Gary Novak: Difference between revisions
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'''Gary''' '''Novak''' is an American drummer who appeared on the album "The Sixteen Men Of Tain". | '''Gary''' '''Novak''' is an American drummer who appeared on the album "The Sixteen Men Of Tain". | ||
=Gary On Allan= | |||
==Modern Drummer, May 1999== | |||
KM: So what was the major transition from Chick Corea to Alanis Morissette? | |||
GN: I played with Allan Holdsworth in between. He has a record coming out pretty soon that I'm on. He's very cool. We played in Poland over the summer. | |||
. | |||
KM: Holdsworth is a very humble musician, very self-deprecating. | |||
GN: Allan was amazing. Not only is he the greatest guitar player, he is the funniest guy in the world. Anything goes. We played mostly new music, but before that gig the only experience I had playing odd-meter music was with Billy Childs and the band Freeflight. Chick writes some difficult figures, but most of his music is based on four or six and he plays around it. Once you get used to playing the music, it plays itself. | |||
Allan's music has got some weird quirks in it because the blowing changes are never the same as the melody changes. His compositions are all the way through, it's not melody/ solo/melody. He doesn't have any format for his compositions, so it's pretty difficult. It was the most challenging situation I've ever been in as far as odd meters. | |||
We rehearsed for one day and then played. And Allan doesn't read. You can get a vibe of where the music is going by looking at the paper, but to a certain degree, you need to just play 8th notes and find where the “ones” are. Often I was just reacting, not even thinking what the meter was. After two months of that I don't get freaked out anymore seeing bars of 21/16, 7/8, or 9/8. | |||
KM: How did your setup change from Corea to Holdsworth? | |||
GN: I had to add a crash for Holdsworth. With Chick, I had three ride cymbals and a crash. I used to play a five-piece kit all the time. For the Alanis gig, I can't use K Zildjians—they aren't loud enough when you play live. I need that quarter note or half note of sound. It has to be balls-out. My smallest crash now is an 18". I use three toms up top now, and one floor tom. I need four toms because there are times when I need two hands on the drums, and I need two snare drums because there is looped stuff that is real high-pitched. | |||
KM: Technique-wise or mentally, was there a period of change you had to go through when switching gigs? | |||
GN: Oh yeah. There is always a changeover when I change gigs. I go into serious listening mode, I'll immerse myself. If I've been playing with Holdsworth for a long time, and my next tour might be Bob Berg for three weeks then I'll listen to nothing but Roy Haynes and Elvin Jones. You have to reaquaint yourself with the vocabulary. The touch and sound is different. The only way I can get that is by listening to those guys. | |||
For Alanis it was Zeppelin. She lets me play, so there is a fine line between overplaying and trying to create energy. There is more listening and paying attention to what is idiom-correct. As a jazz drummer it can be easy to overplay; you have to have musical maturity. | |||
=Allan on Gary= | |||
==[[The Outter Limits: Allan Holdsworth's Out of Bounds Existence (guitar.com 1999)]]== | ==[[The Outter Limits: Allan Holdsworth's Out of Bounds Existence (guitar.com 1999)]]== | ||
