DRUMMERS: Advice for a beginner

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...