3 bass drum boomps kind of makes my brain fall apart though :(
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 20:45 (ten years ago) link
are you very familiar with time subdivisions? whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, sixteenth notes, dotted notes, triplets, etc
― crüt, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 20:49 (ten years ago) link
oh and eighth notes. obviously. and all the other fractional powers of two.
― crüt, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 20:51 (ten years ago) link
moderatelyi 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.
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 20:51 (ten years ago) link
i played the piano and clarinet as a kid though. and tons and tons of dance classes. but that's it, really.
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 20:52 (ten years ago) link
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.
― Gregory Bateson is always appropriate (sarahell), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 20:56 (ten years ago) link
ugh that is why i need helpi 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!
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 21:00 (ten years ago) link
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)
― Gregory Bateson is always appropriate (sarahell), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 21:02 (ten years ago) link
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)
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 21:07 (ten years ago) link
are you very familiar with time subdivisions?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu9Ycq64Gy4
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 21:08 (ten years ago) link
conform or be cast out! yes, i know that.
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 21:10 (ten years ago) link
La Lech: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature
this will be very helpful to you, I think
― big black nemesis, Puya chilensis (DJP), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 21:11 (ten years ago) link
this too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Note_value
― big black nemesis, Puya chilensis (DJP), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 21:15 (ten years ago) link
nb you will never see this ever
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Longa.gif
― crüt, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 21:19 (ten years ago) link
unless you're hanging out in my tree house. that is the official flag of the burgeoning nation of the tree rebellion
― Z S, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 21:20 (ten years ago) link
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?
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 21:23 (ten years ago) link
maybe what i should do is practice identifying them and then playing them so i can talk about this more coherently
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Tuesday, 9 July 2013 21:25 (ten years ago) link
posts that put a smile on my face
― flamboyant goon tie included, Tuesday, 9 July 2013 21:51 (ten years ago) link
http://knoxville.craigslist.org/muc/3926515417.html
― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Thursday, 11 July 2013 19:43 (ten years ago) link
poll please
― precious bonsai children of new york (Jordan), Thursday, 11 July 2013 19:49 (ten years ago) link
no tank tops just seems tyrannical
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Thursday, 11 July 2013 19:50 (ten years ago) link
also no drinking any beverage onstage
― congratulations (n/a), Thursday, 11 July 2013 19:52 (ten years ago) link
i've been to two different drum teachers and they both used this bookhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/49158857/A-FUNKY-PRIMER
I hate this book! but it must be good or fundamental or something.
― Philip Nunez, Thursday, 11 July 2013 19:54 (ten years ago) link
xp I think my favorite is "No sheet music or music STANDS" -- just the utter contempt conveyed by the capital letters there.
― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Thursday, 11 July 2013 19:56 (ten years ago) link
Dude played with Pablo Cruise (known to fans simply as "the 'Cruise") -- I wouldn't question him.
xp
― Esperanto, why don't you come to your senses? (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, 11 July 2013 19:57 (ten years ago) link
'no drum mics' - ever?
'no drum heroes' - good title for my autobiography
― precious bonsai children of new york (Jordan), Thursday, 11 July 2013 20:04 (ten years ago) link
We could be drum heroes, just for one day.
― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Thursday, 11 July 2013 20:04 (ten years ago) link
i...i would wear shortsand you...you would be my onstage beverage
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Thursday, 11 July 2013 20:08 (ten years ago) link
xp Philip - never seen that book! I got recommended "syncopation for the modern drummer"
― Gregory Bateson is always appropriate (sarahell), Thursday, 11 July 2013 20:42 (ten years ago) link
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.
― Esperanto, why don't you come to your senses? (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, 11 July 2013 20:53 (ten years ago) link
when I felt the exercises in the syncopation book were too simple, I would try doing them with my feet.
― Gregory Bateson is always appropriate (sarahell), Thursday, 11 July 2013 20:56 (ten years ago) link
oh yeah the syncopation book was the other required text. i hated that, too! i guess i just hate practicing.
― Philip Nunez, Thursday, 11 July 2013 21:38 (ten years ago) link
aggh i just emailed the person i want to be my teacherhopefully i don't sound like a boobi 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 forwardeek
in the meantime, i have been working on endurance. it's my favorite of the types of practicing, i think.
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Tuesday, 16 July 2013 14:45 (ten years ago) link
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 don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 16 July 2013 15:00 (ten years ago) link
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.
― Z S, Tuesday, 16 July 2013 15:15 (ten years ago) link
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 don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 16 July 2013 15:32 (ten years ago) link
(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.
― precious bonsai children of new york (Jordan), Tuesday, 16 July 2013 15:42 (ten years ago) link
Right...BUT, then why does he also have pages that use a similar pattern built on triplets?
― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 16 July 2013 15:43 (ten years ago) link
One of my drum teachers told me this question was "controversial" among drummers.
― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 16 July 2013 15:44 (ten years ago) link
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)
― Esperanto, why don't you come to your senses? (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, 16 July 2013 15:49 (ten years ago) link
please don't feel self-doubty about drumming! I have to believe that hitting things with sticks is the last refuge of unselfconscious fun.
― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, 16 July 2013 15:51 (ten years ago) link
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.
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Tuesday, 16 July 2013 15:57 (ten years ago) link
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
― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 16 July 2013 16:23 (ten years ago) link
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 don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 16 July 2013 18:26 (ten years ago) link
i have a teacher! and scheduled lessons!tbh i am terrified but it's only 4 weeks, and i'm feeling optimistic.
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Wednesday, 17 July 2013 15:09 (ten years ago) link
do you want to set up a time to play together after your lessons?
― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, 17 July 2013 15:16 (ten years ago) link
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.
― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Wednesday, 17 July 2013 15:41 (ten years ago) link
― Orpheus in Hull (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 17 July 2013 17:05 (ten years ago) link