Having played drums for many years, I regularly acted as a session drummer.
As for the genres in which I feel best as a drummer for hire – generally speaking, it is broadly understood Rock music, with strong Blues roots. I grew up listening to music such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, etc., but at the same time, my first and strongest musical fascination was caused by Czesław Bartkowski’s drumming on Czesław Niemen’s “Człowiek Jam Niewdzięczny” album. Basically a jazz drummer (Bartkowski), he played rock songs. And he played it great. I mention this because my own approach to music has been shaped more or less like this – I am an improvising rocker, who does not shy away from Blues, Reggae, Funk, Progressive.
As a session drummer, I work well in songs ranging from Pop to hard Rock – I love heavy groove and odd meters too. I also create drum grooves based on the toms “melody”. I play quiet ballads, and also rock grooves with brushes.
I don’t always work on the spot – sometimes I need to familiarize myself more closely with a song, I record the first ideas, listen to it the next day, go back to the studio (e.g. retune the toms, maybe change the snare drum or anything) and record the next (final?) version. At the same time, though, the first idea often turns out to be OK and stays.
Some time ago, however, I happened to work on a drum part for a simple song for about 2 weeks (of course, there was no time pressure). It was just the kind of situation where I immediately hear in my head how it should go, but the results are, well… IMO, far from what I hear in my head. It’s all about feeling, not about notation. You can put the sheet music into a computer and generate a drum set part out of the best samples in the world, but that’s a completely different thing and that’s not what I’m talking about now. Simple things don’t necessarily come easy – BTW that’s the song I’m talking about (isn’t it simple?). →
Every song is different. A classic example of a song recorded basically “on the spot” and at the same time being the result of typical work as a session drummer is the song below. That recording took place long before I joined Anna Maria Jopek’s backing band BTW. →