pujols05 Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Several times I have come across articles on Zeppelin that praise Bonzo for his extraordinary ability to "play behind the beat," thus giving Page "more room" to work his magic. I seem to remember a few in the early 2000s, esp. 2003 when HTWWW and the DVD came out. I don't know the technical ins and outs of drumming, but to me, saying Bonzo plays behind the beat seems to suggest: "Wow, with any regular drummer, there would be only 10 seconds to work with in this section of the song, but with Bonzo, it goes to 11!" To me, it sounds like some pretentious rock journalist trying to sound clever. As far as I'm concerned, the drummer IS the beat. Sure, instead of the beat being 1, 2, 3, 4, it could, I suppose, be 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5...but that's the same beat! I have a hard time seeing how any drummer, even Bonzo can find "more room" in a standard 4/4 piece, or any piece of any time signature. Any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ledzepfilm Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Behind the beat is not techical. It's a certain groove feel that Bonham has. Sure, he'll play a little behind the beat. But it's a groove feel. It just synches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross62 Posted March 5, 2012 Share Posted March 5, 2012 Several times I have come across articles on Zeppelin that praise Bonzo for his extraordinary ability to "play behind the beat," thus giving Page "more room" to work his magic. I seem to remember a few in the early 2000s, esp. 2003 when HTWWW and the DVD came out. I don't know the technical ins and outs of drumming, but to me, saying Bonzo plays behind the beat seems to suggest: "Wow, with any regular drummer, there would be only 10 seconds to work with in this section of the song, but with Bonzo, it goes to 11!" To me, it sounds like some pretentious rock journalist trying to sound clever. As far as I'm concerned, the drummer IS the beat. Sure, instead of the beat being 1, 2, 3, 4, it could, I suppose, be 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5...but that's the same beat! I have a hard time seeing how any drummer, even Bonzo can find "more room" in a standard 4/4 piece, or any piece of any time signature. Any ideas? An example I could give you is to imagine the whole drum track has been lifted and replaced anywhere around 1/2 to a full second behind what is the main beat of a song.That is the drummer "playing behind the beat",which can create more space for the other musicians and even vocalists to expand.Your example which is in bold shows the drummer slowing the beat which isn't right. Playing behind the beat has been and is used in a lot of jazz and blues tunes.And I understand that Bernard Purdie,one drummer that Bonzo looked up to was a champion of that style. Have a listen to "Black Dog" which is a prime example of playing behind the beat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triplet Kick Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 Good question. Playing behind the beat is a subtle nuance in playing that is relative to what other band members are playing. A drummer may be able to play behind or in front of the beat only because other player(s) are playing on the beat (i.e. keeping the tempo). Another example of Bonzo playing behind the beat is the snare drum on The Wanton Song - he really waits until the very last moment of the beat before hitting it. The temptation would be, for most drummers (including myself), to speed it up cos it's such a rocking, driving riff. But in this song he really pulls it back behind the beat nearly every single time (excluding the shuffles & fills). Also suggest Since I've Been Loving You and For Your Life for other good examples of this kind of playing, but it's true, Bonzo did it on many Zep tracks. Here's a link to a fairly interesting thread which discusses this topic quite well: http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=595351 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pujols05 Posted March 6, 2012 Author Share Posted March 6, 2012 Well, I feel sheepish. Thanks for the input and examples to listen to. I'll study up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.