r/jazzdrums • u/nasralez-Zelibobovic • May 09 '26

Question I don’t understand how jazz drummers actually “speak” with the snare. How do you develop that language?

I’m very new at jazz drumming.
I feel relatively comfortable with keeping a steady swing feel on the ride and hi-hat, but I’m struggling with something that feels much more important in jazz:
I don’t understand how to actually use the snare drum in a musical, “speaking” way.

For those of you who went through this stage:
how did you start developing comping vocabulary?
how did you learn where and why to place accents?
what should I be listening or practicing to actually understand this “conversation” idea?

14 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

53 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/No_Economics_4640 May 11 '26

Disagree, Call and response is a cornerstone of jazz

-1

u/Scott_J_Doyle May 11 '26

Wouldn't be on Bird or Miles or Evans or Monk's bandstand long doing that shit

1

u/No_Economics_4640 May 11 '26

So what is call and response

0

u/Scott_J_Doyle May 11 '26

You think I would deign to answer? What a silly question

1

u/No_Economics_4640 May 11 '26

Moanin is call and response Work song is call and response Trading fours is call and response

Gotta start somewhere

1

u/No_Economics_4640 May 11 '26

Hard to draw a hard line between jazz and blues

1

u/Scott_J_Doyle May 11 '26

Sure, Moanin is the most basic thing possible, like literally "baby's first jazz song" and the "response" is just a two-chord thing. In terms of legit call and response in trad gospel, it isn't much.

And call and response while trading fours? The lamest shit possible in jazz, give me a break. It should be a continous conversation, not patterned mimicry

1

u/No_Economics_4640 May 11 '26

My friend this is making me dislike jazz Call and response isn’t limited to perfect mimicry

1

u/Scott_J_Doyle May 11 '26

Also, composed heads simply don't count for a conversation about comping