. For me, I've come to the realization, you're so much more than just a drummer. You have this whole background of music, production, and development. You're so much more, well
you're equally a musician as you are a drummer. And so for me it's been really cool to see that whole different
side of you that I guess a lot of people don't get a chance to see, so I feel very lucky about that. – It's not often that I
get a chance to expose that side of me, you know? So it's great to be here
and be able to do that.
– Also, if you haven't heard
of Billy Cobham before, which I'm sure isn't that many of you, he played in an unbelievable
amount of recordings and bands. Some of the most popular
were a band called Spectrum and Spectrum 40. The musicians there, Dean Brown, Ric– – Ric Fierabracci– – Fierabracci. – and Gerry Etkins. – And Gerry Etkins. So definitely check that out, great band. You've done something with the Frankfurt Radio Jazz Orchestra. – Yeah, it's called Broad Horizons. It's the most recent recording I have, and it's not that easy
to get, but it's around. (both laughing) – And you've also played with
Peter Gabriel and Miles Davis, just to name a few more
of the many artists you've played with. He's also working on a really cool retreat for musicians, anyone who plays music, called The Art of Rhythm Section Retreat.
And the first one's
happening in Mesa, Arizona. – Right, and hopefully
it won't be the last one. (both laughing) But it's taking root, and that's the most important thing here. It's kind of the way I wanna go about it, after watching for over the last 50 years, what goes on in the business
in terms of a rhythm section and how we all come together. It's to act as a coach,
and sort of mentor, as we call it, interns,
those who take part, 'cause you're not students. If you're working in a rhythm section, then you already know
something about playing within the rhythm section, but how to get you to sharpen your ideas and to work together with others whom you may never have
played with before.
Or those who, of course you play with, but are not getting as much satisfaction from them in terms of
how you present yourself, or how they receive you. So the whole idea for
me is to come with guys like Ric Fierabracci,
Dean Brown, Gerry Etkins, and we talk about it. We become your guinea
pigs, we play for you, and say, okay, what is it
you hear in us that you may or may not like, or
what do you wanna change from your perspective as a player. And then you come and you play with us. Whether you be a bass
player, guitar player, or a keyboard player, of course a drummer, and we try to figure out
where you're going with it, and give you the best advice we can. – Awesome, yeah, so that's called The Art of the Rhythm Section Retreat.
We're actually gonna be touching on some of the stuff that you talk about, but obviously we have a
very limited window of time, so if you wannna check that
out I highly recommend it. It sounds like an amazing event. – Yeah, it should be lots of fun. – Also, we'd like to give
a couple quick shout outs to TAMA drums, SABIAN
cymbals, Vic Firth sticks, as well as Evans Drumheads. – Drumheads, yeah. – For providing some awesome gear. Also Roland, who was
not all the gear here, but you actually use some electronics in– – Yes, I use Roland
electronics when I play now, and can't say enough about it.
It's a lot of stuff to learn, the learning curve is not very steep. What's nice about Roland is
that everything's pretty simple and pretty straightforward,
if you just read, sort of enlarge the
fine print a little bit. (both laughing) And go, oh, that's what you meant. Okay, now I get it, yeah, then it works. – Nice, also I wanna say a
big shout out to Ron Dennett. Ron's actually here today. You're playing a Dennett
snare here as well, and Ron actually helped
connect the dots between me and Billy, and he introduced me to you, so I'm very grateful
for him for doing that, 'cause this is really cool. – I second that, yeah. He makes some wonderful, wonderful drums. And it makes it easy for me to
work with and play, for sure.
– Awesome, okay. Well let's get into some of
this stuff about the lesson. As I was saying, you have such
a more wealth of knowledge, other than just drums. We can teach exercises, and we
have lots of that on Drumeo, but I like this because
it digs deeper into the mastermind behind what you've created in your career and stuff. And what I've learned here,
is Bill was showing me all of his stuff that he's
transcribed in Sibelius. Not only does he know his part, but he knows everyone else's part, because you've actually written– – I wrote the parts.
– So when he's playing a song, he knows every single
rhythm that every single other instrument is playing, every single melody that they're playing. The depth of understanding that you have is so much greater than, I think, anyone, anyone has ever seen. So obviously it'd be great if we had four, or 10 hours to discuss this stuff. – To generalize it, really, it
has to do with me being able to better play effectively
with my colleagues in the band. Whether it's a vocalist or
a wind player, as a soloist. To support that individual,
or those individuals, because I understand the
mechanics to a general degree of what's happening with them. So what the sound is, what
they're seeking to achieve, and in return, I get
from them acknowledgement for, wow, you're listening. Not just listening, listening is a word. But you're actually effecting something that will give me more support
to make me do something else, because I feel more secure about it. So by writing music, as
the drummer in the band, quote unquote, which is a very broad and almost unfavorable term, in a way, I'm not just beating the drums, I'm trying to create an
environment through the drums to support my fellow musicians.
So that means knowing
about this instrument in relationship to what they do. I can choose the sounds I need
in real time to support them. So it's not just about the
timing, it's very important, but on many different levels. It's not just timing, and
playing time, metronomically, it's about timing, and
when I choose to play what, so that it's effective
at the time, you see. Otherwise, we're out of sync,
and you can't be out of sync when you play the drums, on any level. – Yeah, agreed. All right so let's get into this. So the first thing we wanted
to talk about was introducing each other in a performance. And we talked about some of this before, and you talked about
defining what the first step is in the musical journey.
– This was in relationship to walking onto the bandstand cold. Yes, you're warmed up to play, you're geared up to play,
okay, you're gonna play. But what are you gonna play, and with whom are you gonna play with? How do you introduce each
other to what you do? And my suggestion is always working from the simplest position you can. As a drummer, the first
thing I think about is am I in control of
what I'm gonna play on? Making sure that I'm sitting correctly, all these things, they
seem very, very basic, but we take it for granted,
and you should not.
You should always be
cognizant of what you're doing around and what you're playing
on, and how the drums sound. Okay, so now I'm there. Okay, so now we're gonna play
a piece that we all know, and say it's a shuffle. Is it a shuffle like this? (shuffling drum beats) Or is it something like this? (shuffling drum beats) Or, (shuffling drum beats) And it's going from duple, I'm going to a full
triplet kind of approach.
What are we gonna do? You keep your ears open, you're sensitive to what's going on around you, how the musicians whom you don't know are going to play or
approach playing patterns. The guitarist, the bass player, how do you sync up with them? Who do you listen to and try to draw an equal thread around with? Everybody, first and foremost, but as soon as you come to a point where everyone's in agreement, which you should be in about a bar or two. And if you know the tempos here, you, the leader of the band, contrary to everyone else's belief, are the leader of the band,
when you play this drum set. 'Cause, remember, if it doesn't
work, everyone looks at you, and says, what happened? They don't look forward,
they look backwards. They become part of the
audience and say hey. The only person behind the scenes is me, so then I must lead the band, right? So I play, and play with security, listening how everyone phrases, and you keep everyone together that way.
Simply from there, you build on it. Okay, that's your introduction. Now they know who you are, and
they understand who they are as part of the band. They make up this group
called the rhythm section. It has a face, it's created by moi. You see? From there we go out into the world, and we play this one tune. It may be the only tune we play together for the rest of the night, so we might as well make it the best one. – Yeah, yeah. Cool, and so you talked about
knowing the terminology. And so do you wanna speak
a little bit to that, like as far as, you talked about playing a shuffle and stuff, and getting into, like when someone else says,
this is what we're playing. We're playing this type of
shuffle, or this type of beat or this type of beat, so how
much do you go into learning all those different
types of terminologies? – Well, what you do is that you keep your head to the ground, you
listen to all types of music.
You become sensitive to that. And again, this becomes,
again, your experiences. Okay, let's say, it can be zydeco, or I
shouldn't say zydeco, but second line and you hear. (rhythmic drum music) Now you may live up north, and so that's very rare for you to hear. But if you've heard it, or
heard it through recordings, you kinda get an idea
where you wanna go with it. You keep things simple, you play sensibly, you don't try to overplay ever. That's a big rule. You try to play for and
support those who are a part of the band at the time, okay? And the objective is to
make that kind of feeling home for everybody.
You can tell, sometimes I see
in the shoulders of musicians that I'm working with, how
the tension is held here. And as soon as you do
something that they know, they go, yeah, and everything drops down and now they're here,
and they're digging in and they're wanting to play
because they feel comfortable. They know what that is,
they know how it's working, and voila, we're all on the same page. So now, I'm not gonna embarrass myself. You know, it's like, it's
this kind of feeling, and you realize it doesn't take much.
They just wanna have a good time, just like everybody else, you know? And they wanna put
their best food forward, but the shortcoming will
be how are we gonna treat the rhythm, what are we gonna do with it? I don't know this guy back
here, how's he gonna play? And as soon as you give them
something that they know, it's like getting out on the dance floor and understanding the music and how your partner's gonna dance.
You go, oh, you do the same
thing, okay, boom, we're in. And all of a sudden
everybody's having a good time. But if you don't do the same thing, it could be rough, you know? Which foot do we start on? So you come up with something
that is very, very simple. If it's not a shuffle, and you don't feel comfortable with a shuffle, play something that you feel
comfortable with, you know? Chances are, everybody will go with you, because you feel secure about it. And that's what this does,
that's what's important. – I think what's scary for a lot of people going into those situations
is they're gonna get something thrown at them that they don't know, and then they're gonna
get stuck in a situation where they say, it's being
counted off and they're terrified because they're gonna make a mistake. So you're just saying,
play something you know. – Play something you know, for sure, and be secure in it. Because if you get into that situation where you're not comfortable, you'll never do it again.
You never want to do that again. And so therefore, it's one
time, you learn something there. Don't go places where
you're not wanted, you know? Don't jump into something that you don't know very much about. That's a major lesson to learn, you see? It's like being in a recording
studio and being asked, real quick story, a
percussionist was hired, and they asked, do you know bossa nova, do you know how to play tambura? Because he needed a job, he said yes. He didn't know, made one mistake. It was a jingle, not enough
time to make another mistake. They were on the phone for somebody else that was around the corner, came in. The second time they stopped, they said, okay, that's it, thank you very much.
Please come over, sign your W9 form, tax. And if we ever call you again, this is what we'd like you to do. Tell the truth. But lesson learned. And it was done in public,
primarily because it's a business and we have no time to take prisoners, so either you're in or you're out, done. And from there you go, okay,
if I wanna be in this business, this is what I have to do. – Okay, so once you get
that introduction over, we talked about establishing
the body of conversation. And specifically getting
everyone comfortable with what the music conversation is about. So how would you do that? – So what I do is that I
lead people with patterns that I feel they can
feel comfortable with. If it's going to be the
shuffle again, like I said.
(shuffling drum beats) And the most important thing,
it should be consistent with how I bridge my patterns. That they are at the same tempo as the tempo that I play
in support of the band. So if I have a drum fill,
I don't rush the drum fill, I don't try to force the issue. I try to play as if I
were having a conversation with my best friend, and we're talking. Yes, we're emotional, but there's a rhythm to that, you know? Like as we're speaking now, I can play. (rhythmic drum music) And my inner time is here. (rhythmic drum music) And everything is the same, it's the same. And you feel like you're dancing. And so I'm gonna say to you,
yeah, I understand that. (scat singing) And you're feeling this,
and you're feeling, and the next thing you know it's onto how do we close the whole thing? Where we going, I have no
time, we can't talk about this, let's talk about this later, boom boom.
And you end it just the same
way you began, you know? Just playing music is all about,
it's a sonic conversation, all the time, it's just
that we don't use words. – Yeah. I'm gonna read what I wrote here, because I really liked what you said, and I want you to talk
about it a little bit. But you said, "The phrases that connect "have to be musically effective "while sustaining the rhythm." – Yes, but it is, and so, it's like. (rhythmic drum music) Never gone. Still there. In Western music we play in
two idioms, duple and triple. That can be both, and that's
your point of reference. So everything is related to this, you see? And as long as that is happening, not necessarily sound, but in feeling. So it can be, (rhythmic drum music) it's still there, it's
just that you feel it. You don't have to hear it, you
have to know that it's there.
So we talked about our inner sense of time and the development of it. That's when this (bass drum
thumps) becomes silent, and you only use it in places
where you feel it's necessary. – Yeah, we filmed a whole course that's gonna be for Drumeo students called Internal Synchronization. That's what he's referring to,
for all you Drumeo students, you'll get to see that
once it gets in edit. That's a great course, by the way. – Yeah, thanks. (both laughing) – Okay, finally, we
talked about controlling the level of intensity. So when you are in a
situation, I know the drummer has a lot of control over these situations when you're playing a song. – Yes. – Right, and so do you have
any tips around things to do, things not to do in those situations? – Again, when you're
playing and you're dealing with intensity levels, it can
be that you play more complex. You start off, of course, simply, here. (simple drum beats) Now you want to change
the level of intensity, so you might go. (quickening drum beats) It's the addition of certain
combinations of sounds, that tends to, and it's where you do it, that tends to signal to the other players, hey, we're going here, you know? So if it starts here, and with each (drumming drowns out speech) back in the day, maybe 20 years ago.
(drumming drowns out speech) and that's all it, for
everything, it's like a signal to move to the next level,
and it's almost like, it's not louder, it's not faster. It's just got this
feeling to it that where the chords change, and you understand. (rhythmic drum music) Now we're walking. Uh huh, uh huh. This is one for Purdie,
'cause he's in the middle of all of that stuff, and so he's, (rhythmic drum music) it just starts to boom, boom. But meanwhile, the tempo's the same, and he may play, I mean
if you can hear it, he toms it, he plays
because everything's deh. But you can feel it, you know, it's there. And you also, (rhythmic drum music) Not necessarily louder,
just stronger, you know? And that's where your
intensity's coming, you know. It's about the changes in the rhythm, synchronized with the chords. The feeling of like, okay,
we were standing here, now we're moving, bang, ting, bang. And you feel like you're
walking, you know.
(scat singing) and now you're at the next level. – That's great, cool. Okay, so I think we should move
on, 'cause one of the things that you're really, really
well known for is your soloing, and the different types
of melodic phrasing that you can create with all
the different toms and stuff. So I was hoping you could
do a solo for us today. – Yes. – Will that work? – If I can find the, I
had a key here somewhere, but I guess I lost it again. – We can get one for you. – Is there any in the house? – There's one right here.
– Oh, here's good. – The case of the disappearing drum key. – It's this one, it's always
missing when I need it most. – So while you do that, all right, I'll let you finish that up. – So if you want, I'll start now. – Yeah, I just wanted to tell
people before you get started, if you have any questions,
you Drumeo students who are in the Drumeo live chat. There's a submit a
question box right below, just go ahead, enter your questions there. Once Bill's done his solo, we're gonna get to as many
questions as possible. – Okay?
– You can take it away. Yeah.
– Cool, all right. (rhythmic drum solo music) – (laughing) That was great. Oh, man. It's so surreal, being here,
and we have a whole group of VIP students actually. You have a little bit of a
live audience today, too, which is not normal here
at Drumeo, so that's great. – Wow. – [Jared] I know, the lights are bright. – Who let them in? – All right, you ready for some questions? – Yeah, sure.
– Yeah? The first one is from,
actually a Berklee professor, named Henrique De Almeida,
and he's taught here on Drumeo before, so he has a question. – Oh, I know Henri. – You know Henri? – Yeah, I know Henri. Rosio. (laughs) – Exactly. He says first, "to say hi to Bill for me." And he says, "Hey, here's my question. "Bill, you are the father and master, "number one of our beloved
fusion drumming style. "I love every time you play solos "over a vamp, such as Stratus. "How can one start to develop the ability "to play and sustain such a rapid passage "of diddle combinations for that long?" – The way you have to do it
is to build enough confidence in yourself, and what you
do, the amount of power that you have to learn to pace yourself.
You have to have the
confidence to pace yourself, so that if you're playing. (scat singing along with drum music) You notice that I'm singing
much of what I play. The concept is to sing. You know for thousands of
years, Indian drummers, when they were studying,
interning apprentices, they always had to learn
to sing the patterns that they were gonna play
first, before they played it. They were not allowed to touch a drum until they could sing the patterns. And the whole objective was
to be able to understand that what you play, you
must know here first, before you can play it. So the key to all playing in drumming, is to play it up here before
you play it down here.
Otherwise if you have no plan,
then anything you play here is gonna have no meaning. So even with something
where it's constant, like, (even drum beats) I can hear that pattern,
I can hear that phrase in my head, and I can
play against that phrase. (rhythmic drum music) And if you notice, the
tempo never changes. The feeling, the phrasing, is within that. The tempo is this big square
box called the framework. You stay inside the box, you
play that pattern in your mind, and you play against that
pattern in your mind. So you have to build the confidence to be able to sing that
pattern and play against it. – Yeah. – And then you got it. – Simple as that. – It's as simple as that. – (laughs) Okay, next
question from Bone C. He says, "Billy, thank you. "I've always loved your command "of the rudiments around the kit. "How do we drummers keep the musical "without sounding like rudiments?" And this might be similar to my answer to that last question.
– It's a little bit different, in that, patterns like, again, we play,
fundamentally, two rudiments. One is called double,
like a double stroke. Or a single stroke. Duple, okay, so it's bah
bah bah bah bah bah bah, against dah dah dah, dah
dah dah, which are triplets. Fundamentally, that's all it is. No matter what the patterns may be, it could either be in a triple
phrase, or in a duple phrase. You break it down into those two sections. It's about being able to
understand how to make the transition from double to triple. And to be able to use the grace notes that may enhance a triple,
or enhance a double. (rhythmic drum music) Or. (rhythmic drum music) But the key is the accent
and where you place that accent on a pattern. So if it's a (snare drum beats) If you notice, I'm playing,
and I'm keeping, I'm working, again, with the internal synchronization of the development of my inner clock. Which, my bass drum is
playing, my hi-hat is playing for practice, just for practice, and to give you an idea of where I am.
And as I'm doing this,
I've gotten to the point where I can speak to you and
do this at the same time. Which means that the
development of my inner clock is advanced now, enough for me to– (drum music drowns out speech) I'm still in sync in that little framework called controlling the time. I can do all these other things because I'm thinking multi-level. And this is developed by
specifically understanding what you have to work with in your mind, before you apply it to the drum set. Think things through,
don't try to play more than you're capable of. Use the foundation that you play simply. You have only so much power
to work with as a player, so you want to use that power that's stored here, in the chi.
(rhythmic drum music) That's all you got. If you can use, but always
takes no energy to use. It's just defining an imagination, using your imagination
to decide what to do, is to play with dynamics. So if your dynamic range is wide, and you can access anything, to playing a pattern, like this. To this. Or like this. So you have different levels. All of a sudden that sounds differently, especially when you throw in
accents to different places. And all you've done is this. (rhythmic drum music) That can be your song.
It's about imagination, you see? It doesn't have to be complicated, in terms of how many
notes you play per bar. It has to be complicated
from the standpoint of what you use to play the notes. It's different. – Different way to think about it. – Yeah. – This is from Polish Drummer Forever. It says, "I'm a right
handed drummer that loves "the challenge of building ambidexterity. "I have run into the problem
of being able to play "fast 16th notes on his left hand. "So do you any tips on
increasing the independence "in his left hand?" – That's a different
question than playing fast. – Yeah. – You see what I'm saying? So he's asking, increasing the
speed, or the independence. If it's the independence,
then it's very easily done.
It's again, with the
internal synchronization that we have the lessons on,
I would refer him to that, okay, for ambidexterity. Because when you play
like this, you can play. (rhythmic drum music) This is my point of reference,
and I'm playing against it, and I'm now liquid, I'm
flowing and expanding and then contracting the
time, because I know exactly where I am, here and here. If you can do that, you
can play in any meter, at any point and time. – Yeah, so Polish Drummer, I
know you're a Drumeo student, so once that course comes out, you can go ahead and watch that. I think you'll love it. We've lots of great questions,
so I have to kind of choose which ones to ask, too. But this one is from
Andrea, and I like this, 'cause it's something we've
been talking about a little bit.
He says, "You have such
a natural and pure sound. "It sounds really human and real. "What do you think about
those modern tricker drums "and way of recording with computers "and plug-ins, et cetera?" – I applaud the person who does it, it's just that, when it comes down to it, those things don't play themselves. If you don't have a concept
as to what to do with them, then you can't play them. It still takes a human
brain to think about what you wanna do with the stuff. Yeah, you can do this, you can do that, you can spend the rest
of your life talking about what you can do, and you can show an
example of what you can do.
But very few have done
anything with the stuff, because they're still stuck
on what they can do with it. You see, there's a big difference. Once you choose a route, go that route, sort that out, then add to it. It should become easier. It depends on what you have on the pallet that you need to achieve, musically. Otherwise, all you have
is a tool that you can use in so many different
ways, but you don't use because you have no reason to. – Yeah. This is from Lucas Sayone. He said, "Hi Jared and Billy. "I'm doing my first recording ever. "Any big tips I should know? "It will be a live recording." – Get a seatbelt. – [Jared] (laughs) A
seatbelt, it's the truth.
Drive according, though terrified. – Lock yourself in, and hope for the best. Chalk it up to experience,
'cause if it's your first time you've ever done it, just
play as if you were recording. You have no control over what the engineer is going to receive, except that you play what you feel, and then
it's up to them to tweak it. There's nothing else
you can do about that. – Yeah, cool. Can I ask a question? – Sure. – So I've seen you play
with four sticks before. Is it possible, even
just for like a minute, can you show a few of those things? 'Cause I think it'd be so cool
for our students to see that. (Billy groans worriedly) (Jared laughs) (rhythmic drum music) That was awesome, thank you. – Sure. – I know it's a brand new set up, you've only been here for two days, so I appreciate you trying. – Wow. – Yeah, how did you come up with that? – Chalk it up to another mentor
of mine named Louis Bellson, who was doing this back in the late '70s. And some guys play, so you
have one, and you have one, and it's more like so.
But I chose to do it this
way, 'cause I can control the angles, the width of the sticks. Also I can control the
length of the stick, you know, this way. I can shimmy up the drumstick. My hands are much more loose, and get the sounds that I'm looking for to make a specific effect. Because again, my concept of playing drums and designing them in real time, for what I feel what I'd
like to be challenged with. You gave me three toms and I went, hmm, yeah, I could always have
the smallest one here, and the next one there, but
why, when I could do this? And I had a 14, not over here, no. I could have kept it there, but no, I would have used the 18. I thought let's try this,
so I don't do it that often. To me, that's the fun in playing drums, to challenge myself, to see what I can do right at the moment.
And as I keep playing them, the thing is I start to get used to it, and then when I go back home
I go, (yells in frustration). (both laughing) No, we have to change! – Awesome, man. Well hey, we are pretty much out of time. – Okay. – There's a lot of
questions we didn't get to, so we're gonna have to have
you back at some point. – Wouldn't be a bad idea. – It wouldn't be a bad idea, hey? I really encourage you all
to check out Billy Cobham. He has a website, BillyCobham.com. You can do check out The Art
of Rhythm Section Retreat. If you have any questions
related to Drumeo, or anything like that,
you can always E-mail me, it's Jared@drumeo.com. Feel free to send me an
E-mail, we'd love to have you. Inside of the Drumeo website
we got some great lessons with Billy coming up, and great lessons with so many other amazing
teachers and amazing drummers, and so we just love to teach here. We'd love for you guys to check it out.
Thank you, so much– – Pleasure's mine. – for coming here and, he came
all the way from Switzerland to Abbsotsford, which
is east of Vancouver. You had to really try
to get here, (laughs) it's not on the way.
– Wouldn't have been able to do it without ya, I tell ya. – Okay, but we really
appreciate you coming and you're welcome back anytime. – Thank you. – So the last song you
are going to be playing is called Obliquely Speaking. – Yeah, yeah. – And this is from the album. (both laughing) Which album is this from? – Obliquely Speaking, I think, is from an album called Palindrome, yeah. Let's see what happens, I hope this works.
– Okay. – Hey, you never know with this stuff. – [Man] One, two, one. (lively jazz music).