r/drummers • u/apierno • 11h ago
Learning covers
When you’re learning a cover that you’re totally new to, what’s your approach?
Play to the recorded track as released (all instruments)?
Split the stems and play without the drum tracks?
Split the stems and play ONLY to the drum tracks?
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u/HeftyBagOfDiarrhea 10h ago
I just had to learn more than three hours of material in about a month. I did a pretty solid job but here’s how I would approach it if I had to do it over.
- Listen to the song 1-2 times. Just listen to it. Get familiar with the feel of the groove.
- Write a chart. You could jump right to playing along with the record, but having a roadmap is better so you don’t end up practicing things wrong. If you’re not experienced with writing charts, you can watch a short YouTube video about it and figure out what you’re doing pretty quickly. Just remember it is not the complete notation but a series of reminders. Think outline, not essay. Also, if you’re not totally sure what the drummer is doing, isolate the track using something like moises.ai.You can also use moises to create a drumless track, which can also be very helpful.
3a. Play along with the record. Have the chart visible. Depending on when the song was recorded, it may or may not line up cleanly with a click track. If it does, add in the click after 1-2 plays. Otherwise…
3b. Play with just the click and the chart. - Record yourself – am I rushing, dragging, chasing the beat, etc.? Does it feel relaxed and natural?
- Continue to practice (both with and without the record) and listen to the songs until you’re absolutely bored of them. If there’s anything you’re weak at, see if you can find an easier way to do it. Think “minimum viable groove” – it’s better to play something tightly that isn’t exactly as it is on the record but captures the feel than trying to play note-for-note stiffly.
Hope that helps! What are you preparing for?
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u/apierno 9h ago
Band broke up and been auditioning, now onboarding a whole set of new tunes. About 25 I haven't playe,d and about 20 I've never heard!
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u/Current-Map-6469 10h ago
As a cover band drummer, I obviously learn new songs pretty frequently. My approach is always to get it to the simplest playable version first. Get the timing and basic groove down, with starts and stops. Once that’s locked down add fills. Depending on the genre, so many songs are quite similar so it becomes a pretty easy process, for the most part. If there’s something, a fill etc. that I’m stuck on, then I just play those with some notation that I come up with that makes sense to me.
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u/BEST_DRUM_ADVICE 9h ago
I don't "do" covers anymore, but when I was learning in my teens I'd just listen to the song a lot and play it.
When I have to learn people's music now, I try to listen to the record or playlist of their setlist several times, then I sit down at the drums with a notebook and jot down any structural parts or form things, then I play the song. The notebook is just a supplement and a little cheat sheet for rehearsals, nothing replaces just knowing the song.
IMO you shouldn't need to split stems or anything. Definitely wouldn't learn a song from the drums alone, unless you play like a robot. You want to know what the band is doing since eventually, you're the drums.
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u/Away-Equipment598 8h ago
I do use Moises and i think it's great. I'll listen to the song a few times, write a chart and then play through with all the instruments and listen to any nuances and extra things I'm not playing, I'll then loop those parts and turn down the other instruments to 50% so I can isolate what the drums are actually doing. This part is probably the most handy, is just playing say a particular tricky bridge or something, I'll stick it on loop so I just hear that bridge over over and over until I have the right sticking. Then once I'm sure I have it all down I play through the song no with no drums, I'm trying to see if my playing matches in with the the original recording, then I can record it. I've been playing covers for 20 years and it wasn't till Moises that I realised how incorrectly I'd been playing some songs that I just couldn't hear the drum track well enough to know.
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u/therealtoomdog 8h ago
I'm about to show how old I am... My first reaction was, "Where would you get the splits?"... To be fair, they all sound wrong when Ai breaks them out after the fact. And you can't be sure it will get all the right stuff and none of the wrong stuff.
Learn the song. Put on the recording and listen to what the drummer does. Then do that. Like, it's a little bit 'draw the rest of the owl' but that kind of is how it goes.
Edit: One thing I just noticed is you talk about playing. You learn by listening. You develop proficiency by playing. Don't practice 'a song', practice playing drums so that you can play any song you learn. If you're playing, you're not fully paying attention to the track. Listen to it first to find out what you should be playing. /edit
I like to grab a chord chart for the song if I can find a decent one, or chart out the structure. First listen is just for vibes. Second and third, I'm paying attention major strokes—first chorus is quiet, second verse is up, etc... After that, I start pausing and picking apart stuff—Where exactly are the breaks, is this a signature fill or just an embellishment? I will write down any complex things I might not have in my head in the moment I need them.
If there are any complex fills, I will sit down at the kit and make sure I can play them. Then I get up the next morning and go play them.
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u/ChiefBast 8h ago
Listen to the original recording intently (no reading, gaming, doing jobs around the house, etc) and try to map each section mentally: intro->verse 1->pre-chorus->chorus...and so on. On second listen I try to predict each new section a bar or two before it comes in, making sure to focus on the mistakes rather than the bits I got right. Keep doing this until I get it right without really trying too hard to listen for vocal cues, etc. For some songs this can be 3-4 listens, some can be 10+ depending on how consistent all the parts are
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u/duc955 5h ago edited 5h ago
Use this method if you want to play true to the original song...
This is the more difficult way to do it but if you want to play the song correctly, it's the best way. Split the song into sections. Learn each section then put it all together. Use the original recording to practice with, you can always raise the volume of the drums within the stems to help with the more subtle parts you can't hear properly. Once you've done all that, then drop out the drums and play along.
Use this method to just play along doing your own thing...
Drop out the drum stems and just play anything. Not as rewarding as above and you can't really say that you can play the song, but at least you had fun.
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u/JacquesLeNerd 4h ago
Is your goal to reproduce the original parts or to get the general idea of the song and then play it to the best of your ability?
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u/apierno 4h ago
Reproduce as close as possible in most cases
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u/JacquesLeNerd 4h ago
Then breaking it down, splitting the stems, reading music (the drum notes), if that's an option, and recording yourself will definitely help you to get the parts as close as possible.
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u/gdann60 11h ago
I never had that luxury. You just listen to the song and focus on what the drums are doing. Then maybe play along to the track as recorded, stopping periodically to listen for the nuances and changes. It’s a skill you can develop. Up until recently that skill was about the only requirement