Page 31 - Sick Drummer Magazine Issue 29 - Hannes Grossmann

SDM: How about practicing linear patterns?It all started with Aaron Spears and his perfor- mance at Modern Drummer Festival 2006. When I heard Usher – Caught UP, my jaw dropped. Gospel drum fills are very popular right now, they sound complex. However, in the basis of these patterns there are only several key features: they are linear, 16 triplet, and FAST. I often visit different youtube channels and try get new ideas for practicing linear fills or grooves. It is really fun to sound “complex” but at the time play simple linear patterns.SDM: What inspires you to create new grooves behind the kit?There are lot of things that I like to do apart from music, hard to say which of them inspires me. I noticed that when I prepare for university exams, my mind starts to explode with tons of musical ideas instead of memorizing. In addition, I hear music in my head when I have insomnia or travel in bus, such things happen when you have nothing to do, there is nothing exceptional around, and all you have to do is to look into yourself. Thus, I think music is always inside our minds, but things that we usually do behind the musical instrument act as a veil, and we mistake them for the source of inspiration.SDM: How much of your practicing is based strictly on technique?100% of my practice is devoted to improving technique. I don’t consider playing drums or pad for fun as practice. Training process starts when I turn on metronome, and when I do so I develop my skill. However, when I turn music on I try to improvise and have a good time, which of course develops creativity and musicianship. In my opinion is not practicethough.SDM: How much of your time do you concentrate on practicing things you are not “great” at? What are some of the strengths and weaknesses to your playing?I find it boring to practice things I am good at often. Most of the time I try to work on my weaknesses rather than improving what I am already capable of. I think my strong side lies in ability to play grooves of various genres (hip-hop, metal, funk, rock) and blend them into one song. However, the dark side is that is the fact that being good at everything makes me the master of none. My extreme metal drum grooves are not the fastest, groove metal that I play may be not so solid, and hip-hop and gospel fills that I try to play are not as impressive as I wish them to be.SDM: What motivates you do get behind the drums every day?I like playing drums, sometimes I lack motivation to practice stuff that I find boring, but watching youtube channels recharge my willpower. I think you don’t need motivation to do things that you do love. That principle is appropriate for any aspect of our life: job, family relationships, art.SDM: Are you a big fan of Pro Tools, and do you support others in the studio copying, pasting and manipulating their performance on a track?Most of the time I adjust drum parts that guitar player ‘aka’ mastermind already composed. Sometimes I program beats and send them to band members hoping that they will not reject them. Sometimes we argue about what drum pattern is the best, but we always find solution that satisfies everyone. Music is not place for ego competition, so I am totally cool that sometimes I have to learn patterns that were not proposed by me.SDM: Do you ever play a drum solo live?Every live show starts with a drum solo that organicallytransformsintosong. Thoughitisnot presented in the latest EP, we developed this idea into a new song that will be included in the brand new release. It was hilarious to find that After the Burial – Anti-Pattern has something in common with the solo I perform.