How to Play Motown Drums
Learn how to play drums like the Motown drummers
Let's check out the drummers of Motown
Here we are examining how to play 
Motown drums. The amount of massive hits that came from Motown is astounding in itself, but then to realise that just a small group of studio musicians (known as the Funk Brothers) were behind most of those massive songs you soon realise that it’s worth delving into those drummers and the way they approached songs.
The studio in Detroit they used became known as ‘Hitsville’ and the equipment and methods were amazingly low tech. The studio itself was a basement known as the ‘Snakepit’.
They began with just two or three tracks to record on and then by the mid 1960s progressed to 8 track recording! Remember this was pre-autotune, pre-quantisation so everything you hear is down to great singers and musicians being captured on relatively substandard equipment. So the fact that so many of these songs still stand up today is testament to the songwriting and performances of those musicians involved.
The three main drummers to focus on are Benny Benjamin, Richard “Pistol “Allen and Uriel Jones. These guys played on Frankenstein, second hand drums but created some of the longest enduring and most memorable drum tracks in recorded music.
The emphasis was on groove and feel rather than super flashy ‘chops’. Each one had their own little nuances but together they all sat perfectly in that classic Motown sound.
If you haven’t already, join the FB group where we can discuss these drummers and listen to their grooves in more depth.
Learn the Motown Drum Beats
So that’s the background but now let’s learn how to play Motown drums.
Here you can find mini courses for the main three drummers that left the biggest mark at Motown. Just click below:
You might also like to get full drum sheet music for two huge Motown hits:
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough – Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell
And here are a couple of Motown style drumless tracks to practice your grooves to:
Doth Thou Feel The Love For Me 146bpm
Or you could dive deep into a full Motown drummer course.
FREE Timing Course
By clicking below you can gain access to a FREE ‘Drummer Timing 101’ drum course that will give you the knowledge, tools and exercises that you need to quickly get your timing up to the level it needs to be.
It will provide:
- The two main types of timing to master
- MP3 backing tracks to practice with and develop great timing
- Full sheet music for all exercises
- Video demonstrations of every exercise
And more than that you will also get a ton of other great free drum resources to make you a better drummer such as playalong tracks, articles, exclusive video lessons and more. And it’s all free!
Watch the video to get a feel for what the drummer timing 101 course entails and then scroll down to get the course immediately.
Start today and develop perfect timing
So let’s start the course today. Do it now and begin your drummer timing 101 course and start developing perfect timing. It won’t happen instantly but if you follow the lessons in the course you will start to feel the change very quickly.
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