I am sure that any drummers on this board notice that in a standard 4/4 beat (95% of all Stones songs) Charlie does not play the third note on his hi-hat/ride cymbal. I wonder when he started doing this? Pretty unusual.

think it was either '78 or '81...it is strange...wonder why he changed to that hi-hat style...one of my friends has been drumming for 25 years and is a Stones fan and when Charlie started doing this it drove him crazy 'cause he's always locked into the drums when listening



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2006-01-31 01:28 by Leonard Keringer.

It's to save energy...haha

I've started drumming 20 years ago because of the Stone's and Charlie. I'm not sure why he does this it may be a jazz thing.

Something not 4/4 timing is 2000 Man (not all the way through though). I'm not big on the dumming lingo but I think it's 3/4 time. Snare hitting on the 6th tap of the high hat. I can't think of another song done in this timing.

Impossible to do for a hack like me.

Charlie's style of drumming simply drives my boyfriend crazy! He's a drummer, been in tons of bands since the 70's and HATES the way Charlie drums and YES, we've had a FEW battles over this! I really am not a drummer so I can't argue on the technical points. Please smeone who is a drummer explain the funny hitch, the pause thing that Charlie does; I can't explain it any other way but it looks to the untrained eye as if he freezes in mid air, then he hits the high hat. Give it to me in laymen's terms then the technical drummer terminology so I can tell my boyfriend all about it! He'll wonder where in the HELL I got the info!

I read that he does the little break, to take a sip of tea in the slower songs. He has the teacup right next to the high-hat. He only does it in rehearsals though.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2006-01-31 02:02 by Erik_Snow.

How about a guess.........

In the old days when the drums were not microphoned well if at all, perhaps Charlie lifted the hi hat so it would not muddy the snare that was hard to hear as it was. He just could not change after that.

Seems possible but probably wrong.

Debra Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Charlie's style of drumming simply drives my
> boyfriend crazy! He's a drummer, been in tons of
> bands since the 70's and HATES the way Charlie
> drums and YES, we've had a FEW battles over this!
> I really am not a drummer so I can't argue on the
> technical points. Please smeone who is a drummer
> explain the funny hitch, the pause thing that
> Charlie does; I can't explain it any other way but
> it looks to the untrained eye as if he freezes in
> mid air, then he hits the high hat. Give it to me
> in laymen's terms then the technical drummer
> terminology so I can tell my boyfriend all about
> it! He'll wonder where in the HELL I got the info!


Debra...only a guess (i'm not a drummer)but played with a few....he lays off the high-hat every fourth hit (when he hits the snare)...4/4 you hit the high hat with the snare on the fourth hit???????

Debra Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Charlie's style of drumming simply drives my
> boyfriend crazy! He's a drummer, been in tons of
> bands since the 70's and HATES the way Charlie
> drums and YES, we've had a FEW battles over this!
> I really am not a drummer so I can't argue on the
> technical points. Please smeone who is a drummer
> explain the funny hitch, the pause thing that
> Charlie does; I can't explain it any other way but
> it looks to the untrained eye as if he freezes in
> mid air, then he hits the high hat. Give it to me
> in laymen's terms then the technical drummer
> terminology so I can tell my boyfriend all about
> it! He'll wonder where in the HELL I got the info!


I actually think that the last post about not muddying the snare sound might be possible. That makes a lot of sense -- tell your boyfriend to try it -- the snare sound is clean and clear and just cuts through the music. The thing is, it is pretty hard to keep a steady 4/4 beat in this manner. But I guess for Charlie the human metronome Watts, that isn't a problem.

Not sure it makes that much difference tho. He played normally on the 69 tour, and sounded pretty damn good.

In the early 70's he was playing with the boys, like usual, he had a hickup....

Not muddying up the snare makes sense, yes, but a) the Stones have pretty good mikes where this isn't an issue and b) Charlie wouldn't sacrifice playing over such a technical triviality.
I think Charlie liked the idea, for some reason or other he wanted to emphasize, to single out the snare whack even more, so he played it to death in 81. Thank God he quit doing it contasntly.

"...no longer shall you trudge 'cross my peaceful mind."

Leonard Keringer Wrote:

> Debra...only a guess (i'm not a
> drummer)but played with a few....he lays off the
> high-hat every fourth hit (when he hits the
> snare)...4/4 you hit the high hat with the snare
> on the fourth hit???????


Right except in straight 4/4, technically, the snare hit comes on the third beat of a measure not the fourth (1, 2, SNARE, 4, 1, 2, SNARE, 4).

drbryant Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Leonard Keringer Wrote:
>
> > Debra...only a guess (i'm not a
> > drummer)but played with a few....he lays off
> the
> > high-hat every fourth hit (when he hits the
> > snare)...4/4 you hit the high hat with the
> snare
> > on the fourth hit???????
>
>
> Right except in straight 4/4, technically, the
> snare hit comes on the third beat of a measure not
> the fourth (1, 2, SNARE, 4, 1, 2, SNARE, 4).


you're right Doc....told ya i'm no drummer



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2006-01-31 03:35 by Leonard Keringer.

It's called SWING.

This feature of his drumming is unique and sets up an almost imperceptible tension within the backbeat.

I have always loved this trait, and I think it works to the band's advantage.

... some reflections on the subtleties of swing:
[www.ellipsis.cx]

Hmm. I would say that swing is not what we're talking about. You don't need technical information -- you can hear swing. For example, tunes like 19th Nervous Breakdown and The Last Time Swing. HTW and SMU do not.

right, you can feel swing - but someone up there asked for "technical" information.
some people are interested in terminology for and/or "technical" details about what we hear/feel - nothing wrong with that.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2006-01-31 12:16 by with sssoul.

I have been playing drums for 0ver 40 years with varing degrees of sucess.I guess the highlight of my drumming career was a tour with Chuck Berry back in 1992. At the moment I am playing in a sort of power blues outfit called Hair of the Dog....[website if interested www.hotd.biz ]
Having fell in love with The Rolling Stones when I first saw them back in 63, I sort of modelled myself on Charlie...[then threw in a bit of Keith Moon to get some attention]...So anyway, I too lift off of the hihat. It gives you more power when hitting the snare especially when you play with a old style jazz grip on your left hand like Charlie does...and also can help getting that snare drum beat to sort of hang just behind or in front of the beat to give the tempo of the music more of a feel............hope this helps some drbryant

percystrokes:

Any theory of why Last Time and 19th Nervous Breakdown were both straight 4/4 in recent tours? It really made both songs seem to drag.

Would this be Charlie not wanting to play that '2-step' beat (I don't recall the proper musical term), or is it that Mick or someone else thought the songs would sound better with a straight ahead rock beat (which I think is a disaster for these two tunes)?

Thanks.

Thanks everyone, now I'm going to write it all down in my own words and memorize it, start up the discussion and let the info fly! I'll let you know how it goes!

scaffer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Any theory of why Last Time and 19th Nervous
> Breakdown were both straight 4/4 in recent tours?
> It really made both songs seem to drag.


It's soooo true, scaffer. Both songs lose all the feel and energy, specially The Last Time.



[There'll be no wedding today...]

scaffer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> percystrokes:
>
> Any theory of why Last Time and 19th Nervous
> Breakdown were both straight 4/4 in recent tours?
> It really made both songs seem to drag.
>
> Would this be Charlie not wanting to play that
> '2-step' beat (I don't recall the proper musical
> term), or is it that Mick or someone else thought
> the songs would sound better with a straight ahead
> rock beat (which I think is a disaster for these
> two tunes)?
>
> Thanks.


I agree with you Scaffer. Those two songs sound alot better in their original swing form. I think they just wanted to update them and make them more rocky. But, all they have done is make them sound like they drag....a mistake me thinks!
They also did this with Let it rock. Chuck Berrys original version was done with a swing beat. However on this tune the change worked well.....It rocks and also it still rolls!
There is a fine line between these tempos, in that you can cross over and play either way..... however some songs though work better than others.

Thanks a lot percystrokes.

I think you're totally right: Let It Rock is a monster the way the Stones do it, but Last Time and Breakdown drag so badly that Mick almost has trouble singing them.

I can't believe Charlie is doing it that way on purpose, since he was able to pull off 'Everybody Needs Somebody To Love' during the '02 tour without troubles, and would only have to modify that swing beat slightly to have it work for Last Time and Breakdown, right?

So maybe it was a group decision (bad groupthink, in this case, for sure).

Charlie gave some reasons in an interview a while back in Rhythm magazine for his unique drumming style. He said he lifts off the hihat for 2 reasons - one being he has the hihat set up quite low in height and playing the 3rd beat got in the way of him hitting the snare and secondly as someone mentioned before, he can whack the snare drum much harder if he lifts off the hihat.
But Charlie being Charlie is very ambiguous about his reasons for doing anything.
This style was first noticed on Some Girls - 1978.
He also said recently about the way they approached 19th NB - he said, "No one plays like that anymore, (the way they played it originally), so we bought it up to date". Perculiar, it's a bit like saying you can't play Mozart in a classical style anymore because it sounds old fashioned !

Good old Charlie......

I've been a drummer since about 1960 and a Charlie fan since about '64. He didn't use to lift off the high hat when he hit the snare. I'm not sure when he started doing that but he's been doing it for a while. I've never seen anyone ask Charlie directly about this. My suspicion is also that it's to to get a really clean hit on the snare. To the best of my knowledge, I've not seen any other famous drummer do this.


Marv Peck

Y'all remember that rubber legged boy

I'm something of a drummer, have been since I started playing drums in school around 1960 when I was 10 and have been a big fan of Charlie since I first heard of the Stones around 64. This "phantom" note on the high hat has had me wondering for a while and here is what I have discovered.

Today, I went out and rented 25 x 5 again so I could skip thru the concert footage and discover when Charlie started doing this. The first footage of him doing this was the clip from 1983's Let's Spend the night together and I could clearly see Charlie doing the phantom note during Start Me Up. Of course, this was the 1981 tour so it looks like that's when this started. From there on out, Charlie kept up the phantom note whenever he played the high hat.

On a drummer's board that I frequent, someone mentioned that there was an interview in Modern Drummer in 1990 when Charlie talked about doing this. I'm still trying to run that down.

What really struck me as I kept watching 25 x 5 was how the Stones music seemed to changed in relation to Charlie. Now, I will admit, I'm a drummer so I'm really watching Charlie and to be fair, I will credit Keith too because Charlie and Keith really play off each other. But it got to me thinking that this has sort of been going on for a while. I think back to Honky Tonk women and how it has that sort of hitch or space in the rhythm. It's really pronounced when listening to Start Me Up. And it seems to keep showing up in so many of their songs. I think about Rock and a Hard Place.

Now, to be fair, I'm probably giving this too much credit but it just really felt like I saw something in the Stones music that I hadnt really appreciated before and I just felt excited and wanted to share it.



Marv Peck

Y'all remember that rubber legged boy

Pretty interesting. Thanks Marvpeck. RE the beat on 19th Nervous Breakdown and Last Time. I am SURE that Charlie can play those beats, so that's not the reason they play them in straight 4/4. After all, Midnight Rambler is a blues shuffle, and Charlie just NAILS that.

I happened to browse through the book 'Drumming for dummies' a while back, and Charlies style (skipping one hihat hit) is actually mentioned. I forgot if they wrote if there is any musical or technical advantage.

Thanks for the reference. I found a website for rhythm magazine. Is this the one that is published in England?

I had noticed before that Charlie's snare seems kind of high ...well at least to the way I set up. Never really noticed the hats being low, I'll have to check that out. Thanks for posting this! Any chance you could tell me what issue of Rhythm this showed up in?

Charlie doesn't say much does he? Good ol Charlie!





Marv Peck

Y'all remember that rubber legged boy

Koen

Do you have the book and could you post what they said? I swear I've never seen anyone else do this but certainly somebody could. Sorry to be so obseesed about this.

Thanks
Marv


Marv Peck

Y'all remember that rubber legged boy

marvpeck Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Koen
>
> Do you have the book and could you post what they
> said?

Sorry, don't have it. But you can just go to your local bookstore (I think I saw it at B&N or Borders).