HOW DO THEY DO IT?! | What About Me (Snarky Puppy) REACTION! 

It’s the bass player, Michael League. Level 3000 compositional skills.

This album was mostly written in the span of 4 days by Michael League. He walked into a studio in Europe and said Id like to record an album here, then proceeded to sit at a piano in the studio with his backpack still on and started writing this masterpeice... As for the drummer he learned the songs without a kit on the flight over... A few other members had to learn on the fly too.. These are mostly Texas University jazz theory graduates and a few classically trained gospel musicians. True talent

The band has 3 drummers as far as I know and they switch out as they are available during the arrangement. You can see all 3 of them playing together on their song Bad Kids to the Back

Can we take a sec to acknowledge that not only was Larnell Lewis a last minute replacement drummer, he LEARNED EVERY SONG FOR THIS RECORDING ON THE 7.5HR FLIGHT TO THE SESSION, AND WITH NO REHEARSAL WALKED IN AND PUT IT DOWN THE WAY HE DID. He is PHENOMENAL!!!

That dude, born on this planet, who sits there writing all this stuff out is Michael League, the bass player.

It is not all composed, it is composed in structure elements and in some parts in detail - by example the horns sections are all composed, and they are mindblowing extraordinary masters in execution . When you listen to a couple of live redentions of the same song, you will notice a lot of differences. But the structure elements, the building blocks, are the same. One of the building blocks is called something like "And Go! Show what you got!" The solo elements and improvisations are built-in musical elements, knowing the band can mitigate the risk of geting lost in some freaky solo, because every musicien in the band is of such high level that the band will understand what the soloist is doing. And otherwise: they can count at least - with all these asymitric time stamps nobody gets lost and knows where a phrase begins and ends, and which key progressions are going on. Master level musicienship is the ground requirement to join the band.

How do you write for this? Ask the bass player, Michael, he writes most of the music. Yeah, he's a pro, he understands composition and arranging. They're all pros.

The Woo was by one of the keyboardists who happens to own 6 Grammys. If you saw Lingus, he's the guy that walked off in the keyboard solo. The drummer has played with the band before, but he did learn most of this on the flight. This is how they record albums. Most songs are written by the bassist, who plays records via bass or keys the various parts avd sends them out at MP3s to the band. The only written parts are for the strings. There is a whole video on the making of the album.

8:22 “how do you even write for this?!” Lmao my reaction exactly!

Regarding finding a replacement player for yourself: a friend once told me "You're supposed to get them a guy that's good, but not as good as you"

Most of the members of the band are graduates of the University of North Texas' jazz programme, so they all understand composing and arrangement, both in small groups and in ensembles like big bands. Michael League, the bassist, is the bandleader and main composer, but other members will often compose their own tunes. And the solos? Improvised on the spot. By the way, you said that Larnell Lewis is so good that he probably put their original drummer out of the job, but Snarky Puppy basically works by having every amazing musician that plays with them in live gigs join then for real, if they're willing to. Larnell had played some gigs with them, and they knew he was amazing, so that's why they called him when Sput had issues with his Visa. Since this album, most of their albums have featured three drummers, with Robert "Sput" Searight, Larnell Lewis and Jason "JT" Thomas. Sput has since left the band to focus on his solo career and on his other band, Ghost Note, and has been "replaced" by Jamison Ross.

You guys have to check out Outlier too.

at 7:15 there's a little double stab from the bass and drums, and it's accented perfectly by the guitar *during his solo*. This whole band are aliens

Mike League is the composer of most of Snarky Puppy's music. For strings Shofukan

I really wish Cory Henry didn’t leave the band, I’m gonna go see them live next year. I hope Larnell Lewis doesn’t leave by that time or that he isn’t replaced for the show I booked. I know it’ll be fantastic either way, but Cory and Larnell are like a dream team. Michael League will never leave because he made the group, so I’ll never have to miss him haha.

Also the whole band plays with no charts. They learn all their parts by ear.

Great work guys👍. Love snarky puppy! You need to check out Dirty Loops! Work shit out ore next to you would be a good start🙏. Keep it up

Love it when people dig Snarky Puppy. I didn't know about these guys until around 5 years ago. Like you, first song was Lingus, and I was hooked. I wonder if you guys would like Thank You Scientist. They are a 7-piece prog rock jazz fusion band with an electric violinist and horn section. Found them around the same time as Snarky and they quickly became a favorite of mine. People seem to like the live session video for FXMLDR with the Bluecoats ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-rxrz6RPSww0.html

Dirty loops next !

Do Snarky Puppy the clearing

You guys make fun content. :) Request: Psyopus - "The Pig Keeper's Daughter" Challenge: Infant Annihilator - "Blasphemian"

No need to do it next, but make sure you do Sleeper at some point :)

Ok you two are now ready...not to react but to just watch and learn how they did what they did. Enjoy! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5p5sEewsYNM.html

6:34 and at that point the whole string section lost the plot.

These guys go to 11…