"Simple" Drumming

Shitty drummers always use fills. They usually posses certain characteristics that make the fills unbearable, but lets stick that aside.

I have a goal. I've been working this into my practice schedule where I get a CD on headphones and just play along to it straight through. I pick an easy one, the first selection was The Strokes-Is This It. Future picks are going to be Wire-Pink Flag (which I unsuccessfully attempted to do 2 years ago,) Sam Cooke-Live at the Harlem Club, and Jon Richman and the Modern Lovers. I played through Marvin Gaye's greatest Motown hits and that was excellent, though I feel like I was leaving a lot out. Still, by not playing all the notes and fills that are visible in their absence, you get a feel for how the songs work.

Its interesting, simple records might have one drum break in the whole thing, or one complicated ride pattern, but its enough to make you realize that these drummers could be playing a lot more, and are consciously choosing not to . And it makes the song work which is the ultimate goal. Many of the returns to the chorus on Is This It are made stronger by the lack of a drum fill. If the first half of the measure is the same in chorus and verse, you arent going to even notice the shift until the song demands it (it will be seemless).

I was thinking to myself "this is R&B drumming! whoa!" Actually, its soul drumming, more Sam Cooke than Marvin Gaye, but the point remains that you simplify your life and make your playing better by playing with the music enough to really start to smell what they are stepping in.

Your Left Hand Must Always Know What Your Right Hand Is Doing

That sort of came to me. Maybe its obvious, but I'm starting to feel like the most essential relation is between the hands, and not necessarily the kick and the snare. Anyways even if its too vague to mean anything, it sounds like something out of Oblique Strategies, right?

Now quick, whatever this post says to do, do the opposite (*wink*)

Breaking The Endurance Exercise Down...WAY Down

Ok, so I got a little high to practice drums today. Just a teensy bit high. Well, more like alot. The thing I really did was dig into the endurance exercise (outside of playing along with Marvin Gaye's greatest Motown singles which is a whole nother thing in itself). Mostly the single stroke one, but later I found it helped me with my double stroke one as well.

Its probably worth explaining in depth at this point, but the endurance exercise I'm doing is like this:
there are 16 counts total (i count it as 8 and 8 in my head, but really its written as 4 beats divided into 16th notes) and it goes into double time for first only the last count, then the last 2, then the last 3, until it goes all the way up to being in double time the whole time. Each pattern is held 4 times, so first you play 15 16th notes followed by 2 32nd notes 4 times, then 14 16th notes followed by 4 32nd notes and on and on.


OK. One of the first things I did was with how I was counting it. It used to be if for example i was counting the one where the 32nds come in on beat 12, I would count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1, 2, 3, and then quit counting while the 32nds went on. So the first thing I changed was I started to count 1-8 1-8 every time out loud, no matter where the switch was.

Another thing I did was change it to an exercise that was 8 counts total. Then on the even numbered ones I would accent all the single strokes and not the doubles (still counting through). For the odd ones, I would accent the single strokes only on the hand where the additional single stroke lied. This was the most effective of all the drills for correcting my weak spots.

For these I divided the exercise up into only evens and only odds. So I would do 8 counts solid single strokes (16th notes) 4 times, then 6 counts single stroke and 2 counts with the 32nd notes, then 4 and 4, 2 and 6 and finally all 8 counts with the 32nds and then back down.

I counted this 3 ways: 1-8 every time, then only counting the single strokes and then only counting the double strokes, which seemed to help my ear (ex. single stroke, single stroke, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

Anyways if you are having trouble upping the tempo on the endurance exercise this is probably a great way to go into it, because you address every single beat, so you can really isolate the exact spot where you begin to have trouble.

Also its worth doing extra single strokes with your weak hand before getting into this.

Sexual Frustration

...will make you practice drums longer than anything else. Not because its going to help you get laid, just because you gotta get all that tension out! The way things are going I hope I don't meet a woman for at least 2 weeks, cause then I'll really have made some progress, but uuh, ... not too much longer than that, please!

Today saw a new one session record: 2 hours 39 minutes, not counting breaks....practice lasted from 8 - 11:30 PM.

Endurance ---week 8(?ish)

I have 2 goals for this next week which are going to make it probably both the most intense and the most focused week ever if I pull it off.

Goal 1 is significant improvement in the Endurance Exercise (im at Q=58 for double strokes and Q=68 for single strokes right now...havent tried it with the buzz roll yet). Ive found that this exercise helps with my Single Stroke exercise. Anyways tonight I ran up and down it 4 times double strokes (2 starting R and 2 starting L) and then the same with the single strokes. My arm is tired, I'll bet its sore tomorrow.

Goal 2 hasn't been tried yet because I can't get to a full kit all the time (we're renting out the practice space in the afternoons for another few days). I need to start doing Stick Control substituting my right foot. We have the big Ecstatic Sunshine gig at our house on Tuesday and I'd like the tempo to be a bit better for Mock Object (only 5 days away now). Anyways, if things go according to plan, both are going to be significant time consumers, but thats a good thing, because this time next week I'll be better and the whole Endurance thing is pretty key.

Polyrhythm drumbeat #1

Heres the aforementioned beat I made up along with how i derived it.




the thing that led to this was i was trying to figure out how to maintain that initial snare pattern (those are taps) with a ride pattern that went into double time, so thats the first line. Then once the double time in the ride kicked in it became apparent that some of the hits made it sound less musical (i.e. like a line) so where they both hit I played it both ways, 1) maintaining the double time ride pattern and dropping a snare hit and then 2) as written 2nd line down which is what I decided sounded cooler. The accents on the ride pattern are sort of naturally where they fall, with the exception of the upbeat of beat 1 in the event that its measure 1. Once the pattern repeats it sounds tho.

This beat owes the kick placement ideas to the half time shuffle, which is a beat Brian showed me that Bohnam did on a Zepplin track whose name I cant quite remember right now.

PS this is marked as triplets and probably could be used for a fill in 4/4 and might sound cool, but probably its best in a 6/8 feel.