DRUMMERS: Advice for a beginner

:)

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.