So he/she can see the rest of band better? That’s about the only reason I can think of.
So the audience can see him better. The drummer is sitting down, while everyone else is standing up, so you need to put the drums up higher to put all of the performers on close to the same level.
Because Ringo did it.
It was part of staging acts on early TV show appearances and stuck.
Are drummers ever put on a riser in a recording session? No. It’s purely for others to see them sweat.
Nice try. But you’re NEVER gonna get a drummer up to the other performers’ level.
(The trouble with drummer jokes is you don’t get a rimshot.)
He’s sitting in the back, so more difficult to se if you’re standing in the orchestra pit.
What do you call a guy who hangs around with musicians in order to pick up girls?
some drummers play behind plexiglass in concert to keep the volume down for the rest of the band. Saw that this month with Blondie . The drum sound was fine for the crowd since it was being sent to the PA with the rest of the instruments and vocals.
The road manager?
Q: How can you tell when a stage riser is level?
A: The drool comes out of both sides of the drummer’s mouth.
Q: What do you call a drummer with no girlfriend?
A: Homeless
The trend in concert sound these days is towards a quiet stage. All the musicians wear “in-ear monitors” (basically very expensive custom molded earphones), bass is via a “direct box” that takes the sound of the instrument directly to the mixing board and guitar amps are in big boxes off stage. The only really loud thing on the stage is the drummer, and the Plexiglas panels help keep the sound of the cymbals out of the vocal microphones.
A well done quiet stage, the musicians can actually talk to each other.
The advantage for the audience is that without incredibly loud instruments on stage, the musicians don’t have even louder monitor speakers on stage to get over the loudness of the instruments. And without those loud monitor speakers, the main speakers don’t have to be louder than the monitors.
And back to the original question - by putting the drummer on a riser, it acoustically decouples the drums from the other instruments. On a riser, the snare is less likely to buzz every time the bassist plays a note, and the kick isn’t getting into the guitar amps.
Oh, and how does a bass player answer the phone? “Thank you for calling Dominos.”
The sad thing is, the bass player is working at Pizza Hut at the time.
Q: What do you say to make a drummer stand up?
“Will the defendant please rise.”
Yep, I was too glib. It really mattered even more when a big band was stacking up players vs a few-piece rock band.
Perfect answer - thank you.
You’re welcome.
One other reason for the drum riser - it gives the other musicians a nice stable jumping off spot.