"Veteran drummer Steve Smith of Journey fame was faced with a classic grunge song, Alice in Chains' "Would?," for the latest edition of Drumeo 's "For the First Time" series. The recurring segment features a drummer who is a given a song they've never heard before (with the drum parts removed), and they must construct their own part from scratch before laying down a final take over the original stems."
"Working out his approach with Toews, the drummer deduces that he's going to have to pay close attention to the shifts in tempo between the verse, chorus, and bridge. "There's some interesting guitar rhythms that happen in the choruses - I might pick up, I might not ... I'm not sure; I'm just gonna have to play with that," says Smith, talking it out. I like the dynamic shifts. It has a range of dynamics that's cool."
Steve Smith tackled Alice in Chains' "Would?" on Drumeo's "For the First Time" series by creating drum parts from a drumless mix. Smith picked up tempo cues from Jerry Cantrell's rhythm guitar and Mike Starr's bass while noting surprising song changes and a melodic bridge. He planned to monitor tempo shifts between verse, chorus, and bridge and to experiment with chorus guitar rhythms. Smith referenced a chart for structure, produced a laid-back, tom-heavy first take with jazzy elements, and then recorded a stronger, more dynamic second take with louder hits.
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