DRUMMERS: Advice for a beginner

I was there a few weeks ago. Then I started doing a RLRR LRLL type paradiddle with the kick and the HH peddle alternating beats. Doing that for a few hours was really helpful for getting my limbs working independently.

www.drumbum.com/lessons

I like this one:

www.webthumper.com

Please explain.

Ahhh Drummer Jokes.

alternatively, spend years and years doing rudiments so you actually improve your technique rather than skipping them and being a total failure like me

Rudiments and exercises are great and everything, but in my opinion HOW you practice things is a lot more important than what. Get a teacher to teach a good grip and stroke, these are really the most important things. If you don't want to do that, there are some good videos/dvds out there (esp. the Steve Smith and Joe Morello ones).

Andrew is OTM, staying relaxed is the key. Good technique means not having to tense up or force things (which is very unhealthy, esp. over the long term) to play fast or play what you want to play. Make sure your shoulders and arms are relaxed and hanging naturally, all the necessary movement comes from the wrist and fingers.

http://primrosehill.250free.com/medrumtea.jpg

I agree that playing with some good headphones on is the best way to improve your timing, etc. Of course, music with drum machines are super-reliable, otherwise how do you know that the drummer you're playing along with doesn't have shit timing him/herself? Obviously, however, you can have no doubt if you are playing along to Stephen "Popcorn" Adler.

Booo! Realize that 80% of getting your drums to sound good on record is due to how their mic'd and eq'd.

How I started was to do the simplest beat: hi-hat or ride hit on 1234, kick kicked on 1, and snare snared on 3. Then just gradually change it, ie put another kick on 2, move the snare ahead to 2 1/2 etc.

Also, smoke cannabis.

getting a teacher is very important, even if it is just 30 minutes every two weeks.

get a teacher to find you a good book that covers basic snare and stick control technique (cant remember what i used) and for rock beats, i like Carmine Appice's Realistic Rock Drum Methods. It covers all the basics, and has a "disco" section too. if you are lucky, you will find a copy with a huge foldout poster of appice in all of his latin-fro glory behind a 25 piece silver sparkle drumkit from the 70s (he is the guy futzing around in the background of Rod Stewart's "D'ya think Im sexy" video).

after you have mastered those two, look for Stick Control, New Breed (Gary Chester), Ted Reed's Syncopation book and the Art of Bop Drumming (Riley). New Breed and Syncopation will require a teacher's help as they cant be played through like other books. New Breed can be especially abstract and complex (you might be playing a pattern between your right and left hand, and your right foot, while reading and playing parts on your left foor, while speaking quarter notes too). Art of Bop is one of the best drum books out there... there is a lot of text about approach and attitude, and you will learn some real independance. its not as hard as new breed, but just as essential (even if you never play in a jazz band ever).

lastly, if you have half an hour, practice, if you have one hour, practice for half an hour, fuck around for the rest, and always remember to work on things that you dont know how to do.

Dude, he's the guy that WROTE "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy"! One of the funniest/most cringe-inducing drum performances I've seen was at this joint where he and Ed Thigpen (Oscar Peterson's drummer) had both done clinics. They did a "duet" afterwards, which was mostly Thigpen gamely playing a nice little rock beat and Carmine Appice steamrolling over him with both bass drums. Ed was a good sport though. His head looks like a peanut.

Good advice about the pillow, and the John Riley books. They're some of the very few drum books that I've actually had the patience to really work through.

I have a teacher, and he gives me all the rudiments to work on. He went to some kind of music school, and he seems kind of old-school in his approach. We spend a lot of time on rudiments and seldom just let it rip. I've only gone about 5 times, so he may have a lesson progression in mind. He's French.

I have a practice pad that I bought a few weeks ago. I used to just use a pillow or my leg, so it's amazing how different the practice pad feels. I still struggle to find the bounce with every stroke. It's really odd how the bounce sometimes isn't there. Looking for the bounce seems really helpful, because I am forced to think about my grip and the angle of the sticks.

i stress all of this basics stuff not because i am some hard-ass classicist, but really because a lot of this will have to do with your physical health over the years. take care of your back and your wrists and you can play forever.

And your ears, of course.

5 lessons over a couple of months. I really am a beginner. I started messing around on a kit about 5 months ago.

I always use ear plugs when I play.

I would also add that paying attention to your sound is hugely important. You can get so many sounds of the snare drum, like rimshots with different lengths of the stick, playing in the center for a dead tone, near the edge for more ring, cross-sticks of different pitches, etc, and the same is true for everything on the set. I think experimenting with sound is one of the most fun parts of being a drummer, and being aware of your sound leads to control over it.

in 2 hours i am going to pick up my very first drum set. i have convinced myself +/- that i am not too old or too stupid. i finally have time and a basement and in 2 hours i will have some drums of my own, if this transaction doesn't somehow get screwed up. for a while i was looking for approval to go ahead and do this, but soon enough it became evident that i was just being a chicken. now i'm just going to finally see what i can teach myself in my oodles of spare time. this is one of the most self-indulgent things i have ever done in my life and i just have to get over that because i think it will be super fun and also good for my general health.

g'luck! Fun self-indulgence enriches life.

My 6-year-old niece is apparently very skilled for her age. She watched Ringo in A Hard Day's Night for insipation almost daily.

that'd be inspiration

6 is the best age to get super into the beatles

Get some ear plugs asap.
I spent over ten years in bands and only got ear plugs when I noticed ringing in my ears, it was too late.

omg LL! drumming is SO MUCH fun. I wish I owned a drum set.

xp - already got some! i do need to find a rug or carpet or something.

that's why i want to do it -- it has always seemed like a lot of fun and i need to have more fun.

This is so rad. Fully behind this idea.

Congrats! You are in for several universes of fun.

Get some ear plugs asap.

this this this x1,000,000. I played along to records with headphones for years, and probably the only reason I don't have tinnitus now (somewhat miraculously) is because I finally started wearing earplugs about 20+ years ago. One added benefit (?) of this is that my playing got a lot louder (or so numerous bandmates/neighbors told me).

Although it can be hard to start an instrument at a late age, there are a couple of advantages -- 1) you've already heard and internalized a ton of music in your life, so you may understand things intuitively that a five year old doesn't, and (2) with an instrument like drums, being full-grown can help you physically.

The most important thing imo is to develop feel -- play very simply along with records, even just going "Right, Left" with the sticks in time. Maybe add a kick drum every other stroke when you feel comfortable. But keep it simple, don't tense up, and just try to get a feel and a flow (and don't feel bad if you can't, this will take a lot of practice!). Build your chops slowly -- don't try to play faster than you can play in time.

My favorite instructional book requires an almost zen-like tolerance for boredom -- it's called Stick Control. It's probably 70 or 80 years old, and it has an awesome introduction that you should read that explains how to develop your techinque (hands anyway).

And although Stick Control is all exercises to do with your hands, you can do them with your feet, with hands and feet alternating, with hands on different drums or cymbals, etc.

Yay, LL! This is so awesome.

awesome. let's start a no-wave band.

Ok! There is a mess of drums in my basement.

\(-_-)/

Pictures of drums, please.

it's just a pile of drums, i'm going to set it up now
i have the laptop down here in case i need help (i will need help)

put the thing on the other thing!

thonk thonk thonk thonk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6qqncHL6Ls

ok i got the bass drum and cymbals and snare on their feet

ok it's all set up!!!

ok ok ok ok
i'm excited
will return when i learn something

now let's hear the purdie shuffle

http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/images/drums/km_1975-whitekit-top.jpg

Pictures of drums, please.

most important thing for a beginning drummer: make sure your gong is placed properly!

i'm eating lunch now, and things are all set up with a blanket and carpet under the bass drum but i still need a better seat
the chair i've got down there is not going to work
the doggie seems interested

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7318/9052261870_323fb665af.jpg

also i did manage a basic 4/4 beat i think? i don't know what anything is called. it's the only thing i can do atm. no gong yet. funnest thing so far is establishing a somewhat steady beat and then doing a little fill and trying to get back to the beat
i'm AWFUL but hey it's my first day

That is awesome.

but i still need a better seat
the chair i've got down there is not going to work

Now that you're a drummer you get to sit on a THRONE!

oh one more thing while i'm eating - i've figured out where everything goes, but i'm not sure what the purpose is for the third thing down in this picture
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7338/9052256004_26e16861df.jpg

for real

you can pick up a decent throne for relatively cheap ($30-40). i'd recommend that you do it soon. the reason is that using a normal chair is unlikely to put you at the best angle, and since you're just starting out you could accidentally get used to an awkward sitting position/poor technique. everyone likes to sit at a different height and with a different angle (i tend to sit higher than most drummers for example) but as a starting point maybe think about sitting so that your leg makes a 90 degree angle.

the third thing down is an all-purpose auxiliary thing. you wrap one side of it around an arm or stand of some sort - could be a tom arm, a cymbal stand, or really any metallic piece that's sturdy and has some extra space on it. tyou can use it to attach extra tom arms, a tambourine, etc. let me see if i can find an example image.

ok, so it's extra. that's what i thought -- nothing seems to need to be attached, so i figured it was an auxiliary doodad.

additional conclusion: i would like something that can bounce a little or at least has some give? the cymbal pedal is a little tight/difficult to push, so i am going to need some leverage. i also enjoy bouncing. i also already noticed the chair getting in the way of my arms, so yeah -- def in the market for a THRONE.

it's an obvious joke but this would be such a badass and nerdy choice:
http://i.imgur.com/LZUDIQd.jpg

now you have to make the crucial life decision: heel up or heel down?

Pearl actually makes a bouncy throne: http://pearldrum.com/products/hardware/drum-thrones/d-1000spn/

Dunno how much you can adjust the bounce/give, though. I tried it once but found it really disconcerting.

Latest revive of this thread is the awesomest news!!!!!

Almost as urgent as a throne: you need a placard that reads YOU JUST HIRED THE HITMAKER

Woo, great revive! I started some drumming last week when I was round at my father-in-law's. Completely impossible to do a fill and land back on your feet afaict. But it's so much fun. (It was the Daft Punk album gave me the idea btw)

I'm not being as self-indulgent and buying like you, LL, though I am contemplating how I might be able to manipulate his otherwise-unused kit into making its way to my house.

I miss my drumset :(

You said you managed a basic 4/4 beat but...how I was initially taught by my friend and how I get others going on the "mother beat" is: hit (closed) hi-hat 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4, hit kick drum 1 . . . 1 . . . 1 . . .
once you got a handle on that, add snare . . 3 . . . 3 . . . 3 .
get that down so you can do it w/o thinking. every other beat is a variation of that m/l

yeah that's what i did
i don't know what it's called so i was totally guessing

i started super slow and then got faster and faster til i felt like jaki (i did not sound like jaki)

Gr8 thread.
A drummer friend tells me that AC/DC are a good band to play along with when you are starting out because the beats are pretty simple and solid but have enough swing to make them fun to copy.

AC/DC and New Order, actually. Haven't touched drums in a few years, but I always found a lot of fun and ideas playing straight 4/4 robot beats. You build up strength and patience and a great sense of time, which never really goes away when you start to do other stuff.

Awesome LL!

FWIW since you're setting up on what looks like a cement floor, my advice would be to find a section of remainder carpet you can put on your floor to keep your kit from sliding/bouncing around.

Also, to keep the bass drum from creeping away, loop a rope around the back of your throne, tying each end to opposite sides/lugs on the batter side of the bass drum. Granted, your whole kit might slide forward, but at least you'll go with it.

Did you stuff a pillow in the bass drum? You should, especially in that room. Plus, it does take some trial and error, but drums do need to be tuned, to an extent.

ok here is the full set up
got a throne and a blanket/piece of carpet
have not strapped myself into the mothership yet today but that's kind of what it feels like -- if i make enough noise, and just the right kind, it may lift off

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3781/9056659755_7a2c31dc2a.jpg

i thought about it as soon as i woke up this morning and was still kind of like whoa i have DRUMS in my BASEMENT?! i've wanted this for so long. this has already been a good lesson in not being a chicken.

as for tuning, i'll prob need some help with that so i'll get to it when i get to it yknow?
oh, a pillow -- can i stuff an old sheet in there or does it have to be a pillow? i don't have any extras.

Folded up sheet is fine. Just something to dampen it a bit, or your bass drum might sound like a big flappy gong.

Also, there is no right or wrong, ultimately, but it looks like you have your toms swapped. Drums usually progress in size from smallest to largest from left to right, if you're playing right handed, though to be honest mixing some things up can lead to cool results.

That's how Kenny Aronoff's kit is set up, iirc.

i'm left handed!
i also tried the hand crossover and prefer to just use lefty for hi hat
also my left leg seems to be completely useless

hmm, that's a tricky situation, though! a few drummer mix things up a little bit with the toms, but generally the toms go in order from highest to lowest pitched. you could consider just taking out the middle tom (i know that's probably not a realistic option since you just started playing and want to play with ALL the toms!) and keeping the floor tom and high tom. when i first started out i had a mammoth, double bass drum, 8-tom kit from the early 1980s. gradually over the years i downsized until i just had two toms. in the future i will only have one drumstick and a piece of cardboard

Looks like we have the same kit!

update:

one of my dogs HATES the drum set, hates hearing me play it, and barks pretty much nonstop while i'm playing. i have learned to ignore him but honestly i really really wish he would stfu
i tried to play danger bird and it was pretty easy (also i <3 ralph molina), but uuuuuuggghhh so slow! so far the most fun has occurred when i start to play the one beat i know, then speed up, then take little solo breaks on the other drums/cymbals and then go right back into the repetitive part. it feels like i am actually playing?! i can only sustain it for so long though because the dog is driving me nuts.

also is there a name for that little shift into mental space-out that happens when you stop thinking too hard about what you're doing with your arms and legs and you just do it? i've only felt that dancing, not making noise. it's sooooo cool when it happens and i am also making noise. new thing for me.

xp SISTERS

XP - Creating muscle memory for a part, is how I would describe it (I play bass, so it's maybe a bit different)

Muscle memory was what I first thought, though to be honest it sounds just as much like "getting in the zone" from LL's account.

Yeah, getting inside the music, inside the song.

Not to sound like a martian, but is that (inside __________) a widely-used term? I like it.

good news: I think I can play Love Vigilantes now!
bad news: if my dog doesn't stfu soon and leave me alone (now he is coming over and putting his paw on me, like begging me to stop) he is going into the slammer (his crate)

being inside the song or getting in the zone is a great feeling, and you'll find that as you play more, it becomes more of the default feeling. there's this wonderful tipping point that occurs where you no longer have to "think" while doing fills or shifting beats or improvising. i mean, you're still thinking of course, but it's more of a higher-order abstract guidance kind of thinking - like, "what kind of feeling do i want to create next" - rather than counting subdivisions and trying to make sure you land back on the beat.

"playing in the pocket"

(h8 that term kinda)

pocket?

the whole phrase

playing in the pocket is kinda different, since it refers to the actual "groove" and sound, and the timing of playing along with others in a band. when i think of playing in the pocket i think of al jackson jr on love and happiness:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPHGp2DHqSI

although getting in the zone/getting inside the song/etc can definitely line up with playing in the pocket, it can just also be more about a mindset and less about timing. for example, i'm sure a lot of free jazz and spiritual jazz were waaaaaaaaaaaaay in the zone while they were playing, but you wouldn't put on ornette coleman and look for the drummer to be playing in the pocket.

phil ochsymuzak (roxymuzak) wrote this on thread Ask a Hoos. on board 1 pWN 3v3Ry+h1n G!!!1 on May 24, 2009

So we were driving back from Baltimore early this morning and Hoos is like:

"When I first moved in to my new apartment, my roommate and I were listening to some music, and I was like 'Man, he's really goin' in," and my roommate was like, 'you mean going off?' and I thought, wow, we are really not going to get along."

Hahaha

xpost

whoa, i never realized that it's NOT al jackson jr on love and happiness (the song)!!

He never cut his ties completely with the Hi label, though. He was still the drummer of choice years later. If he was out on the road with Booker T and the MG’s or otherwise tied up at Stax, Mitchell would call Howard Grimes, a onetime student of Jackson’s who would establish himself soon as the “other” top drummer in Memphis. When Jackson was available, Grimes was still brought in sometimes, and the two were paired, usually with Jackson on traps and Grimes on congas. This combination of kit and percussion, never attempted at Stax, became integral to the sound that Al Green laid down on his early hits at Hi.

from an article that bizarrely uses the header Snap! to break up the sections:

“Usually I’d have Al play those sessions by himself,” Mitchell says. “Sometimes I’d play the conga drum with him, on things like ’Let’s Stay Together.’ But there were times that Al Jackson couldn’t get the feel I wanted, on songs like ’Take Me To The River’ or ’Love & Happiness,’ so I had Howard come in for that. Now, Al could actually play anything … but he couldn’t play it raggedy. And when that’s what I wanted to have, I called Howard.”

http://www.drummagazine.com/features/post/al-jackson-jr.-the-sound-of-60s-soul/

Weird, I assumed it was Jackson too!

Also, ZS otm itt.

i love this! if you want i can give you a lesson next time i'm in town.

You're on!! Lemme know when you're coming, you have my email!!

Progress update: I have my ipod shuffle loaded with all of the songs that I know the best, songs I could sing with absentmindedly and are also probably easy enough to try out. I listen to it while I'm walking (to the post office, wherever) and when a song sounds like I could maybe play it, I note it mentally and then try to play it the next time.

This list is getting out of control. Apparently every song I decided was maybe easy enough to play was actually more or less easy enough to play a little bit of, not ever really the whole thing through. I thought it would be nice to know what it feels like to play a short song, you know, how long is that? 3-5 min? Anyway, I decided to focus on one to try to play through all the way and learn, basically, until i could play it confidently at will. a little focused project.

-----> I have 2 pedagogy questions --

1) Is this a bad idea? Should I focus on getting different basic rhythms before I focus on endurance/structure?
2) If I do this, will my brain fossilize on that song if I don't have a strong foundation in the feel/comfort of different rhythms?

This may be obvious stuff, I have no idea. When someone says "take lessons" my first question is "does this teacher's methodology work with my learning style" -- for me, this totally new learning process is almost as interesting as what i'm trying to learn how to do. almost.

i will also note, totally objectively, that i am not solid on the 1-2 things i think i can do at this point. there were multiple moments that i thought i was doing something different and honestly couldn't tell whether it was the same beat i had been playing all along or not. in case you were starting to think i had some delusion of grandeur.

i don't think there's any problem with playing along to songs before you have the basics down or that you have to do it in a specific order. the only problem would be if you're physically forcing things that you can't do yet (like tensing up to play fast for a long time), then you run the risk of hurting yourself. especially at, um, our age.

but other than that i think both methods build on each other. practicing rudiments and independence by themselves can be boring (but necessary), and playing along with songs helps your time & sense of form, and well as showing you what you want/need to learn.

also youtube can be your friend.

1) Is this a bad idea? Should I focus on getting different basic rhythms before I focus on endurance/structure?

Not at all. In fact, this is probably the best approach. When I started playing along to records, when I got to parts that were too complicated I'd try to play a simplified version of it, because it was less about learning the technical aspects and more about finding out where you/the drums fit into the song (and not stopping/losing your place).

2) If I do this, will my brain fossilize on that song if I don't have a strong foundation in the feel/comfort of different rhythms?

I doubt it, but it probably couldn't hurt to jump around to different songs, maybe keep it to a small handful.

The thing about lessons can be really valuable in terms of learning how to maximize efficiency of motion (and avoid tendonitis), but can be a bummer if the teacher really digs Toto.

Also what Jordan said.

As far as I'm concerned, when you're starting out, just steadily going "R L R L R L" to the beat of a song for the entire song is as good practice as anything. In fact even until recently (when I more or less stopped playing drums) I still did stuff like that to practice or warm up.

Learning styles: I've been learning piano too, and started out with best of intentions to learn to read music, practise scales, etc. But of course I end up doing what I always do, learn a few chords and try to understand basic structure, and noodle around from there.

I imagine I'll try something similar with drumming, once I work out what the equivalents might be.

(when I more or less stopped playing drums)

:(

i'm an attorney with a 16-month-old living in an apartment, makes it tough

i'm ok with our age, no hard feelings! i am friendly with youtube and have explored some of my options, which is partially why i bring up pedagogy. are there prevailing models i could read about? i just don't even know where to look. i know there's no "doing it wrong" or whatever, but i def don't want to hurt myself (physically) or risk future chances at improvement because i started poorly. you know, like develop a learning injury or something. you guys are all giving good advice and i thank you for the straight-talking expertise.

btw i am not playing crazy loud or fast or anything, i'm just kinda galumphing along at a mid tempo. i also think i need to do something to the snare. it sounds boomier than it should.

(and not stopping/losing your place).
happens all the time, feels like an electric shock with the no-rhythm stick

as for developing basic coordination, i feel like i am surprisingly good at that. if there's anywhere that my dance background helps me, it's recognizing the different parts of a rhythm. i've never really had any trouble "finding" the beat in my life -- reproducing it with sound? That's new to me.

i also think i need to do something to the snare. it sounds boomier than it should.

lol, does it sound like "bom bom bom" instead of "crack crack crack"? Or rather, are the wires on the bottom head loose instead of taut?

only lolling because you are bringing me back to my noob days. I think it was like three months before I actually figured out how a hi-hat clutch works (oh, the foot-pedal actually opens and closes this thing if you set it up right!)

echoing what others have said. the benefits almost come in two waves: 1) when you're still a beginner, it's good for providing motivation to play a simple beat over and over for a few minutes straight. there's no substitute for sheer repetition - the more times you play a beat, the more it becomes second nature. playing along with a song makes that sometimes arduous process more fun. probably the most important benefit, especially early on, is that playing along to a record will also train you to have a steady feel. it's not the exact same as practicing to a metronome (also important), but studio drummers stay close enough to a steady beat. unless it's the shaggs. don't play along to the shaggs! 2) eventually you'll reach a point where you can emulate fills and beats without needing to practice them for a long time. you'll just hear it, and then your hands will be able to do it. (unless you're listening to prog rock or something). when you reach that point, playing along to songs is great because they introduce new beats and rhythmic trips into your musical vocabulary.

sorry, that was to the question of the value of playing along to songs

if there's anywhere that my dance background helps me, it's recognizing the different parts of a rhythm.

I was just reading a thing about Milford Graves last night. He'd started out on timbales, and when he first sat down at a kit he had no idea what to do with his feet. Then he remembered the dance patterns he sometimes incorporated as a timbalero, and it all fell into place.

Yeah, doing things steadily and repeatedly at this stage is more important than "learning songs" (which I guess means learning all the changes in beat, where the fills are, etc) -- although doing some of that stuff is important too to keep it fun.

being able to intuitively understand a rhythm, and especially know where the "1" is, is so critical. some people just...can't. i'd almost go so far to say that it's the equivalent to being tone deaf. someone without a good sense of rhythm recognition can probably be taught to understand it a little better, but...man it's gonna be a long uphill battle!

Lechera, there should be wires like this across the bottom of the snare:

http://ps257kids.webs.com/TamaStarphonicAluminium146SnareDrum_3.jpg

attached to one side will be some kind of mechanism or switch that, when flipped, pulls the wires taut. That may be the problem. However it could also be that that mechanism needs tightening (sometimes there's a sort of knob you can turn to do this) or it could be that one or both of the heads themselves are not tight enough.

i mean, you're still thinking of course, but it's more of a higher-order abstract guidance kind of thinking - like, "what kind of feeling do i want to create next" - rather than counting subdivisions and trying to make sure you land back on the beat.

Yeah, my favorite part of this is when I find myself playing something and I realize I'm not sure what I'm actually doing -- have to slow it down and break it into components to figure out what's going on.

LL, the only advice I'd give anyone starting drums is to a.) play a lot, even (or especially) if that means doing the same things over and over; and b.) as soon as possible, find some people to play with. I took drum lessons for a few years, but almost everything I learned really came from just being in a room with other people trying to make music. You have to find people at sort of close to your own level, but I bet there are plenty of people around who are just starting to learn guitar or bass or whatever and would like to have a drummer. I mean, I love just sitting at a drumset by myself, I can entertain myself for ages. But it's really an instrument that needs other instruments around it to thrive.

although doing some of that stuff is important too to keep it fun.

yeah, having fun is so important! i used to give free lessons to a friend back when i lived in chicago, and i think that's where i really fucked up. i was all about stripping things down to the basics and learning the fundamentals, repetition, playing along to a metronome, etc. but in doing so i completely KILLED THE FUN for her! and plus it was totally hypocritical, because when i first started out i never wanted to focus on fundamentals and play a basic beat without variation for 10 minutes. i was all about doing trying to do the most massive 16th note tom fill OF ALL TIME

yes -- it sounds like bom bom bom i knew there was something wrong with it, haha. man, this is a really good exercise in good natured humility on top of everything else.

i really do thank you all for the advices and also for answering my questions. i will try to keep them on a need-to-ask basis! i'm going to proceed with my plan to learn the song i was planning on learning (not like full choreography, just basics) right after i fix the snare. good thing i can take care of that before anyone had a chance to tell me that piece of information irl!

def not ready to invite anyone into the basement yet, but will set it as a future goal!

which i achieved, btw

xpost

I think I spent my first year and a half of drumming trying to figure out why my drumset didn't sound like John Bonham on record

ZS that is what I mean about teacher-student kismet re: methodology. everyone is a different kind of learner and i have yet to really figure out what i want/need from a teacher because i'm trying to figure out what i'm like as a learner.
once i do that, i will probably try to find a teacher who is able/willing to work with me on my terms
because i am bossy, apparently

I think I spent my first year and a half of drumming trying to figure out why my drumset didn't sound like John Bonham on record

When I saw Bonham's tiny little drum kit at the RnR Hall of Fame, that mystery just got deeper.

Lechera -- by the way, to be clear, that doesn't mean anything is wrong with it. The snare is designed so you can turn it "on" or "off" for different effects. If it turns "on" when you flip the switch, there's nothing wrong.

learning to be a drum set mechanic is a big part of learning to play imo

but in doing so i completely KILLED THE FUN

A teacher of mine used to say that you don't learn to talk by learning the alphabet first. I thought that was a decent analogy.

Yeah there's actually quite a lot of shit to figure out on a drumset, e.g. how to adjust the kick pedal, getting the cymbal stands right, etc. Not to mention all the crap that constantly malfunctions on you and needs quick fixes, especially on a beginner kit.

When I saw Bonham's tiny little drum kit at the RnR Hall of Fame, that mystery just got deeper.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Friday, June 21, 2013 4:04 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I read an interview with Dave Mattacks who saw Bonham play on a tiny kit and he still inexplicably managed to get that sound.

He used a big bass drum though iirc

i am a language teacher -- this is very similar to trying to learn about the fundamentals of linguistics (and therefore why i am taking it excessively seriously but not so seriously that the fun is sapped)

so far i have had the most fun pretending that i am in a can jam, just repeating the same thing over and over and over until i feel like taking a little break, then i do that, then i go back. repeat. when i try to replicate what someone else is doing, i get a lot more of the YOU LOST IT shocks.

Why's a metronome important? I cannot cope with a click track for anything, I just can't hear it. What I do is make up a basic track on garageband and drum/play along to that.

I made a ten-minute 92bpm proto-funk thing for drumming, and recorded myself playing through it twice. It was really helpful for tempo, but there's about two usable bars on the whole thing. Every attempted fill I come off hitting the bass drum on the off-beat, then waiting a-beat-and-a-half to pick things up again.

xp Oh, he totally did; in Mattacks' anecdote, Bonham was playing on a kit much smaller than what he usually used, almost child-sized.

In re set-up, getting everything set at the right height is super-important, imo. Right meaning "right for you." It's interesting how much variation there is in that, I for some reason like everything pretty low and I've played on the kits of guys who were about the same height as me but had everything up way too high for my tastes.

ZS that is what I mean about teacher-student kismet re: methodology. everyone is a different kind of learner and i have yet to really figure out what i want/need from a teacher because i'm trying to figure out what i'm like as a learner.
once i do that, i will probably try to find a teacher who is able/willing to work with me on my terms

yeah, i totally get that, makes sense!

before you go down the lessons route, though, it might a good idea to take up Jordan's offer (or anyone else you know in town that plays drums) to just drop by and show you a few things. not a formal lesson or anything, but just a few practical tips.

the snare drum thing is one example, but there are lots of little things that are useful to know - like how to quickly adjust the space between the hi-hats, or how to tune a drum or change a drumhead, making sure you have little plastic protector guard things on your cymbal stands so that you don't slowly ruin your cymbals, how to do a flam, etc.

those kinds of things might be a relative waste of time with a tutor or an expensive one-off lesson, but can be really beneficial to a beginner!

xpost

Yeah the kick drum in the Bonham set I saw was good-sized, but whole thing was the size of your basic jazz set. Seemed inconceivable so much power could have come out of it.

Why's a metronome important? I cannot cope with a click track for anything, I just can't hear it. What I do is make up a basic track on garageband and drum/play along to that.

I made a ten-minute 92bpm proto-funk thing for drumming, and recorded myself playing through it twice. It was really helpful for tempo, but there's about two usable bars on the whole thing. Every attempted fill I come off hitting the bass drum on the off-beat, then waiting a-beat-and-a-half to pick things up again.

― Ismael Klata, Friday, June 21, 2013 4:09 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I hate metronomes. I think learning to play musically with a metronome is kind of like trying to learn to dance fluidly with someone constantly rapping you on the legs. Sometimes they're a necessary evil, but I always think it's better to practice to music if possible.

Seemed inconceivable so much power could have come out of it.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Friday, June 21, 2013 4:12 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah well it's not like you get a power multiplier from having more drums

In re set-up, getting everything set at the right height is super-important, imo. Right meaning "right for you." It's interesting how much variation there is in that, I for some reason like everything pretty low and I've played on the kits of guys who were about the same height as me but had everything up way too high for my tastes.

yeah, co-sign. i like the cymbals to be as low as possible without scraping the toms. And to be honest, i like the ride low enough so that if i REALLY hit it hard it will hit the floor tom a bit. most people seem to prefer the cymbals way up high, though, which is really inefficient (imo - everyone has their own style of course). i guess if you're setting them up really high you're not really too concerned about your efficiency, though.

http://i.imgur.com/7pQ49uC.jpg

Anton Fig's cymbal placement makes me ia.

yeah well it's not like you get a power multiplier from having more drums

Now you tell me!

http://i845.photobucket.com/albums/ab16/late8/big-drum-kit_zps2e89a836.jpg

playing along to a metronome is definitely not fun, but i still think it's worth doing for at least a minute or two each practice session. it's uncomfortable because it exposes even the best players to their weaknesses in maintaining a steady tempo. as a beginner the goal might be to just play a simple 4/4 rock beat to a metronome. it'll quickly become apparent whether you tend to rush or slow down over time. as you progress, the timing inconsistencies more commonly show themselves when playing fills.

John Bonham got his sound because he was John Bonham.

Now I want to get a drum set.

I go back and forth with the metronome thing...I can see how it would be helpful, but then I think how some of my favorite drummers always sped up ("Honky Tonk Women" is way faster at the end than at the beginning).

John Bonham got his sound because he was John Bonham.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, June 21, 2013 4:20 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and there was a lot of studio wizardry too -- 12-year-old me didn't stand much chance of reproducing the slap-back on When The Levee Breaks in my parents' basement.

I go back and forth with the metronome thing.

*rimshot*

Now I want to get a drum set.

― Elvis Telecom, Friday, June 21, 2013 3:22 PM (25 minutes ago)

Me too! My wife's cousin was the drummer in the Kudzu Kings (have no idea if they have any fame outside N. Miss.) and tried to sell me a spare kit a few years ago...should have taken him up on it.

BTW, if you look it up, no way did Bonham use small drums or cymbals. He even used 15" hats.

14" x 10" rack tom, 16" x 16" and 18" x 16" floor toms, 26" x 14" kick, and 14" x 6.5" snare drum says the internet

When I saw Bonham's tiny little drum kit at the RnR Hall of Fame, that mystery just got deeper.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Friday, June 21, 2013 4:04 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

...

xp Oh, he totally did; in Mattacks' anecdote, Bonham was playing on a kit much smaller than what he usually used, almost child-sized.

― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Friday, June 21, 2013 3:10 PM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sorry, meant to snag this one instead of the first one there:

I read an interview with Dave Mattacks who saw Bonham play on a tiny kit and he still inexplicably managed to get that sound.

― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Friday, June 21, 2013 3:07 PM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you drum nerds

I think I misread that to mean a smaller kit than Mattacks usually used

Oh, yeah, everyone said Bonham sounded like Bonham no matter what he played.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bonham#Drums

My high school had a set of amber Vistalites, always coveted those.

Basically, what we're all saying is that you should sound like John Bonham after about a week or so of practice. If you don't, then just give up.

I recommend practicing on pillows, tbh. Play along to songs, bashing to the beat. It's great, because there is no rebound, so it builds strength while you're working on your time.

Bonham was at Mattacks' house. Mattacks had a tiny kit, possibly for a child to use, and was amazed that Bonham was able to get the Bonham Sound out of it.

That is all.

yeah I was big on pillow practice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXtqfce2yQ0

keith moon and i share a birthday, so i am assuming that means that i will be great within a month or so

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcEpVF3lGVU

xpost Or dead.

(sorry)

i've already outlived him by 5 years! i think we're out of the woods there.

keith moon and i share a birthday, so i am assuming that means that i will be great within a month or so

― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Friday, June 21, 2013 6:10 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If you take amphetamines hourly from now until then, you will be.

actually I think one of the hardest things about imitating Bonham off a record is the slap back echoes -- so much of it sounds like ghost notes that you wind up playing a bunch of extra hits

I recommend practicing on pillows, tbh. Play along to songs, bashing to the beat. It's great, because there is no rebound, so it builds strength while you're working on your time.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, June 21, 2013 5:54 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was also the Dave Grohl method.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPiG7HVt5lM

i don't wanna collapse, going to stick to regular coffee as planned

btw n/a, danm -- you guys may go into the basement, jordan too
just no strangers yet

well, i don't really seem to know what i'm doing for about 14 seconds, but this is my first tiny (1 min) recording so i can remember what i've been practicing
i def need a metronome!
http://snd.sc/130Uj8C

Sweet! I might need a drummer for my NIN precover thing - what are your rates?

Not bad, seriously. Single strokes sound pretty even, although it's hard to hear through soundcloud, and your time and feel are good for a beginner.

A suggestion: try slowing that beat down a good amount. In particular because you're playing a syncopated beat with the snare on the first and fourth sixteenth notes, it would help to play it slower so that you can really tighten the snare hits and get them exactly in the right places. If you don't already know how to count out sixteenth note patterns, I can post more on that and bore you some.

i have trouble slowing down -- i just get faster and faster til i have to stop for a second (that's when i do the fills) and then i try to resume normalcy after that.
thanks for listening! i am trying to get comfortable with the idea of this and i just decided to jump in the deep end.

when i'm playing the standard 4/4 (is that what it's called y/n) rock beat i sound pretty normal i think, but this one was new for me. i don't worry that i'm going to forget that one because it's like every song ever, apparently.

questions:

do i need a smaller crash cymbal? the one i have always sounds so final.
do i have to wear shoes? i alternate between shod and unshod.

not sure if i know how to count out 16th note patterns or not. i think i have trouble integrating words and music? like when people talk through dance steps i find it really distracting.

I'd hold off on worrying about the size of the crash cymbal for now. it's something that you'll naturally develop a feel for as you go, and the kind(s) of cymbal(s) you need depends on what kind of music you're playing.

shoes? just wear whatever makes you comfortable! i usually go barefoot or with shoes, and avoid socks only.

being able to count out patterns verbally is useful, i'm sure, but i've never been able to do it that well. more important is just developing an intuitive feel for where the subdivisions are in the beat, and making sure your hits are striking directly on those subdivisions. just curious - can you read music? not notes on a scale like B flat or C sharp or whatever, but rhythms like quarter notes, sixteenth notes, half rests, etc?

"do i need a smaller crash cymbal? the one i have always sounds so final."

I <3 this question. But no, you don't "need" any cymbal. In fact I really, strongly encourage you to trust your ears and avoid any gear dudes who tell you you have to have x or y on your kit. Go hang out in Guitar Center and just hit different cymbals for half an hour and see what sounds good to you. But don't sweat nailing down the exact right gear in the beginning either, that will come gradually.

If you think of a 4/4 measure, it can be divided into sixteen sixteenth notes:

//// //// //// ////

where each slash is a sixteenth note. So in the beat you're playing, the snare hits are on the x's:

//// x//x //// x///

Learning to hear that, and to do it at a slower speed, will help the beat sound tighter and less sloppy when you play it faster. Does it make sense the way I wrote it?

You can also do it as 1-e-and-a 2-e-and-a 3-e-and-a 4-e-and-a -- that's a standard way drum teachers teach it. In that case, the snare hits would be on the bolded syllables:

1-e-and-a 2-e-and-a 3-e-and-a 4-e-and-a

this might take some time to get, don't worry if it doesn't click right away

in case you can't see the bold, it's the "2", the "a" immediately following the 2, and the "4"

i used to kind of know, but have forgotten most of the vocab and retained none of the skill
maybe that would be another thing to get from the library when i go -- they have a lot of simple instructional books

xx//xxx/ makes more sense to me than the second one, which makes my brain feel like scrambled eggs

i do not have the inclination to load up on gear, so no worries about that. was just wondering because it sounded kinda weird to me
one of my trusted chilx friends helped with the snare so that's all better too :)

maybe that would be another thing to get from the library when i go -- they have a lot of simple instructional books

yeah, i'd totally recommend it! drummers actually have it relatively easy because we don't have to learn tons of notes, scales, and keys, and we don't have to pick up a totally new system like guitarists do with tabs. but having a firm grip on the basics of notated rhythm will reaaaaaally come in handy, over and over. also, once you get just the basics down (quarter notes/rests + eighth notes/rests) you'll be able to go through exercises that teach you new rhythms.

My handy guide to cymbals: cheap cymbals sound bad, expensive "hi-tech" cymbals sound bad, expensive regular cymbals sound better, vintage cymbals sound even better, and cracked cymbals sound the best

ha, i'm with you all the way up to the cracked cymbals. well, i guess some cracked cymbals sound good...depends on the crack! but definitely don't go cheap on the cymbals. there are lots of budget lines that are tempting because they'll sell them in a package set for $300 or something and it gets you something like 2 crashes and a ride. it's a much better idea to skip out on that entirely and just buy one really nice vintage cymbal. if you take care of it, a good ride should last you forever - it's worth it! plus you'll sound really good.

yeah obv depends on the crack and the cymbal. But sometimes a crack in a vintage cymbal gives a cymbal a great character while also massively lowering the price tag.

But yeah, I think spending on cymbals is more important than spending on drums. You can take a cheap steel snare and do a lot to improve the sound, as long as the hardware is well constructed and not going to fall apart -- try different heads, different tunings, etc. And a lot of the stuff about maple vs. birch vs. whatever wood is just fashion, and what's more expensive one decade will be cheaper the next. But you can't change a cymbal.

i'm an attorney with a 16-month-old living in an apartment, makes it tough

― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Friday, June 21, 2013 2:49 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ha, i feel you, i can't practice in the house, just on a pad. so the only time i actually play drums is on a gig.

LL, the "1-e-and-uh" vocabulary that hurting mentions is pretty useful, at least if you have to communicate with someone else about a rhythm. like you can say that a given snare snare hit falls on the "uh of 2", meaning that it's on the last 16th note before the 3.

maybe it would help to say that you're playing 8th notes on the hi-hat in that beat you recorded, so those would be counted "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and". if you played twice as many notes in the same space, they would be 16th notes and you would add in the additional syllables to count them.

xp

ok that helps
otherwise it just sounds like "number noise noise noise" to me!
i think the idea of this has sunk in just enough to let me take it to the step of learning a few more technical things, if not only so i can communicate with people. that's a good motivator.

The thing about learning that stuff is that it's not just about communicating, it also opens up creativity. Because if you just hear that beat and try to approximate it without having a way of "breaking it down" so to speak, you can get stuck in a rut just imitating that beat. But if you have a system for understanding where the hits on the snare, hats, kick drum are, etc., you develop the freedom to say "Hmm, what does it sound like if I move the snare hit to THIS sixteenth note instead" -- that will come later, but it's good to build a foundation for it.

I don't think you need a metronome at all; the tempo at the end is pretty much what it is at the beginning (but don't listen to me; I can be anti-metronome sometimes).

Also, Hurting2 & ZS otm re: cymbals. It sucks that good vintage cymbals can be expensive, but yeah, they'll last forever.

I've never played unshod, never tried, never will, and I wince in pain whenever I see close-ups of Grant Hart's bare feet on his pedals in old Husker Du videos. But whatever's comfortable.

xpost to hurting
otm

although the communication part is vital too! when i listened to your recording the first thing i wanted to say was "make sure that the snare hit lands squarely on the last 16th note of the second beat in the measure, and when you get really comfortable with it, try ghosting it!" (ghosting basically means playing a particular note a lot softer than the other notes)

the communication part is vital to me if i want anyone to teach/help me beyond this initial phase, imo
just like i can't talk about sentence structure to someone who doesn't know what a verb is or how to identify one

vital not just to me, but to any learner
i just need a way to communicate with other people who do this thing

The fun thing about playing to a metronome, or click, or any song with a steady beat, is the realization that the 1-2-3-4 is always there, whether you land on it or not. Once you internalize the constant 1-2-3-4, you'll get better at hitting it head on. Like, listened to "Temptation" by New Order. There's a constant pulse of the beat, played by a drummer and machine synched up, but eventually Morris begins to deviate and play around and over the robot beat. It's a cool effect that emphasizes the relationship between human (feel) and machine (beat).

that is a good point. i downloaded a metronome app but i have yet to use it because it seems kinda confusing.

i thought of another analogy for learning the lingo that has helped me decide to at least put some effort into learning -- have you ever noticed that when people (on ilx, since that is our shared territory) talk about dialect/regional accents on ilx, they never (or VERY rarely) use IPA notation to describe sounds? instead it's just back and forth and back and forth "is it like this? like this? how about this?" when this = /ə/ and it's very simple if you just know the vocab? that's how drummers must feel when i try to explain to them what i'm doing. i want to use fewer words and communicate more effectively!

http://ipa.typeit.org/ btw

goin crazy on the cymbals like ʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃʃ

(thank you for that link btw)

that's the sound represented in the first phoneme of the word "shit"
cymbals sound more like /tʃ/ (the first phoneme of "cheese")

haha

hey now I know my phonemes I was just making a joke SHEESH

:)

When I was 10 my drum teacher used to say "Play me a roll. Now play me a bagel." It took me many lessons to realize that was a joke.

Sounds like you hit a few clams.

that's /klæmz/

/ʃiʃ/

;)

i think i might secretly love notation systems

ok so i went to the library -- because of a municipal snag that i forgot about, i couldn't go to the library where i know most of the books are. the library i could go to had two books that seemed even remotely appropriate, one of which starts off with a series of "funny stuff" that is an entire page of jokes about why drummers are hapless losers who want to "steal your girlfriend". i did not get off on a particularly great foot with the book, but so far the advice about practicing is making sense to me -- there are various kinds (fun, endurance, learning new beats/patterns, reinforcing what i already know) and the best results can arise from combining those types of practice with actual playing of music with other people. i'm getting closer to the idea of that.

so today i tried to work on the snare and it was pretty fun. i made another recording but for some reason i can never hear the bass drum (recording on my phone, lo fi in the basement like a good 21st c midwesterner). i slip up big time around 30 sec but clearly i need to work on endurance because i get antsy after like 2-3 cycles through the same pattern.

what is it, the bass player gets all the girls and the drummer smokes all the weed or something? I never actually got that one, but it's a classic bit of musician "humor."

There are good drummer jokes though.

Let me just try and think of some

http://gimp137.tripod.com/myfun.com/id18.html

Q: What do you call a drummer who doesn't wear a bra?
A: a male drummer

Lololol

I have seen half of those jokes done as viola jokes

God those are terrible jokes.

IME drummers tend to be a little dorkier/geekier than the rest of the band. Maybe something about not having to be out front vibing with the audience.

also the dark heart of truth inside corny drummer jokes is that we're afraid we're not 'real' musicians

LL you should do up the bass pedal clamp like I mentioned the other day, then you can really wail on it and you'll hear the drum!

ok
i can hear it with my ears, just not on the recording

we're afraid we're not 'real' musicians
really?! that's absurd.

there are drummers who are not real musicians, but they are not the drummers you want in your band

what are they, muppets?

i need to work on endurance because i get antsy after like 2-3 cycles through the same pattern.

Antsy like you want to go on to something else, or antsy like you feel your hands/arms/wrists tightening up ("crab claws," a bandmate of mine used to call them) ?

i think it's just that in the daily practice of playing drums, you don't deal with scales, chords, harmony, etc. so you have to make a special effort to sit down at another instrument to learn that stuff, instead of picking it up more naturally.

Antsy like you want to go on to something else
physically i have felt no ill effects from practicing whatsoever, i'm pleased to report!

rhythm is an important part of music; people who provide it are musicians imo

LL your setup and situation looks astoundingly like mine - I bought a kit for $100 from a hippie dude in Idaho who was quitting life and as I had just bought a house it seemed like the best idea ever. I have them set up in the corner of the basement. I played a lot more a couple years ago when I had friends and a shitty band, but sort of quit for a while.

I've started playing more recently and sort of want to get better to some degree. Mostly I just play along with songs on headphones, but I'm terrible at hearing / knowing when the bass drum should be hit and not good at actually playing it quickly. What other practice things should I mess around with? I know the concept of the rudiments thing but is that super important at first?

I can't think of any activity, let alone instrument, where rudimentary knowledge isn't super important at first

well obviously the drums are the most important instrument (besides voice?), and drummers are often stronger at things like rhythm, form, arrangement, feel, texture etc than other instrumentalists. but in college jazz days i still felt like the dumb guy in the room sometimes, even if no one was trying to make me feel that way.

True, but I guess I mean after I still can't quite get the three (let alone four) limbs doing the necessary things at the same time at the same rhythm, so do I really need to learn the flam paradiddle-diddle or the pataflafla at this point?

Learning the standard 40 drum rudiments is a great for developing facility, independence, and endurance. That said, too much focus/over-reliance on them can result in stunted creativity down the road (but, like, years down the road). I've seen drummers (even one accompanying Evan Parker) whose fills and phrasing were essentially just quoting a handful of the standard rudiments.

And anyway, heavyweights like Sunny Murray and Keith Moon didn't learn/study them (but other heavyweights like Andrew Cyrille and John Bonham did, so who knows).

i really don't think there's a good argument to be made for avoiding the rudiments, doing so certainly won't make you more creative. just think of them as sticking ideas, adding words to your vocabulary.

that said there's always time to check them out, you can work on one for a while and then go back later for another one. i don't think it's necessary to learn rudiments before working on basic drum set coordination and rock beats, which is sort of a different thing.

IME drummers tend to be a little dorkier/geekier than the rest of the band. Maybe something about not having to be out front vibing with the audience.

otm. Yeah Keith Moon and Ringo immediately comes to mind. Most bands I've been in the drummer was the goofy member.

The thing about drummers not being real musicians is supremely eye-rolling. Every musician should try to make an effort to learn drums. My favorite piano/bass/guitar lines are all when the piano/bass/guitar is played like a percussion instrument.

lol, not being a drummer I didn't realize that rudiments were a concrete "thing", so listen to Jordan more than me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aZPHXyGP3Y

ooh that's a good one! bookmarking.

ha, some are much more useful than others (like, some i use all the time and others i think i've never played in my life):

http://swband.wikispaces.com/file/view/The_26_Drum_Rudiments4.jpg/45465647/The_26_Drum_Rudiments4.jpg

First page of stick control:

http://www.scritube.com/files/limba/engleza/music/64_poze/image008.jpg

FWIW, I have had debates about what he means by "repeat each exercise 20 times" but I think he means repeat each whole bar phrase 20 times. That makes it take a while to get through a page let alone multiple pages, which always made me wonder a little how the book is intended to be used. Nonetheless, great exercises if you can tolerate boredom.

sorry, whole TWO bar phrase

alright, i printed that and can take it downstairs
seems worthwhile and i like really boring things sometimes

yeah, there can be a zen to it, and also sometimes I do it along with music to keep it from being deadly. Focus on having a "good stroke" and don't try to play too fast.

update: i love page 1 of that book! i taped it where i can see it and have been using it every day to get warmed up. i think i might get the rest. it's really relaxing and i feel like i'm learning by the time i get to 17-18 repetitions.

in other news, trying to read the parts of my library books about reading music, that part is pretty fun -- question: this is what my book says about the industry standard. still true? worth memorizing?

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5501/9174120845_2a1172dea3_c.jpg

Yep, still true, probably worth memorizing. Also, you may see an "o" over the hi-hat which means, oddly enough, to open it for that beat:
http://drumming.timsparlour.com/transcriptions/rs.jpg

yep - and one last fairly common thing you'll see is the accents that look like this:

>

that just means to play it louder than the other notes.

ok, then this is what i will attempt to learn
i have another book (this one http://books.google.com/books?id=Q7S68Hq5nLoC&lpg=PA46&pg=PA54#v=onepage&q&f=false) that seems like it will be fun to play with once i learn how to read.

there are so many different skills involved in learning this thing! i can play 1 song now, the whole thing. beat palette keeps growing, slowly.

thank you for the advice, folks. it really helps to know that i have a place to ask questions!

All those rudiments! I drilled like hell on those for an all-state competition once. I did ok -- I got a 97 on my long roll, felt like a drum ninja. But it was really years of playing before I realized how much I still depend on them for just basic physical skills.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0tMwlcoJmM

I don't know about drumming but Stewart Copeland seems like the coolest person alive.

Man that guy definitely needs to loosen up! Stewart otm! He rules.

He's right, but more practice also can allow you to be looser, if you practice right. Develop your wrists and you don't need to tense up your shoulders.

i.e. sometimes the tension is overcompensation

question

i just finished watching "Rob Carson SCV snare drum: rare footage from the 1970s!" video and am wondering:
are those rudiments things that all drummers can do? i understand the stick flipping is showmanship, but the rest, is that standard issue drummer toolkit?

in other words, is Rob Carson an especially good drummer or is that what is expected of all drummers?

if it's the case that all drummers can do that stuff, i definitely need a teacher!! good god.

You do not need rudiments, but rudiments will make you better, and you can do them anywhere.

I can't do all that stuff anywhere near the speeds he does it. I was never a very good rudimental drummer, and you can be a fine rock band drummer without being one.

it's so weird because i'm trying to immerse myself in all kinds of beats and drumming and little subprojects and whatnot, and i keep wavering between "wow, i could totally do what that guy is doing, like right now downstairs in the basement i must be born to do this hello destiny" and "there is no way i will ever be able to do this why do i even try because that person has magic hands and i have useless knobby pieces of trash"

this thread/reality checking is helping me equalize those two extremes. i have never been very good at realistic self-assessment in anything, why start now. sorry for the emotional tmi.

that's ok, what you also need is patience. All this stuff takes time, no matter how much or how well you practice.

i'm terrible at patience too. this is my chance to work on it! this whole experience has me feeling a bit irrationally embarrassed. nothing new.

And it's not just about learning "how" to do a thing (a triple ratamacue, a certain beat, or whatever) like it's a video game move where you press a certain button combo. There's infinite nuance to everything you play on an instrument. So you have years ahead of you during which you'll gradually get your feel tighter, your accents sharper, your sound more the way you want it, etc. I would try to keep that in mind when you get into the "whoa, I just played the same beat Keith Moon played" etc. high. Which we all get sometimes, fwiw. I mean, you may very well be "born to drum" or whatever, but that doesn't matter, because you still have to practice to realize your born-ness.

those are moments of delusion! i know full well in the cold light of history that i am not born to drum or i would have been doing it sooner. i think i'm just trying to make myself feel less shitty.
my successes so far include not giving up yet, being able to play 1 song pretty much ok from start to finish, practicing every day. i do not aim high.

I mean, I was very much NOT born to drum, fwiw. I think I completely sucked at drums from when I started in middle school to when I stopped in high school. Then I stopped and only played guitar for a few years, then I started again in college and something started to click for me. In my case I think it was partly a matter of confidence and guts. I was just too timid to really throw myself into drumming, and I learned to do that later. Even then, it was a few more years before I really felt like a solid drummer when I played with bands, and only then was I really able to come up with creative stuff, like parts that actually improved a song or gave it character.

That Rob Carson video is cool. What's good about it is it shows you how you can build from really simple stuff into things that seem complex but are still built from the same blocks.

And no, not many drummers get that good at all the stuff he's doing. He won a world snare drum title when he was 14!

And I think Hurting's suggesting something important, which is that you have to find your own way in, what feels right for you. I've played with guys who were technically much better musicians than me, but they liked having me on drums because they liked the feel of my playing. They didn't care that I wasn't doing flashy stuff every 4 or 8 bars, they were more interested in the groove.

I doubt Mo Tucker ever learned a single rudiment in her life, but she knew what she wanted drums to sound and feel like.

lol stewart copeland in that video is *exactly* like i imagined him to be

ok, i'll buy that. i am more interested in the wider field of rhythm/variety of rhythms than i am technically flashy accents. i was just wondering whether those rudiments were a ticket to entry or something, and everyone CAN do them even if they choose not to in their every day playing. i like kinda loose groovy drummers, generally speaking. like i said, i just want to sound as good as ralph molina.

I doubt Mo Tucker ever learned a single rudiment in her life, but she knew what she wanted drums to sound and feel like.

1000 times this

Ralph Molina is one of my favorite drummers, in fact "it sounded like the drumming on a Neil Young record" was probably the best compliment I ever got (although I don't always go for that style). He's a really good person to listen to carefully and repeatedly for what he DOESN'T play, imo. Notice exactly when he hits and doesn't hit the kick, snare, etc. When I try to copy his beats from memory, I almost inevitably add extra hits, because he's so much better than me at keeping things simple and essential.

Also a good drummer to practice along with, b/c lots of simple, medium tempo tunes to play with.

i love him so much! he so cool and unflashy and reliable and loose. he seems so comfortable. that poor guy stewart copeland was trying to help was so sadly uptight. i felt bad for him.

thanks y'all -- this helps. see, this is why asking questions is essential! i could have stewed about it, but i did not stew.
brb tattooing born 2 drum on my shoulder

I once heard Iggy Pop say in an interview something like "People thought we didn't have chops because we couldn't play Johnny B. Goode note for note. But we had chops too man, they were just different chops."

That's the thing about "technique" -- there are many kinds of "technique" and rudiments just represent a certain kind of technique. They were developed for military drumming and adapted to many uses in rock and jazz drumming, and they're useful inasmuch as many of the drummers you want to sound like used them as building blocks, so knowing the building blocks helps you do what they did. But what ultimately matters is building your speed, strength, time, feel, mobility on the kit, creativity, coordination, ability to vary sticking, etc. Rudiments are a tool for this, but it's not like drumming is a single language and rudiments are the exclusive vocabulary.

A "technical" drummer that comes to mind who doesn't seem to rely that much on rudiments is Ed Blackwell, who's on all those Ornette Coleman records. He probably knew them, because every drummer coming up when he did learned them. But he developed a style that relied more on african drumming, and you don't hear the typical rudimental fills in his playing as much as in most jazz drummers, and it makes him stand out in a good way.

All this might be too much to think about right now anyway. Just work on gradually developing time, feel, endurance, control, and have fun.

And the guy in the Copeland video WAS uptight! But I've found that the trick to not getting tensed up when you play is to practice in a slow and relaxed manner so that you really develop your control. Tensing up, for me, is usually the result of trying to play faster than I've really built myself up to play comfortably.

that's ok, what you also need is patience. All this stuff takes time, no matter how much or how well you practice.

― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Monday, July 1, 2013 12:12 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm terrible at patience too. this is my chance to work on it! this whole experience has me feeling a bit irrationally embarrassed. nothing new.

― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Monday, July 1, 2013 12:16 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

As the cliche goes, it's not what you play, it's what you don't play. Patience seems like a pretty good song for drummers to study, re: "not playing"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBEo5ZGGsO4

we had chops too man, they were just different chops."

Reminds me of what Neil Young says to people who tell him Crazy Horse "can't play": "Well, they can't play with you."

Stewart Copeland is less a thin guy than he is a narrow guy

re: rudiments

i was loling at djp upthread when he assumed that "the rudiments" referred to the common use of the word, aka learning the very basics of a certain skill, and he was like "of course you gotta learn the rudiments, duh!" (paraphrasing).

don't get me wrong, the rudiments can be useful just for showing you new techniques, but they were originally created for the purpose of educating orchestral snare drum players, not drumset players. it's important for concert/orchestra snare drum players to learn the rudiments because some of the same patterns will often show up in the sheet music. rudiments were always a part of the audition for all-state orchestra and stuff like that.

they're not totally useless for drummers either, by any means. learning how to play a good flam (letting one stick lightly hit the drum a barely perceivable amount of time before the louder, main strike) is a great beginner-intermediate move for a drummer, and the same for drags (same as a flam, only with two quiet hits with one hand just before the main strike of the other hand). and things like paradiddles and paradiddle-diddles can be incredibly useful and cool sounding when you learn to spread them out across multiple pieces of the kit, rather than just staying on the snare drum.

so don't totally forget about them, and maybe think about focusing on a few of them a year or so down the line. but when you're just beginning, imo the main thing is just to establish a level of comfort and familiarity, even if it's just with a single beat. something you can play smoothly and calmly while you do multiples of 27 in your head, or whatever. (phil rudd had a lot of success with his one beat!). that seems miles ahead in priority than being able to play flam paradiddles at mindbending speed.

d'oh, forgot to finish my first paragraph, but i was going to say that i was loling at djp because it makes perfect sense! but The Rudiments are not actually the rudimentary elements of drumming.

I did have a funny thing happen a few years ago. I ran into a guy I knew at a bar, and he was talking to this other guy who was a saxophone player. My friend somewhat exaggeratingly introduced me as "a drummer," and the saxophone player goes, "Oh, really? Lemme hear a double paradiddle." I rapped a few out with my hands on the table and the sax player was like, "Okay, you pass."

This was literally the only time since high school band that anyone has asked me for a rudiment.

(It gave me an idea for a scene in some movie where a guy's trying to sneak out of Nazi Germany as a member of a jazz band, and the Nazi border guard starts drilling him on rudiments and the guy's all nervous and sweaty because he's not really a drummer ...)

The Sound of Torture: the True Story of the Von Trapp Family's failed performance

"Das is nicht eine flamadiddle!"

so long, farewell
Auf Weider-tegen? ...Weider-tehen? ...Weidersehen! Auf Weidersehen!

goooooooodbyeeeeeeeee (gun shots)

The Flambusters

When you play triplets, make sure to say "Pine-ap-ple Pine-ap-ple Pine-ap-ple"

i'm left handed!
i also tried the hand crossover and prefer to just use lefty for hi hat
also my left leg seems to be completely useless

― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Sunday, June 16, 2013 8:15 AM (2 weeks ago)

the one downside of having things set up the way you do as a left-handed person, is that you would be using your weaker hand on the ride cymbal, which is a challenge if you want to play jazz or a thrash beat, where you use the ride cymbal instead of the hi-hat (primarily because it is louder). And you are using your weaker foot on the kick drum, which is usually better to use your dominant foot to do. However, a number of left handed drummers do what you are doing, in that they just play a kit set up for a right handed person, but I am not one of them. It is one of the beauties of the drum set in that it is modular, and you can set it up to fit your body.

although the upside payoff of that in the long run is greater ambidexterity on the kit. I had a teacher who told me I should also learn to play left handed, but it just seemed like too much to do.

i've always developed a sort of ambidexterity over the years out of necessity -- scissors, bowling, i use my right hand. if i played more sports i would prob try right handed first. my right leg is totally fine on the kick drum (bass drum?) it's just that the left leg isn't used to actually doing anything so it's kinda spastic.

i think i'm ok with the setup so far. i played for my parents last night and they couldn't stop laughing with mirth, it was funny.

right now they are relaxing (that's why i am posting to this thread)

you should crash the cymbal as loudly as you can while they're relaxing! this is 2013, there's no time to relax!!

it's easy enough to move the ride over to the left side.

i have a weird history with left/right stuff. i'm lefty but learned to play right-handed from watching people (and because my first teacher didn't set me straight). ~12 years later, i finally accepted that my right hand is just never going to be able to do everything i want it to do, like keep up 16th notes at a fast tempo, using finger control in a relaxed way. so i started to re-learn my coordination, this time playing lefty on the same righty kit, and now i go back and forth depending on what's called for. i still feel more comfortable playing right-handed, but for any uptempo rock thing or 'funky drummer'-type beats i switch.

even aside from that though, i feel like i've built my whole style around my limitations. also these days i'm only trying to play in musical situations where i know i can sound good and help the music. i'm not trying to play, like, punk or metal any more, where i would both be bored and probably sound terrible.

jordan do you play mostly trad or match grip?

trad for jazz, otherwise matched.

So I recorded myself playing my track for the NIN precover album. Had a listen back and it's laughable - bass pedal all over the place, can't keep a consistent sound on the hi-hat for more than a couple of bars, keeps threatening to slip out of time (but doesn't quite, I was disciplined with the headphones). Etc.

But the thing is, I've just listened to it added to the track and suddenly it's nowhere near as bad. In fact, with a bit of cleaning up and a bit of looping it might even be usable. Wtf, is this normal? It's not going to get a room dancing or anything, but as long as you're keeping time, you can get away with a multitude of sins?

isolated studio drum tracks definitely tend to sound bad ime -- even the bonham isos, which are incredible, sound a little sloppier than the finished product

it's kind of the musical equivalent of the unretouched photo

Almost every isolated track I've ever heard has sounded like clam city, no matter how awesome the end result.

That's great news for all of us!

it's kind of the musical equivalent of the unretouched photo

http://youtu.be/-jkMeI1Pl1M

ok, there are exceptions

it has been a week!
things i have determined that will need help from a teacher in order for me to understand them:

reading music (i used to be able to do this, but it was always pretty belabored)
everything else, basically (i feel stalled in my progress because of the above)
so, the search has begun.

in other news, i am also trying to remember how garage band works because i have enjoyed making stupid multilayered tracks in the past and even if no one else likes them, it's fun to know that i've done that.

have you made progress with your left foot problem?

reading music (i used to be able to do this, but it was always pretty belabored)

A teacher of mine gave me some great advice about this: try to view/read the music as phrases rather than focusing on individual notes or groupings of notes. The language will quickly reveal itself.

it's probably going to take you a long time to be able to read music for drums with any proficiency so I wouldn't sweat that too much. It's kind of like learning to read a language.

reading music for drums is way easier than for any other instrument - it is actually pretty easy. I am confident that you will pick it up pretty quickly.

Reading music for drums is a bit like reading guitar tabs.

I guess I'm more thinking sight-reading

Phil Collins made up his own notation and has never learned the proper way

guitar tabs IMO are MUCH more intuitive than the bits of drum music I've seen, which frankly make me question my grasp of music

There's really no logic to writing drum parts out on a staff except to make drummers feel more like they're playing a "real" instrument

there's a compelling reason to use measures, at least (I do agree that the bar concept has no real place in the realm of the drum kit)

It's kind of like learning to read a language.
i know, that's why i need help! i need someone to walk me through it a few times, so i know what it looks/feels like. i'm the kind of student who asks a lot of questions (not a surprise, i guess) and if there's no one to ask i quickly feel lost/incapable.

i have made a little bit of progress with left foot. both feet are actually getting better, tbh. i was just fiddling around today and found myself playing what sounded like "panic" or "metal guru" -- what's that beat called? is there some sort of online database where i can hear snippets of familiar drum sounds/patterns/beats and learn what they're called?

i'm really looking forward to taking lessons now. aside from finding a teacher willing to work with adult beginners, is there anything else i should know about finding someone to work with?

the logic to writing drum parts out on a staff is so that it makes composing for a group easier, because you can use the same paper/notation software and have everything lined up on the page.

Reading and sight-reading drum parts is easy because you don't have to worry about pitches, it is just "which thing do I hit and when" (and to some extent "how" but ...)

Just remember: the snare is where "c" is on the treble clef. It is the center of the kit.

reading music shouldn't stop you from progressing. it might help you understand the relationships between different rhythms in a systematic way, if that's how you learn, or it might not. it never really helped me - i had to do the reverse, figure out how the rhythms i already knew (or had learned by ear) were represented on the page.

many xps

and what Jordan says might be a good step to learning. It definitely helped me to write stuff out that I knew or that I wanted to play.

the "Panic"/"Metal Guru" rhythm would be a shuffle rhythm

here is a video I found 40 seconds ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh9d3gpT-8I

well, there's kind of at least two different ways to look at "reading music" for drums. on one hand, there's the traditional ability to sight-read: you can pick up a music book you've never seen before and just play the music that's on the page. developing that ability takes time. like others have said, it's like learning a new language.

but there's also the more granular ability to look at an individual rhythm and be able to figure out what it means. like, you might not be able to just look at it and play it instantaneously, but you can look at a set of notes and (maybe after studying it for a few seconds, at first) understand that a certain group of 16th notes are played twice as fast as another group of 8th notes, etc. that's a more basic ability that can be developed much more quickly and it's very useful as you start out. the "learning another analogy" might be that while you can't sightread a full paragraph of Spanish and understand what it means, you can look at basic words and sound them out phonetically.

just reread all of that and i'm pretty sure that none of it makes sense, sorry!

Have you started trying to play just one line, on say, the snare, just so you can master the rhythmic notation? I think that's how I went about it. And once that was easy, I started reading/writing stuff for the whole kit.

i'm extremely systematic when it comes to learning languages, so i understand about chunking phrases and whatnot -- that makes sense to me. but i'm also an auditory learner, so it would help to have someone model and then show me the parts. like i need to have a human there saying "listen to this, then look at this"

xp re shuffle beat oh i can totally do that! what i've been trying to do is to go from 1 -2- 3 on bass drum and snare until i can play all variations/combinations and alternate between them.
like boomp ch ch boomp ch ch boomp ch ch
as well as boomp boomp ch ch boomp boomp ch ch

this is the progress i've made. when i started i could only do one bass drum boomp
now i can easily move between 1 and 2 with a fixed pattern

as far as mastering something on the snare, i have been trying to work on establishing patterns and remembering them. that's about where i'm at atm.

i have no idea what i'm doing

3 bass drum boomps kind of makes my brain fall apart though :(

are you very familiar with time subdivisions? whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, sixteenth notes, dotted notes, triplets, etc

oh and eighth notes. obviously. and all the other fractional powers of two.

moderately
i know what they are but i have never used them -- like, i can identify the difference and define them, but have never found myself with the opportunity to put this knowledge to use. i haven't played an instrument regularly since i was...12? sad, i know.

i played the piano and clarinet as a kid though. and tons and tons of dance classes. but that's it, really.

a lot of reading/writing music is math. I have been trying to come up with linguistic parallels for learning to play written drum music, and not coming up with any good ones. And I think a lot of that has to do with the aspect that is mathematical.

ugh that is why i need help
i have dedicated a portion of tomorrow to sending emails and looking for someone to help me. if anyone can recommend a patient person in chicago who would be willing to deal with me, webmail works!

A simple exercise for learning the various notes would be this:

Use a metronome or metronome computer/phone app -- use headphones if you have trouble hearing/feeling the pulse

Start at a slow speed - like 80

Keep a 1 - 2 -3 -4 beat with the kick drum (to the tones of the metronome)

Then with the snare:

Do 8 of each of these:
1 - 2 - 3- 4 (quarter notes)
1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and (eighth notes)
1 e and a 2 e and a 3 e and a 4 e and a (16th notes)

like i never could have learned about phonology without a teacher, but since i had someone to teach me i can use IPA and talk about phonemes and syllable structure and whatnot.
just like knowing how a language works and using it are two separate skills, i need someone to help me with the former so i can practice the latter.

i am a-ok with what you just described, fortunately! i do that to get started and put myself ~in the mood~ because it's easy and i know i can do it.

i'm not sure if i'm over- or underestimating my abilities at this point. i need an assessment or a placement test. (this is so analogous to my job that it kills me tbh)

are you very familiar with time subdivisions?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu9Ycq64Gy4

conform or be cast out! yes, i know that.

La Lech: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature

this will be very helpful to you, I think

this too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Note_value

nb you will never see this ever

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Longa.gif

unless you're hanging out in my tree house. that is the official flag of the burgeoning nation of the tree rebellion

ok, after listening to those wikipedia time signature samples, i am doing ok with simple and compound. i can do those. maybe not reliably for 10 min straight, but i can reproduce those patterns pretty easily i think?

maybe what i should do is practice identifying them and then playing them so i can talk about this more coherently

unless you're hanging out in my tree house. that is the official flag of the burgeoning nation of the tree rebellion

posts that put a smile on my face

http://knoxville.craigslist.org/muc/3926515417.html

poll please

no tank tops just seems tyrannical

also no drinking any beverage onstage

i've been to two different drum teachers and they both used this book
http://www.scribd.com/doc/49158857/A-FUNKY-PRIMER

I hate this book! but it must be good or fundamental or something.

xp I think my favorite is "No sheet music or music STANDS" -- just the utter contempt conveyed by the capital letters there.

Dude played with Pablo Cruise (known to fans simply as "the 'Cruise") -- I wouldn't question him.

xp

'no drum mics' - ever?

'no drum heroes' - good title for my autobiography

We could be drum heroes, just for one day.

i...i would wear shorts
and you...you would be my onstage beverage

xp Philip - never seen that book! I got recommended "syncopation for the modern drummer"

I used this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Techniques-Modern-Drummer-Independence/dp/0757995403/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1373575960&sr=8-2&keywords=Jim+Chapin

It was a mindfuck, but an incredibly helpful and valuable one.

when I felt the exercises in the syncopation book were too simple, I would try doing them with my feet.

oh yeah the syncopation book was the other required text. i hated that, too! i guess i just hate practicing.

aggh i just emailed the person i want to be my teacher
hopefully i don't sound like a boob
i have been suffering through some ridiculous and powerful fits of self-doubt about this endeavor and the only way to proceed is to force myself to move forward
eek

in the meantime, i have been working on endurance. it's my favorite of the types of practicing, i think.

ah yes, the chapin book. I always found it confusing whether those dotted eighth - sixteenth patterns were supposed to be played straight or like "swing" notes.

I haven't used the Chapin book, but they should be played straight, right - ONE-e-and-UH TWO - rather than swung. Unless the passage is marked "swing" or "shuffle", I always assume it's straight.

Then again, it's been a few years since I regularly read sheet music, so maybe I'm missing something.

I would tend to agree, but it's just weird to start out a book with an exercise like this:

http://www.drummerworld.com/Drumclinic/pics/jimchapin1a.jpg

(I mean I think that's actually several pages in, but it starts with exercises with that top pattern in the right hand)

i always read those as swung, because it seems like it's clearly representing a jazz swing pattern in the right hand and giving you left hand patterns to practice against it.

Right...BUT, then why does he also have pages that use a similar pattern built on triplets?

One of my drum teachers told me this question was "controversial" among drummers.

A teacher of mine who had been active in New York the 60s said that the Chapin book originally had the right-hand figures as quarter note - two eighth notes. Drummers were reading them literally -- not swinging them -- and suddenly there was an influx of decidedly non-swinging drummers in NYC.

(dunno how true that is, because any drummer playing straight eighths like that probably wouldn't get hired, but my teacher swore it happened)

please don't feel self-doubty about drumming! I have to believe that hitting things with sticks is the last refuge of unselfconscious fun.

i'm working on it. admitting it is part of defusing its power, i guess. i just have to remind myself that the shame of giving up now (this is not an option tbh) is way more than the discomfort of proceeding as if this were a totally logical endeavor. it's not that everyone hasn't been totally supportive, i just am hard on myself. surprise.

I'm sure I've posted this on drumming threads before, but I find the whole what-is-swing question really fascinating.

http://www.acoustics.org/press/137th/friberg.html

that is interesting. I'd like to see it with a wider range of drummers -- tony williams and jack dejohnette are both drummers who swing toward the straight side, especially at higher tempos

i have a teacher! and scheduled lessons!
tbh i am terrified but it's only 4 weeks, and i'm feeling optimistic.

do you want to set up a time to play together after your lessons?

i guess i could just email you

yes i do! i have 4 weeks starting next friday. i was gonna wait to email you until i figured out how the lessons were going but it's def on the horizon, is what i'm saying.
no idea why this feels like such a big deal to me, but it does.

that is interesting. I'd like to see it with a wider range of drummers -- tony williams and jack dejohnette are both drummers who swing toward the straight side, especially at higher tempos

A pretty good sax player told me he thinks how you accent is more important to making something "swing" than the exact calibration of your eighth notes.

Yeah, exactly.

Also been hearing recently that where you end the note is as important to the feel as where you start it. Which may be obvious to some but...

definitely! And since all drum notes are stacatto by default, it can also be influenced by what kind of drums and cymbals you use, how you tune/felt them, etc.

ok, i'm fully teachered up. my appointments have been made and i found my online supplement and i feel like i sort of have a plan.
so...how long did i last all by myself...let's see: June 15 was the day they came home, so about a month in so far. not bad!

that's cool! i only had two lessons, and they were both severely compromised by my tendency to apologize for everything. *flubs a fill* "Sorry!!" *flubs another fill* "Sorrry!!"

later on i gave lessons to other people, and it was reaaaaaally annoying when they apologized all the time! i felt bad for my previous apologetic behavior.

i am riiiiiiiiiiill nervous about being annoying to my teacher, esp since i am a teacher and i know how deeply irritating people can be even when their intentions are 100% good-hearted and real.
this is such a weird experience in so many ways. i guess that's part of the fun.

you seem a little bit nervous in an endearing way but it's hard to imagine that you would be irritating to anyone

i think the main thing to know is that it's ok and expected to mess up a bunch when you're first starting out. the only thing that fixes that is a bunch of practice. but the teacher can probably help out with a bunch of small technical things that will really help you out. also, if you're anything like, just knowing that you have an appointment is a huge motivator!

most of the time i'm ok, but i am def nervous and that really brings out the best (worst) in me.

but i have ideas and i'm bringing a notebook and preparing a little "these are the things i can currently do" routine so i can be as efficient and businesslike as possible. i've only got 30 min and i have a lot i want to share/ask regarding how i proceed with these tiny little 30 min lessons. 30 min is like a sneeze on my teaching clock. my classes are 3 hrs 20 min long!

in sum: i need to learn to control my jibjab.

one that thing drum teachers appreciate is when you demonstrate your loudest, longest cymbal roll as soon as they walk into the room, before they say anything!

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSCRASH!

"i am la lechera"

lololol
will do

Also, do a rimshot whenever your teacher finishes a sentence.

the whole situation is so nerve-inducing that i really might just try one of these strategies to break the ice

you could be manic pixie drum girl

also look what i can kind of approximately play now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg1PpEDfg_8

maybe i should play this as entrance music for my teacher and then bow to him before introducing myself

what i would really like is to learn how to be cool
like calm and cool and normal

(not in general, just in these nervous situations)

Let this woman be your inspiration, LL: http://gawker.com/mystery-grandma-stuns-drum-shop-staff-with-killer-skin-836880396

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRhoHN8x_00

she is extremely cool

nice touch! And I like the sound of that kit.

it might be cool to develop an experimental "one inch punch" kind of technique - you hold the stick one inch above the snare drum, firmly but calm, close your eyes, and build your qi power up to and then past its limit. then you lay into the drum with the accumulated weight of the universe. and of course, bow to the instructor.

always yell "KIA!" whenever you strike the drum.

i should get back into teaching, i miss it!

that's how i feel about being a student tbh! i'm always teaching other people and i look forward to learning something from someone else.

first lesson is on friday! i'm trying to figure out where i stand on a number of issues: endurance, repertoire, feel, ANXIETY, etc.

endurance for playing the same beat with breaks and no fatal screwups: 3:34
not awful but it felt like forever! i think it will be more fun to play longer when there are other people here, no? i mean, is that how it works?

ALSO i REALLY enjoyed seeing YLT perform Blue Line Swinger over the weekend -- I could hear things about the drums/structure of the song that I never would have heard before starting this and I have listened to that song like bazumpteen times since it was released. It was pretty cool to realize how much I've learned already, speaking of learning.

sorry for the constant self-affirmation, it's one of those things that i feel i have to do in order to hold myself accountable to above.

BLUE LINE SWINGER

How's the 'no apologising' going?

poorly

i'm getting a little better though, if you can believe that

Love "Blue Line Swinger." Jealous you got to see them do that!

endurance for playing the same beat with breaks and no fatal screwups: 3:34

Woo-hoo!

not awful but it felt like forever! i think it will be more fun to play longer when there are other people here, no? i mean, is that how it works?

I think endurance is helped by playing with others in that you stop consciously thinking about endurance, to a degree (and fun is a huge part of that).

ok in the interest of showing progress and not apologizing, here's this xposted from "what do you sound like" thread on ilm. i posted it there because it was as much about figuring out stupid technical shit that 12 year olds can do on garageband as it was the little tiny drum loop, but it's my best one so far. (you may hear more of what i sound like than you bargained for, but here it is anyway):

i'm feeling bold, so i'm just gonna post this. this is just a practice track with two practices practice spliced together for practice, but it's the first thing i've ever put together that sounds even remotely like i did it intentionally (i totally didn't, but it almost sounds like i did!)
eek
http://snd.sc/172zPsW

― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Thursday, July 25, 2013 1:47 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

i mean IMM not ILM

i love been L-ing M for waaaaaaay longer than i have been M-ing it!

That is so cool

I'm on the train to my lesson and I'm trying reeeeeally hard to distract myself so I don't fall into nervous thinking pattern and/or prescript the whole thing in my head before it even starts. Will report back on my way home.

Remember to yell KIA!!! and u will do great!

fear is the mind killer

I got here way too early and walked around the neighborhood to relax and it's awful (makeup designer clothing babies froyo) so now I'm armed with the confidence of being cooler than this neighborhood. I'll be ok. No fear. No apologizing. No crying. No babbling. Deep breathing.

Are there toned yoga bitches y/n

There were tons of them! The whole hood is made for them like an amusement park.

Good news!! I did it! And I even got some extra time because he felt like we were on a roll. Bad news is that I've been playing backwards. Good news is that he said I've got a good sense of rhythm/coordination and good ideas.

Overall: good. My prepared speeches came in handy too!!

did their toned buttocks reverberate with the resounding report of your ratamacue?

What do you mean "backwards"?

did he tell you you should be playing kick drum with your left foot?

I was playing the hi hat with lefty and i guess i should have been using crossover righty. He's left handed too. I just need to get used to it. I think it'll be ok.

Also he told me I should be playing the bass drum with my elbow.

J/k

God I feel so much better knowing that the first lesson is over.

xp - as a left-handed person, that just seems silly. I dunno. Crossing over isn't ideal, but crossing over with your weaker hand? For a while I tried playing hi-hat without crossing over with my right (weaker) hand, and it was ok, though the challenge was that the patterns involved leading with the hi-hat and following w/the snare, which is easier when you are leading/playing on the beat with the stronger side of your body.

Unless you aren't doing much with the hi-hat? Though it sounds like what you want to play is standard rock beats, in which case that seems like setting yourself up for a major handicap.

I trust him - I might not be explaining it properly.

are you playing the kick drum with your left foot and the hi-hat with your right foot, or vice versa?

LL is playing a right-handed kit iirc. crossing over gives you more dexterity.

I'm playing normal! My hands were screwed up, not my feet.

i mean, maybe he's teaching you play a kit set up for a right-handed person in a standard manner

i learned to play a kit set up for a left-handed person, as I am a left-handed person.

Weird, I never thought of handedness as being an issue with drums. You have to use both hands anyway. One shouldn't be weaker than the other really. And righties are typically playing the snare with their left hand, so that's theoretically "backwards" anyway isn't it?

the strength of learning to play right-handed is that you'll be able to share someone else's kit without moving anything around.

I can't imagine setting up the drums backwards. That would mean you could never use somebody else's kit, use one at a rehearsal space, try out drums in a drum shop, etc. without moving everything around.
xp

nb I am not a drummer, I just know things.

I never use someone else's kit without moving at least some things around.

I mean assuming a gig or a rehearsal anyway.

I mean it's kind of crazy not to, it's like trying to ride the bike of a person 8 inches taller than you without lowering the seat.

the whole point of crossing your right hand over is that you can keep your left hand on the snare while the right hand moves around the kit. so you can play the same pattern on hats, ride, floor tom, etc. and it will feel the same. you can't really do the opposite and cross your left hand over to the floor tom while playing the snare with your right hand!

. And righties are typically playing the snare with their left hand, so that's theoretically "backwards" anyway isn't it?

Not backwards! If you look at the common patterns in rock and jazz, the hand doing most of the work keeping the beat is the stronger hand: the ride cymbal in the case of jazz, and crossing over to play hi-hat in rock.

Drums were my third instrument, after piano and bass, and the beauty of drums for me, were that drums are modular. I would not have a handicap for not being tall, or having small hands, or being a lefty. So, when left-handed people learn to play right-handed, it makes me a little angry, like why not cater to your own body as opposed to trying to conform to the other 90% or whatever?

moving things around is nbd but moving everything into a completely backwards kit is pretty crazy, no?
xp

I mean it's kind of crazy not to, it's like trying to ride the bike of a person 8 inches taller than you without lowering the seat.

― PJ. Turquoise dealer. Chatroulette addict. Andersonville. (Hurting 2),

EXACTLY!!!

are we talking a right handed or left handed bike?

I don't think I've ever seen a drummer with their kit set up backwards. It would be like having a custom piano set up backwards. Just practice so that one of your hands is not stronger than the other!

I can't imagine setting up the drums backwards. That would mean you could never use somebody else's kit, use one at a rehearsal space, try out drums in a drum shop, etc. without moving everything around.

I'm not saying you shouldn't learn to use a righty kit. I will play it that way sometimes if I am using someone else's and it's just an informal jam or chaotic improv gig. My teacher was a right-handed person and he would entertain himself trying to play left-handed. He also had us work on doing paradiddles with the feet, because, hey, why not?

I just feel like it's easier and more self-esteem boosting to learn in a way that is easier on your body, and then work on limb independence a lot so that you could play a backwards kit or what have you

I don't see what's so hard about switching it up unless you're using some kind of 30-roto-tom monster kit. Put the hi-hat where the floor tom is and vice versa, maybe switch the ride and the crash if that makes you more comfortable, and switch toms 1 and 2.

sorry I mean the snare where the floor tom is and the hi-hat on the other side. It's maybe like 5 minutes of work.

It isn't that hard really! I've done it a bunch! You just have to be efficient about it. There are people that spend even longer re-tuning and adjusting little things on someone else's kit without moving stuff around.

Drums just seem so awkward and unnatural anyway when you first start out. It never occurred to me that there would be a particular way of doing it that would be easier on your body depending on if you're right or left handed. It just seems arbitrary.

he whole point of crossing your right hand over is that you can keep your left hand on the snare while the right hand moves around the kit. so you can play the same pattern on hats, ride, floor tom, etc. and it will feel the same. you can't really do the opposite and cross your left hand over to the floor tom while playing the snare with your right hand!

― wk, Friday, July 26, 2013 6:51 PM

this. this. this. not the other things that people are talking about.

(although the thing about being able to jump onto another person's kit without reversing everything is a nice bonus)

It never occurred to me that there would be a particular way of doing it that would be easier on your body depending on if you're right or left handed. It just seems arbitrary.

A drum kit is not a piano! It consists of a bunch of pieces that you can assemble however you want!

the only exception is double-bass pedals -- but left-handed double-bass pedals are mass-produced and available.

maybe my right hand isn't very dominant or something. I'm trying playing open handed and playing backwards air drums and there's not a huge difference. but trying to play the kick with my left foot would definitely throw me off.

the biggest difference I notice is when I am either playing fast or playing a fairly complex pattern.

I'm left handed and I've always been suspicious of the "teach left handers to play right handed" thing. I know I could never do it. I play open-handed, with the hi hat squished in awkwardly as far over to the right behind the snare as I can get it without the snare getting completely in the way of my left foot.

although tbh I do always fantasize about there being a better way, like I wish I had one of those wire-driven hi hats so I could separate the pedal from the hats

my drum teacher had one of those! It's a similar mechanism to a bicycle brake iirc

The downside of being left handed and playing open is that you end up being far more familiar with the work of Carter Beauford than you might have liked, haha.

do you use trad or matched grip, Dan?

matched because I am a plebe

you can't really do the opposite and cross your left hand over to the floor tom while playing the snare with your right hand!
this is what i was doing and it was really weird but i just kept doing it

also pretty much ignoring everything that runs opposite to what my teacher says from this point forward -- it's really good to have an irl point person whose job it is to help me. i'm not used to requiring that sort of help, but i'm appreciating it atm.

Whatshisname from Faith No More plays hats/ride with his left hand and set up on his left w/ the rest of he

Shit sorry, phone post...

Anyway his kit is set up pretty standard otherwise iirc. I think followong the teacher's example is good but eventually you'll probably find something to adapt to your own preference.

speaking of help, i'd like to thank everyone itt for helping me get up to speed and go to my first lesson with a better idea of what i was talking about than my teacher expected. it's always unusually pleasing to me to know more (about anything) than people expect me to know,

ok there is a lot of misinformation on this thread right now. what i want to stress is, LL, if he wants you to play right-hand lead, DO NOT DO IT. i don't want to stress you out by contradicting your teacher, but this is what i was talking about upthread. i'm a lefty who was taught to play righty and i regret it to this day. at least for me, my right hand will never have the speed and endurance that my right hand does no matter how much i practice, so i had to teach myself to switch to left-hand lead for certain things after playing drums for 10+ years. i think i'd be a better drummer today if i just learned how to play left-handed in the first place, so i have a lot of passionate ~opinions~ about this.

you can't really do the opposite and cross your left hand over to the floor tom while playing the snare with your right hand!

sure you can, it's a little awkward but nbd. it's not a good enough reason to decide to lead with your weak hand! riding on the floor tom is much less common than riding on the hi-hat or ride cymbal, and if you do it a lot, you can always choose to add a floor tom on the left side or a snare on the right side.

ok, i'll talk to him about it! he's a reasonable person. i'll see how my practicing goes this week and if i just feel like it's wrong, i'll know. i think?
i understand that you don't want me to make a fatal mistake and also are not intentionally trying to stress me out. i am definitely stressed out about this enough as it is! obvs.

and this isn't the point either (the point is that you should lead with your strong hand, because you'll need to play many more notes on the hi-hat/ride with that hand), but you can just as easily argue that leading with your left hand on a righty kit opens up the toms to your hand hand.

here's some lefty swag for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnd7pAAEywo&feature=player_detailpage&t=108

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8eTS2EFoDw&feature=player_detailpage&t=108

(ignore/embrace the smooth vibes)

A drum kit is not a piano! It consists of a bunch of pieces that you can assemble however you want!

otm, let's not act like the drum kit was designed to be played in any particularly optimal way, it's an unholy conglomeration of percussion instruments meant to fit the musical needs of the moment/person.

http://kermitvonmunster.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/1930_slingerland_trap_kit.jpg

UPDATE

1) I have been practicing my paradiddles and moving around the kit. That's pretty fun and I totally see the value of warming up. This part is repetitive, but also meditative. I look forward to introducing new patterns and alternating with old ones. I can kinda see how this works now!!

2) In addition to that I am practicing one song so that by Friday I will be able to go through the whole thing without major screwups. Getting there! I have been recording every day but only posted day 1 and day 4 on soundcloud because the other two days were dull. Actually, they are all dull but I want to have something to look back at and laugh in a year. It's my Flowers for Algernon sound journal I guess.

3) The righty/lefty experiment is going strangely well, I think? I have been playing the song with my right hand on the cymbal and left hand on snare (crossed over) and now after doing it enough times (so many times!) I feel pretty much the same both ways. I'll see how it effects things when shit gets more complicated. Right now it is def not complicated at all.

That's all for now until Friday. Overall I am pleased with my progress from the beginning of the summer, when I had no drums. Now I have drums and can (+/-) play 7/8 of an actual song, with the parts counted out and everything! Not sure I got the end part right tbh but who cares. The other good news is that I am really enjoying it, so even if I am not blowing the world up with my skills I am definitely feeling positive about the experience (this is essential to continuing to try to improve, ime).

the end

otm, let's not act like the drum kit was designed to be played in any particularly optimal way, it's an unholy conglomeration of percussion instruments meant to fit the musical needs of the moment/person.

Yup, in fact I like to remind myself that its roots are basically as a kind of gag/sound efx rig for vaudeville, so the idea that there's a single, formal way a kit should be set up is laughable. If anything, drummers are lucky to have an instrument so easy to customize.

i agree with that and hope to someday know how i want to customize my setup
it's fun to play an instrument with no regard for orthodoxy

Do you recall I ventured that my recordings might be useable? Well I've tried my best and ... they're not. Fortunately I had the foresight to record some isolates on each piece of kit, so I can sample these and put together a live track of sorts.

It's absolutely fascinating breaking it down to this extent though. I can understand the degree of control you need to play properly now, precision in timing and touch. With me, every hit is different - I get all pleased when I find a few bars where neither tempo nor volume vary much, but that's sadly rare. Also my touch is so heavy, I realise - it's like divers at the Olympics, you want a splashless impact in a tight circle, not the belly flop I've been favouring.

man, i hear that
kinda depends on what you're looking for in terms of style though, right? isn't there room for all kinds of players, olympic divers and cannonball jumpers alike?

this is what i have been telling myself at least

otm, let's not act like the drum kit was designed to be played in any particularly optimal way, it's an unholy conglomeration of percussion instruments meant to fit the musical needs of the moment/person.

Yup, in fact I like to remind myself that its roots are basically as a kind of gag/sound efx rig for vaudeville, so the idea that there's a single, formal way a kit should be set up is laughable. If anything, drummers are lucky to have an instrument so easy to customize.

Yeah, I agree, but that's exactly why it's hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that there's a right-handed or left-handed way to play the drums. It all seems arbitrary and you end up using both hands anyway. It would be ridiculous to say that everyone should always have the hi-hat on the left. But I think it's equally ridiculous to assume that you should always play the hi-hats with your dominant hand. Or that you should even play them at all!

I think it's equally ridiculous to assume that you should always play the hi-hats with your dominant hand. Or that you should even play them at all!

It depends on what you want to play, or be able to play. I know drummers who only use the hi-hat as a cymbal and never use the foot pedal, which I think is a waste, personally, because the hi-hat is such an interesting and versatile instrument. But if you want to play a standard rock back beat or the punk-rock/hardcore "polka beat" then using the weak hand on the hi-hat is a handicap for being able to play your best.

i agree with that and hope to someday know how i want to customize my setup
it's fun to play an instrument with no regard for orthodoxy

― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Wednesday, July 31, 2013 5:51 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A teacher of mine, who was a trumpeter/composer, said, "I'm stuck with the trumpet. I can't change its design. But you drummers, you can have anything in front of you...and you all have the same shit."

So I replaced my snare drum with a tympani, got rid of my ride cymbal, added a second hi-hat (top cymbal a 6" pingy thing, bottom cymbal a 6" Icebell), and replaced my toms with rototoms.

icebells are rad!

looking forward to my lesson today! last week's nerves are p much gone. that feels good!

john blackwell's solution playing left hand lead on a righty kit is to only cross over when he hits the snare with his left hand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxmbuVC5z_4

or not, if he wants to save his right hand for the toms (and then go right hand lead when he's playing the ride):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiLGFYJfEC4

so yeah, you can do whatever you want, as long as you can play what you want to play. and if you want to play some form of western pop music, then it's likely that there will be one hand 'riding'/keeping time and the other hand playing backbeats/accents.

i wonder if ergonomics people would make good drum teachers

The number of times I apologized today is so astronomical that there's no point even trying to count that high. I was a mess! My eyes started leaking. By the end everything was ok but it only took 2 lessons for a minor meltdown (I didn't require a trip to the bathroom).
I don't even know where the bathroom is.

Anyway, I learned the right way to play the song I was practicing and will keep at it. This is part of the process, at least it is for me :-/

If you got upset, then it matters, keep at it. I never had lessons for bass or guitar, I self taught by playing along to songs I liked. I found out what pressure was when I played my first gig and couldn't really hear myself that well, it was awful, it was like every school exam at once. The comfort of playing along to records in my bedrooms was shattered. Having the pressure literally scares the song into you.
I'm on the right playing bass here. I never did forgive the girl for standing in front of the camera.
http://youtu.be/fIFqWoNIFoI

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/fIFqWoNIFoI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I give up, can't even link a youtube video.

LL I'm sorry about your lesson! I mean, I'm glad that you came out of it learning something and ready for the next one, but I'm sorry that the experience was painful! I totally understand if you don't want to share, but what was it that got you down? Was it just getting out of time and having to stop and start?

(sorry, not trying to pretend like I know exactly what you're going through and have the answer, I just want you to know that it's really, REALLY normal - even expected - to be messing up a bunch with timing for a long time).

I'll explain in more detail when I'm not on my phone but you're both right -- I got upset because this matters to me and also I'm v hard on myself and also prone to emotional outbursts, both positive and negative. Mostly I'm embarrassed to have lost it. More later.

The great thing about getting upset about playing drums, imo, is you can beat the shit out of the drums to take out your frustrations.

well mostly i wanted to crawl into a corner and disappear, but it's good to know that the option of bashing is also there

here's what i think happened -- 1) my dogs and i were attacked by a neighbor dog earlier this week. my nerves, in general, are a mess! 2) i was hungry and that compromised my emotional response and 3) i was put on the spot and i froze and that embarrassed me. i'm really more interested in figuring out new ways to react than i am in dissecting why this happened, so now that i've eaten dinner, i can say that i am going to honestly try to funnel my energies back into trying harder rather than fearing another freakout.

also my teacher emailed me and said he was sorry if he pushed me too far in one direction or another and i appreciated that.

i'm not going to try to spin this incident positively or negatively, just accept that it happened and move on. that's really all a person can do.

Beat the shit out of your drums for half an hour. It doesn't matter at all if you play well, just that you make them pay.

<3 not_goodwin's video. I wonder what that girl is doing now?

I blame the camera operator! Shoulda tapped her and pointed ----> this way. You don't seem nervous at all!!

xxpost, probably ruining some other video somewhere.

xpost, that wasn't the gig I was nervous at, that was the one where we'd decided we'd had enough of each other and split up. That was the last gig with that band.

Why did she keep bending down? You were there, you can tell us.

For her drink I think, I was a little busy. She was a friend of the singer, cherida or sherida i think she was called.
All the footage and photo's from the gigs were lost, I basically have nothing from this band. :(

Sorry to hear about the eye leakage! not_goodwin OTM re: upset=it matters.

i wonder if ergonomics people would make good drum teachers

― Philip Nunez, Friday, August 2, 2013 2:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They totally would; probably better than most drum teachers.

can i just

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qghrsBfSbgk

i would say something about my lesson today and how it went better but it was cancelled/rescheduled ;_;
this wouldn't be a big deal normally but i've been super looking forward to it all week
oh well