Feel is important. Somebody once said, "Sit on a tack." That's feel. Do you feel that? Allan Schwartzberg on the concept of "feel" Allan Schwartzberg was interviewed by Mike Thorne at the Stereo Society, New York City on December 13, 1999 starting 7:30pm Streaming audio of Allan's answers can be heard by clicking on the player alongside each question. For help in playing music, see our Playing Audio page in the Big Help Desk.

Some people think that all you do is bash things. How important is arrangement skill to a drummer? How much should a drummer be aware of everybody else in a room?

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The sound of the drum in the studio is often central to the sound of a song. It takes us on to the color of the drum and the sort of sound you get which is considered very important to drummers also. How difficult is that to get into the studio. It seems quite difficult. Why should that be?

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Why do you think we rely so much on the backbeat? A lot of types of music don't.

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Staying on the backbeat and moving along to Disco. Rumor has it that you invented the Disco High Hat. How did that come about?

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What other sessions stand out in your memory?

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In many ways you are referring to the Good Old Days when really New York session playing was at its height and the scene was so hot and it was tremendous, but it has dried up since then. Why do you think that is?

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With all the current electronics providing drum loops and instant energy at the press of a button, where does a real drummer, an acoustic drummer, I believe was the expression, where does an acoustic drummer fit in now? What does a playing drummer bring to a track?

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You're really talking about a record making perspective. In other words, having a team rather than just sitting in a well.

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You've turned it around the other way. I remember you mentioning that you were presented with an electronic drum part and that sent you off into other arrangement places, that you had an electronic part and that sent you somewhere else possibly because electronics will do something which is completely impractical.

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How often do you combine electronics and acoustic drums?

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What you're saying is that you bring inaccuracy to the table. But you call it feel. How did you define it? Is it possible to measure it?

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I was once working with an unmentionable set of musicians who were asked to play with a Memphis-kind of a feel like Atlanta's STAX, and they said, "Oh, yeah, you mean out of tune." Now which is more important: being accurate or having an indefinable feel?

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I'll take it one step further. Do you think we are concentrating too much on accuracy when records are made nowadays?

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Is that why people favor loops in many cases rather than drum machines. What happens when somebody takes a loop that you play, for example, in Funky President, the James Brown tune, how do you feel about that? They take your feel and make it the basis of a record and, therefore, grafts your personality onto their record, incorporating something which you have played. Now somebody else's. music is being copped and is being, in some way, stolen. How do you feel about that?

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Your groove on Funky President is probably one of the most used samples ever. How proprietarily do you feel about that?

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Musicians have borrowed from each another for centuries. What’s different now? What’s wrong with the present time when compared to people stealing from Mozart? Well, not so much stealing, as making great work.

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In using jingles, stylistically so much is drawn into jingles from Rock and Roll songs and there's so much stylistic pillaging. But, this takes us onto writing a jingle and the attractions of that. Some people compare it to writing a thirty-second Pop song. How do you feel about that? Since you do so much of that.

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Every so often musicians will say that the jingle business drives them crazy. Do you get any of that or do you enjoy it at the moment?

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So the drying up of the session scene, the pure music session scene, do you think this is hindering the development of new talent? That it’s cutting off a root for people to come through.

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Do you see more of an amateur scene in the sense of people just loving what they do?

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How do you think it's different for a drummer, say, a generation behind you? What would you say just looking back from your position there and from your experience?

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Do you think musicians should have social skills or do you think they are better off when they are on a different planet?

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Allan Schwartzberg at the Stereo Society (selected links):
To Allan Schwartzberg's home page (all links)
Interview with Mike Thorne, December 1999 at the Stereo Society
Audio Clips from December 1999 interview with Mike Thorne
Interview with Jim Payne, Give The Drummers Some 1996
The Working Drummer by Robert Santelli, Modern Drummer 1988
Cab Chases and Smart Moves: A Day In The Life by Chris Doering, College Musician 1988
To Allan Schwartzberg's selected discography

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