Worship Drums: How to talk to your drummer as a worship leader @worshipdrummer

  Speaker 1 Worship leaders often struggle to communicate to the other musicians on our team. Most worship leaders are either singers, guitar players, or pianists, and so talking to a bass player or specifically talking to a drummer can be really difficult, and we can struggle to communicate what we want our drummers to play. And so if you’ve ever struggled to know how to communicate what’s in your head to the person sitting behind the kit, you’re not alone, and we’re going to hopefully solve that today in this episode. So we’re going to help you talk to them, and we’re going to help you possibly tame the beast Inside the Drum cage in this episode. And we’re going to do that with the help of John Manna, who founded worshipdrummer. Com. He’s also a senior pastor, which is awesome. He’s a pastor drummer. I wonder if he ever plays from the kit while he preaches. So John is going to help us cover some of these topics. Here’s what we’re going to cover today. We’re going to cover how to best communicate with your drummer, how to arrange songs from a drum parts perspective, because not a lot of worship leaders understand what to play in each section of the song.

Speaker 1 We’re going to name all the pieces of the drum kit for you to demystify that. We’re going to give you drum tuning tips and a whole bunch of other things today. So let’s welcome John to the screen. Hello, John. Welcome from Canada.

Speaker 2 Hello.

Speaker 1 How are you doing, man?

Speaker 2 I’m awesome. How are you guys?

Speaker 1 We are doing well.. To languages for you.

Speaker 2 Ready? Bonjorno, in Italian, and bonjour, for my French friends.

Speaker 1 Oh, they’re so similar. That’s awesome. Well, John founded worshipdrummer. Com, and he does a tonne of equipping for drummers, and specifically, worship drummers. And so that’s why you are here today to drop lots of mad wisdom for us. No pressure. But we are excited to dig into this. And then is there anything in the introduction? You’re a pastor, you run worship drummer. Com. There’s probably a thousand other hats you wear. But is there anything you feel pertinent to the discussion today that you want people to know about you?

Speaker 2 I love the local church, and I’m just grateful for the opportunity to speak and to hang out. But as a lead pastor, to all of our worship leaders, I do want to say thank you because we share the stage pretty much 50% of the time on any given Sunday or service we’re leading in. And that relationship in and of itself has to be healthy. It’s very important, and we want God’s presence to move. So we have to have that spirit of unity be on the same page and make it a big win together, not just as individuals.

Speaker 1 Amen. I love it. And maybe we’ll have you back to do a conversation about senior pastor worship leader dynamics. That would be probably really good. Yeah. So Let’s talk today about being the drummer, though. We, as worship leaders, we often know how we feel about our drum. What’s it like from the drummer’s perspective? What’s it like to be led by us crazy worship leaders? I’d love to hear what you hear from other drum are the biggest problems or issues regarding communication between a worship leader and a worship drummer. For those of you who are watching live, if you want to drop your concerns or issues that you’re having with your drummer in the chat, go ahead and drop in the chat, and I can bring those concerns up to John. We will have our academy Q&A at the end as well. But yeah, that’s a big question. But what are the core problems that you’re seeing from the drummer’s perspective?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, worship today is a lot more complex than it was maybe 10 years ago. In our context, I’ll speak to that. I don’t preach from the drums, but I do play and then come out and then get into announcements and then preach. We run our multi-tracks from the drum cage. As someone who’s been doing this for many, many years, I can handle that pressure. If you’re cueing tracks or Ableton or whatever that looks like, then there’s a lot of pressure. There’s also a sense of feeling cut off because you are sitting in this fishbowl, as we like to call it. You’re the guy at the back that everyone just forgets about and doesn’t talk to. But yet we’re told you’re the backbone of the team in terms of your instrument. Those are some of the feelings that we have. And then communication. I actually wrote this down just real quick to run through in my 30 years of playing in church. The first time I ever sat at the drums, I was about 12, 13 years old. There was no drummer in the house. And I remember my sister said, Call my brother, he has the drum sticks, and he could come play.

Speaker 2 And I was like, No, I’m not ready. And so it was a Sunday night, all hymns. And the bass player would basically tell me, It’s a three, four, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop beat. And so it was very verbal. Then when I was in Bible school, we still didn’t have in-ears. It was like floor wedges and all that stuff. It was a visual cue from my worship leader friend on acoustics. So he would like, When I lift my guitar up, then you know we’re going to end the song. Or if you see my foot tapping, it’s because I want more. So it was more of a visual thing I had to pay attention to. And what I see now, which maybe I’ll speak to some worship leaders, and you can tell this to your drum, is that our eyes, especially if we have the laptop here, we tend to lock in with a computer now and just see section, they’re color-coded, all of that, rather than looking to the band and having some visual communication with MD, having a mic, there’s the opportunity for different communications. Some churches have the drummer, everyone on a mic, and they can all talk.

Speaker 2 That’s something I do see as drumbers. We get lost in this world where we’ll look at the computer, we’ll lock in to make sure that we know what section is coming up, we’re playing the right part. And suddenly we’ve forgotten the whole of what’s around us. And that could be a big challenge for worship leaders who are trying to get their drummer’s attention to say, Hey, you got to watch, because if we’re going to move into a flow or a spontaneous this moment, I need you to catch where we’re at as well. I could say a whole lot more, but I’ll take a breath and let you continue to steer the answer that you wanted.

Speaker 1 No, that’s so good. I think what you highlighted is the critical importance of the drummer, and yet oftentimes they’re underappreciated. They’re like the guy in the back who we just assume is going to show up on time to rehearsal, and we’re going to assume that they’re going to just… But we don’t appreciate them. We don’t appreciate the weight that they carry. I often say that worship leaders own the bus, but drummers drive the bus. I didn’t make that up. Somebody made that up smarter than me, but I stole it and I use it. Because it’s so true, the drums carry the entire thing, right? And so as I’m hearing you talk, I just feel this empathy towards drum where it’s like all that pressure is on you. When you mess up as a drummer, there’s no hiding it, right? And yet, like you said, oftentimes they’re in the back semi-ignored. I just want to help worship leaders to grasp that, feel that, and be like, Okay, can you appreciate your drummer more? Can you value them a little bit more? Just from that answer? One thing I think that’s worth highlighting is you pointed out the communication aspect in the live setting.

Speaker 1 So communicating to your drummer live so that they know what’s going on. And you talked about two different ways. One was verbally, like using our mouth to say what we want. But then the other way of communicating was the worship leader said, I’ll raise my guitar and tap my foot. And he explained in advance what he wanted and what everything meant. And so I guess what I’m saying is it’s important for worship leaders to have a dialogue with their drum about communicating like, Hey, this is what it means when I do this. This is what it means when I do that. And pre-defining different signals. Because some worship leaders, if they raise their guitar, the drummer might think, Oh, he wants more. And a different worship leader might raise the guitar, and he means, I want less. So it’s important for the worship leader to define his weird body language signals that he’s sending to his drummer. So, yeah, any thoughts about any of that?

Speaker 2 Yeah, no, 100 %. And I do think it has become a little easier for some churches who have mics for the whole band because then you can just have a conversation. Everyone hears each other. I know that that’s not the majority of churches, probably. And so that’s where I’ll boil all of the communication stuff to the relationship that you build, especially with your drummer, I’ll say, because in my experience as a drummer, if your drummer gets it wrong from the beginning, whether it’s counting the band in, starting a song, the wrong feel or dynamics, then it’s like a train wreck. That bus is not going to arrive at the final destination. Having those conversations and building relationship would also allow for the opportunity in the moment because you don’t want to walk on eggshells every time you have to correct something. If you You spend just a bit of time fostering a healthy relationship with your drummer and you turn around, you’re like, Hey, hey, hey. No, no, no, that was wrong. I don’t take it personally. I know your heart. You’re not coming at me. You’re not against me. It’s like, Oh, my bad, my bad.

Speaker 2 Let’s restart that and I’ll get it right this time. So that relationship aspect is what it boils down to. More like reading the signs are important, hearing the cues and all of that. But having the relationship relationship is for me the bulletproof part of, Hey, we can build off of that relationship and no one’s offended. It’s a healthy environment to grow and to get better.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So all the worship leaders take out your phone and add a calendar date to your calendar this week to take your drummer out. And you pay, worship leader, you pay for that coffee for sure. Okay, let’s talk a little bit more about… Oh, by the way, this funny comment came in from Karen, one of our students. She said, The drumers I know are never on time to rehearsal. I joke that they can’t keep time away from the kit. That’s good, Karen. I like that. So no offence to the drummers. Okay, so how about this? Let’s talk more about communication. We talked about in-service communicating to the drummer while things are happening. But how can worship leaders better communicate with their drum either in rehearsal or before rehearsal? Meaning a lot of times, worship leaders that I train are like, I just make noises with my mouth and wave my hands like this and show them what I want. But Are there more effective ways for worship leaders to communicate to drum, like I said, either before leading up to the rehearsal or in the rehearsal? If you’re feeling stuck, mediocre, or inadequate in your ministry, if you know there must be a better way of doing things, but you’re not sure how, if you’re looking for fresh inspiration and new ideas that will improve your ministry and give you a team that you’re proud of leading, then I invite you to join me and over 1400 worship leaders from all over the world who are growing inside the Worship Ministry Training Academy.

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Speaker 2 Yeah. Actually, there are one… I wrote some down, some terms that we can implement or use. One, two, three, four, five. It’s not the be all, end all, but having a bit of language to explain is helpful. For example, a one term that a drummer should hopefully understand is four on the floor. What that simply means is in a song that’s in four, four time, every quarter note gets a kick beat. Did I write an example for that? Well, just like, do, do, do, do, With your foot and on every… Some worship leaders are great singers, but they just don’t have music theory background, so they won’t know it’s a quarter note. They’re just like, Hit it every time. But four on the floor? Okay, you want me to drive this thing a little with four on the floor, and it might be just at the chorus, not for the verse. That’s one term. Another term is driving. I need you to drive this part of the song. That term driving means pushed or playing just on top of the beat. And one of the songs that I wrote down was like Lion and the Lamb, and it’s a little older, but that’s one of the songs where it feels like it’s always sitting on top.

Speaker 2 It’s just pushing. It’s not dragging. It’s not right on, locked in. It’s pushing. And any song by Stuart Copeland as a drummer, the police. If you want to understand what driving feels like, listen to his drumming for the police. Another term was delicate. So if it’s like a soft, instead of just saying, No, be quiet or keep quiet at this part, it’s like, I want you to colour in delicately. And you don’t have to tell them how, but they should be able to interpret maybe the symbols or just very softly on the tom here. Then we can build from there. Wash, which to me would be like, symbols are resonating, whether it’s with mallets or you’re just playing loud and on your ride or a crash ride, and then full. I need this to be full, which does not mean play everything all at once, like a drum solo or a drum fill. It just means play big. Usually, that would be at the last course of a song or the last time you’re seeing this bridge going into the course, and it’s just a big groove. One of the songs for that, that full part, we’re doing Ocom Ali Faithful, the passion one, His Name Shall Be.

Speaker 2 It’s like the whole song is slow to build, but then finally it hits the course at the very end, going back to the bridge. When it goes back to the bridge the very last time, It is a full groove, big sound. That’s how I would use some of the language trash can ending is another one. Or they might say crash it out at the end. Those are some what, five, six terms, and maybe your drummer doesn’t know them, especially if they’re a little younger and they’re newer to the space. Having some common vernacular would be very helpful, even if you guys make it up to say, When we say this, this is what it sounds like. You could look at YouTube videos or find specific spots in the music and just say, Okay, we’ll call this that. Every time we say it, this is what we mean.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that’s good. Sitting down with them and defining like, Hey, tom groove means this, or I want a hi-hat groove like this. I think that’s really helpful. With all the resources online now, I think drum should be able to find examples of what to play where, especially with all the multi-tracks, tutorials, and all this stuff where it’s already pre-recorded with just the drum kit. And I know you guys do a lot of that on your YouTube channel. Just watching some of John’s stuff, which we’ll link below, and talking about those things with your ahead of time can help a lot, I think. And you mentioned arranging the song a little bit, like I want this section to be washy or whatever. So we’re actually going to talk about the common ways to arrange each section of a song in a little bit. But before we do, I want to talk about music theory because you mentioned a lot of worship leaders don’t know music theory. What are at least some of the bare minimum music theory terms that a worship leader needs to know in order to effectively communicate to the drummer?

Speaker 2 It’s a heavy one. I think I could boil it down to just a couple, not to get super technical, but tempo. We would likely say, what’s the BPM of the song? If you’re using an actual metronome where your drummer inputting the BPM, he would need to know or she would need to know that. A lot of times, if you’re playing with tracks, it’s embedded there already with click and cues. But tempo is important. So that’s how fast the song is or how slow. Dynamics is another and every part of a song would likely have different dynamics. And so to be able to map out what that looks like, the tempo usually doesn’t change throughout the whole song. And then I’d say the last term that I would add is groove and feel because you can have the feel. Is it straight? Is it shuffle or swing a bit? Let me just give you an example. Is it like Or is it… That last one has more of that shuffly feel to it. That first example is straight. It is a technical knowledge to have and to be able to call out. One of the songs that I actually had our team stop doing was Graves into Garden because between acoustic and drums, the patterns were off.

Speaker 2 Someone was playing it as if it was straight, someone was playing it as if it was like a swing. Then I was like, Okay, until we can grow in that area, we’re just not going to play that song.

Speaker 1 I love it. Yeah, a lot of 6, 8 songs can tend to swing. Someone on the team can start to swing a 6, 8 song pretty quickly. I think you’re right. Bpm, which stands for beats per minute, tempo or whatever. And then the time signature. Hey, this is a 3, 4 song, or this is a 6, 8 song, or this is a 4, 4 song. I think at least those terms. I I’m thinking through, I didn’t write any notes about this, but I’m thinking through different phrases that I say to my drumbers that maybe worship leaders already intuitively do. But if you don’t, here are just a couple extra ones. A lot of times when we’re going through a song, I’ll be like, build, build, build, build, or I’ll be like, straight build, right? Which just means like straight. Or I’ll be like a tom build, which is more like the ride and the tom’s like grooving up into a crescendo. So straight build, tom build. Darby wrote backbeat, Each backbeat is the full backbeat when it’s like, it’s got everything in it. A light snare roll. I’ll say, Hey, can you do something? A light pattern on the snare?

Speaker 1 Those types of terms are things that I use. Or, Hey, can you make it big? That’s such a dumb thing, but hey, make it big. Those are just some of the terms. Then you mentioned others like crash it out or trash can. I think maybe what I’ll do is I’ll compile a list of terms that drumbers can use, or maybe you already have one on your website.

Speaker 2 At one point, I did have a whole sheet of terms from when I did some workshops, and I can’t find it. I tried finding it before this.

Speaker 1 This is why we need to upload all of our stuff to AI and just ask it, Where is that thing that I have? Let’s talk more about arranging songs for drums. Actually, Before we talk about arranging songs, let’s talk about just all the pieces of the drum kit, just so everybody has proper terminology, because I know some worship readers, they don’t know anything. I know most the people who listen to worship training, they know everything, which is awesome. But there are some people that are going to listen to this that are like, I don’t know what that little thing that opens and closes is called. Just very, very, very quickly, like 30 seconds or less, tell us every single piece of the kit. I mean, 30 seconds might be too short, but go for it.

Speaker 2 Yeah. A lot of churches have different setups, so I’ll do a standard worship drummer setup. On the left, if this is a right-handed drummer, let’s say, on the left side, you would have the hi-hat that closes and opens. I’m not going to get into sizes because those vary, but you would use that with your left foot traditionally. Then you have your snare in the middle. Then above your snare would be your high tom or your rack tom. Then to the right side of that is your low tom or your floor tom. And then below that big round guy is your kick or your bass drum. Those are the drums. We talked about the hi-hat. Now, above that tom would be your left crash, which they would call your main crash symbol. Then jumping over to the other side is your ride. And a lot of times it’s a ride that you can crash on as well. And then one more symbol to the right of that guy, which I know behind me, I have it set up, but you won’t be able to see it well. That’s basically it. Sometimes they’ll also have a drum pad, a Roland SPDSX or the like.

Speaker 2 That’s in its basic form. Then the things they hold are called drumsticks. Mallets They can do some cymbal swells or some tom fills with them to add some different tone.

Speaker 1 The reason why I wanted you to go through those is because right now we’re going to talk about what to hit for each section of a song in a general sense. In most songs, this is how you’re going to want to arrange the drums. I wanted to define the part so that when I say, Hey, you’re going to hit the ride, people know what that means. What I’ll do just to make this valuable and fast for people is I’m going to talk through a general approach to arranging a song. Obviously, Obviously, every song is different, and you’re going to have to vary these strategies. But I want you to add your two sense to it and/or contradict me and/or correct me and/or just whatever. Feel free to say, Actually, I disagree with most of that. So guys, when you’re arranging a song, obviously, the safest thing to do is to just watch what the actual song drummer plays. Okay, so go on YouTube and watch the song, listen to the song, and go, Okay, these are the parts, and my drummer should learn these parts. That’s the easy way, right? But let’s talk about more advanced arranging.

Speaker 1 What if you write your own song and you want to arrange it? What if you want to play Graves into Gardens with a totally different feel? Or what if… We should be creative as musicians, and that’s one thing that I just want to encourage everybody in general, is I think too many churches just literally copy the record and don’t add any of their own churches’ musical vocabulary to the picture. And to me, that’s a little bit sad, and it limits the creativity that God put in the Earth. So let’s say you to arrange your own song. Here are just some quick overviews of what you might do in each section. And John, again, feel free to correct me or challenge and or add your two cents. Sure. For anything that’s quiet, you probably want to just… If it’s a beginning of a quiet song, you want to be on the ride or some cymbal swells with the mallets. Potentially, you could do some really soft snare patterns like paradiddles, rhythms, type stuff. For verses, Typically, again, not always, it’s typically like a closed hi-hat and a simple groove with a fair amount of space. Not too much kick, not too much snare, just simple groove, a lot of space, and on a closed hi-hat, typically.

Speaker 1 I mean, it could be on a rim of a drum instead of a hi-hat, but that’s… You go ahead.

Speaker 2 Sometimes they’ll hold off. So a lot of it is layers. And I think of a cake, I don’t know why. You don’t want to start with the full cake at the very beginning. So sometimes what’s common and everything you’ve said is 100% true. But what I’ve noticed is more prevalent in newer songs is that the first verse, if it’s verse one, chorus, verse two, verse two will come in with the groove, and verse one would be maybe like on a tom, I just want to speak the name of Jesus. It’s four on the floor, but it’s like, and that doesn’t even come in until a little later in the song. But Yeah. Anyways, just to say, the more you can hold off, it almost seems like that’s how a lot of newer songs are written.

Speaker 1 That’s perfect. No, I love that. That’s exactly right, because I’m oversimplifying. I’m saying often, if you know nothing, a simple, quiet hi-hat. But actually what John is saying, it’s way more nuanced than this. You might have nothing in verse one, or you might have a slight tom groove with not a lot of layers of cake on it, right? But the idea is it’s less. So the second thing is right before a chorus, typically you want to create a little more energy so it starts to transition into the chorus. And you can do this one of the ways. If you’re on that hi-hat groove, is by opening your hi-hats a little bit so that it starts to get a little bit more aggressive and bitey sounding. And you want to do this maybe four bars before the chorus. That’s just a generalisation. But you want to start to open your hi-hats to build the intensity into the chorus. I don’t know if you want to jump in there or if you want me to keep going.

Speaker 2 100 %.

Speaker 1 Okay. So in the choruses, typically, again, this is very generalised, but typically you’re going to have… It could be a closed hi-hat, and other band members add layers. But if it’s a small band and you need to create the energy for the course, then the course is going to be a little bit more intense than the verse. And so what you’re going to want to be on is you’re either going to want to be on a slightly open hi-hat or you want to maybe go to the ride and hit the ride. And Darby asked, what’s the difference between the ride and the crash? A ride is a larger symbol that is piny. It can be washy, too, but it carries the right-hand subdivisions. So it’s like the alternative to your hi-hat. So yeah, choruses, either a ride groove or an open hi-hat groove. And then we can talk about bridges in a second. Do you want to step in here at all?

Speaker 2 No, you’re doing great, man.

Speaker 1 Okay, that’s the verses and the choruses. Let’s talk about the bridges. There’s an up or there’s a downbridge. So I’ll start with the upbridge. The upbridge usually is a bigger climax than the chorus because it’s like the tip of the song or almost the tip of the song, right? That final course is going to… And by the way, in the musical excellence course, guys, if you haven’t taken that course, please go in and take that course for those who are academy members, because we cover how to build the dynamics and the frequencies and really build a song to make it crescendo and climax the right way with all the different pieces. So let’s talk about the big bridge. So big bridge is a big climax. You’re typically going to want to go to your ride real big and like, washy, like hitting it hard, not hitting the bell, but like… And again, maybe in gospel music, we would hit the bell. So that’s why I said this is general. So big open ride or washing on the crash, like a big 16-inch crash symbol. So that would be like a big bridge. Or if it’s a downbridge, you might bring it all the way down, have some cymbals, and then start to build with the tom groove and build, build, build back into that final epic chorus.

Speaker 1 And that last chorus is going to want to be a lot of energy. So you want to hit the washy ride or open hi-hat or crash cymbal even. So that’s a general overview of how to build a song dynamically on a drum kit. Do you want to add anything?

Speaker 2 Well done, man. Do you play drums as well?

Speaker 1 I do, yeah. Probably nowhere as good as you.

Speaker 2 No, that’s cool. And the one thing I’ll say is modern worship, we’re using big cymbals. When I was playing, it was a 16-inch crash 20 years ago. A lot of the stuff behind me on my kit, my ride is 24-inch, and then the crash symbols are 22s. So they’re big, and we would naturally maybe tend to think bigger equals louder, which is not the case. The 16-inch we’ve done away with because they’re too bright. They cut through the mix, and modern worship sound, it is more washy. It blends and is way more forgiving. So yeah, less Bell unless you’re playing gospel. Bigger high hats, like 16-inch, are the standards now, which is crazy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and we’re going to talk to John about cymbal. We’re going to talk to John about drum tone and tuning in a little bit. So hold tight about all that. Actually, maybe we should jump into that now since we’re here. I did want to ask you, how can worship leaders better serve their drummers? But maybe we’ll save that towards the end. So me if I forget that, because that’s an important question, guys. We are called to wash the feet of our team. All right, so let’s talk about drum tone. We’ll start with the symbol since we’re already there. You mentioned larger symbols. There’s a t