DRUMMERS: Advice for a beginner

weeeeell, since you asked...as previously mentioned, i had been practicing with a lot of VU songs because they're easy/familiar enough for me to anticipate what's coming next, so we played "lady godiva's operation" (my most comfortable song at this point), "femme fatale" (an easy slow one), and "what goes on" (started off as a little bit of a challenge, but wound up sounding really good! mostly because of NA not me, but i totally kept up!)

i hesitate to say that i didn't know what i was missing for lo these many years, but i don't think i fully did. now that i know, i feel extra super motivated! i also found an internet teacher who says "you can totally do this" at the end of every lesson.

VU songs are the most fun to play imo

I played with other people for the first time in like six years on Friday and it was super fun. I've got my drums in my MFA studio (long story involving a fake doom metal band) and two of the other grads have guitars and a bass around. It was the last day of the semester and we had a closing show for an installation and just set up in the hallway and had people playing all night.

I'd forgotten how much fun it is, and how much better you get when forced to keep up / pay attention to others. I can't do anything fancy but I can at least keep up a beat and I so want to turn this into a regular thing.

And we used to play What Goes On with my shitty short-lived band many years ago, it was my favorite thing.

they're easy/familiar enough for me to anticipate what's coming next

That reminds me of this Townshend quote on Moon:

You often find this with drummers, they have the most extraordinary memories. It's an extension of their work. Maybe their memories are centered in a different part of the brain, because they have to remember long musical phrases as pure data. It's almost binary. They must know exactly where they are in a song at any given time. The best drummers have the best memories.

keith moon, my birthday buddy!

i hope that's true about memories because i sure do have a powerful memory for certain things.

also joygoat your end-of-semester parties sound like a LOT more fun than mine

finally! my last lesson is complete. it was not without incident but i got some extra time and everything concluded well enough. i finally learned about bouncing on the snare and i'm on my way to a proper drum roll. i'm a little apprehensive about what to do next but i guess i'll figure it out. my technique is good and apparently my strokes are even! between the conclusion of my lessons and baby's first jam, i feel pretty good about the way this is going.

i finally learned about bouncing on the snare

Curious about this...can you elaborate? I'm kind of struggling with this a bit at the moment, as it turns out.

Well, I asked to learn the basic rudiments because I want to be the sort of drummer who knows that stuff, it seems important. I learned about letting the stick bounce 2x on each hand on the snare. Just a light bounce as the introduction to a roll? I could barely do it. He had to touch my hands to show me how to do it and it was a little embarrassing bc my hands are gnarly. I think I got the basic idea, and it's just going to take a lot of practice. Maybe a LOT.

xpost

a few things you can do:

the focus of your grip should be around the fulcrum between your thumb and the first knuckle of your index finger. The rest of the fingers on your hand are there to provide some extra balance and control. Eventually, your snare strokes will become less about flicking your wrist or moving your arms up and down and more about bouncing the stick with your free fingers using that fulcrum.

To get a bounce you can loosen your free fingers on the stick to get it to just fall on the snare and bounce up again. As you get more comfortable with this motion, you'll be able to control it more to get the kind of bounceback you want.

You could try practicing a pattern like RrLl where the lowercase letters are the bounceback on the snare. To start out try focusing on getting those bounces in time to a metronome.

Another thing to try is pressing the tips of the sticks toward the snare as you are doing this exercise. This should have an effect like a blurring of the drum strokes and will eventually lead you toward doing a press roll.

I forget how I learned how to do that exactly, but I think it came out of learning how to do a roll. My recollection is that I'd just let one stick fall and bounce as many times as it was gonna bounce, then do the same with the other hand, and then try to do that closer together. But yeah, knowing when to exactly tighten your hands/fingers to control the bounce(s) can be a struggle.

And yeah, what Moodles said. That's pretty much spot-on.

Yeah, that's almost exactly what my teacher told me; I was just having a hard time with it. I'm sure it'll get easier after I do it a couple zillion times.

I also need to do something about rearranging my drums so I can reach them easier. I played his drums in his practice space (rather than the ones at the school where we normally meet) and they were so easy to navigate. He's about a foot taller than I am and if his drums are set that close together, mine prob should be too.

Yeah, I have mine wedged into a corner of a room so that my elbows hit the wall whenever I try to play. Doesn't work particularly well.

the key with double strokes is getting the second note to be the same volume as the first. it takes some time to get the hang of iirc.

Any tips on gaining this skill with less practice?

i am looking forward to the practice! i like having one tiny thing to work on.

Any tips on liking practice then?

i think it's good to practice doubles without relying on rebound/bounce. one way to think about it is that the first note consists of dropping the stick (while still holding onto it with the first finger/thumb fulcrum), and the stick note is made my picking it back up. you can practice doubles on non-bouncy surfaces pillows, your leg, etc.

i think i only switch to using more bounce at a certain speed (ie a pretty fast roll).

For inspiration's sake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAT9sed_XFw

Nice press flams around 2:00 and then backbeat rebounds (the secret weapon in the Purdie Shuffle) at 4:00.

Any tips on liking practice then?

i don't practice anymore. :( except with hands/pens or warming up before a gig if i haven't played in a few weeks.

but for real, playing on a pad along to records + watching youtube videos of great drummers for inspiration.

Flams! What a word.

Tips on liking practice? I dunno -- depends on what motivates you! What motivates you?

For me, just finding drum parts or beats that I'm excited about learning. I'm much better at learning a musical skill when it is part of a song or instrumental part that I'm already excited about. I have a much harder time learning music that I'm unfamiliar with or not really interested in.

flams are maybe my favorite single drumming thing

Flams! What a word.

Drum music has some of the silliest vocabulary because it's all onomatopoeic!

that purdie video is so classic. the only drummer i know of that comes close to getting as much joy out of his own playing is shannon powell:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4GhHOMYwtQ

I used to hate practicing so much, and mostly just played along to records (which ended up being pretty good practice, up to a point). Then I saw Milford Graves. Then I started practicing for real.

i need to make a youtube playlist of this stuff. i love practicing because i love learning new things -- i guess the thrill will wear off eventually, but since i can't afford more lessons right now, i have to work on something. what motivates me is the possibility that someone will want to play music with me someday if i keep getting better.

oh also my teacher did not make me try to sing any beats. he seems to have forgotten about that, thank goodness.

Playing drums motivates me but the awkwardness of the movements and the sounds demotivated me.
I asked a teacher if the hand dominance awkwardness ever goes away. She said it NEVER does!

On the Purdue video how does he keep the 16th notes going on the snare? Is he tapping the snare with fingers while holding stick?

If you like practicing, you will be expert in no time. All the craigslist drum listings are from us practice haters

xpost

do you mean the part with the cross stick? that's all repeated 16th notes on his right hand, not his fingers.

The right hand is hihat though and I'm hearing snare + huhat

ah, not sure which part/video you mean, but it sounds like he is doing repeated ghost notes and rebounds with the left hand.

the key with double strokes is getting the second note to be the same volume as the first. it takes some time to get the hang of iirc.

― festival culture (Jordan), Thursday, December 12, 2013 8:29 AM (5 hours ago)

Yes it does! This was one of the first things we covered when I was taking lessons (after the very basics), and it took me about a month and a half to get? The other key is to get the left hand and the right hand to sound the same, and to do it in an even pattern of 4. When I learned the paradiddle family rudiments, it was entirely with double strokes. N.B. one of my goals was to be able to play as many notes as possible in as short an amount of time as possible.

I also need to do something about rearranging my drums so I can reach them easier. I played his drums in his practice space (rather than the ones at the school where we normally meet) and they were so easy to navigate. He's about a foot taller than I am and if his drums are set that close together, mine prob should be too.

So much about playing drums well is about ergonomics!! You have a dance background, right? Think about in those terms.

Essentially you are doing repetitive physical tasks -- like if you've (you goes for everyone) ever had a menial job, you figure out ways to make it efficient and resulting in the least physical strain -- setting up your kit should operate on those principles

On the Purdue video how does he keep the 16th notes going on the snare? Is he tapping the snare with fingers while holding stick?

yeah, he's using his fingers. you can see him doing it kind of at 1:55.

indeed he is! didn't notice before

So much about playing drums well is about ergonomics!! You have a dance background, right? Think about in those terms.

Essentially you are doing repetitive physical tasks -- like if you've (you goes for everyone) ever had a menial job, you figure out ways to make it efficient and resulting in the least physical strain -- setting up your kit should operate on those principles

Yes, and yes -- I tried to set it up to be comfortable, but it's only after a few months that I realize that maybe I need to rethink. Eventually I would like to buy my own kit (instead of using this somewhat large craigslist jobbie) but I'll do that when I feel like I've earned it.

I stumbled on this thread yesterday afternoon & ended up reading the whole thing

LL this journey is awesome and your updates are so great, I love all of it. Keep it up!! Very inspiring etc

not exactly beginner stuff here but it does give a really interesting perspective on how location matters when playing drums

http://www.dailydot.com/entertainment/wikidrummer-drum-sound-changes/

hey thanks VG! it is really fun!

i haven't looked at that link yet, but i rearranged some things down there. i think my movements are a little more economized now? i'm getting there, at least. practiced moving around the set with double strokes on each drum, as fast as i could, and it started to feel ok after a while.

i also screamed OH GOD NO in frustration at the bouncing, but after a while i had a tiny breakthrough and i think i can do 2 bounces on each hand in pretty rapid succession now if i start with a normal grip and then loosen to just a pinch and then add the fingers back for control. i can do it for a while at least. now i know why people don't like practicing -- it requires a lot of self-control! this, of course, is why i like it. after i take my medicine, i get to play whatever i want. it is more fun if the medicine is out of the way first.

sorry for the psychological tmi

Oh hell, while I'm at it:

The earliest point of comparison I have for the process of learning to bounce on the snare is learning how to walk up stairs one at a time. It's that 'ugh i am NEVER going to get this but I need to get this in order to move forward' sensation, aka a total compulsion to keep trying. I taught myself how to ride a bike, do cartwheels, make balloon animals, cook, do various other things, and I'm pretty sure that I can do this too. It's def gonna take some time, though, because things are sounding pretty lame atm. That's ok. If I keep doing it, eventually I'll get it, right? Like, I have no idea how many times I fell down while trying to do cartwheels, but it must have been a lot. But eventually I learned to do them R-L and L-R.

On the other hand, this is winter exactly as I imagined it!

If I keep doing it, eventually I'll get it, right?

Yes, yes, and yes. Also, yes. It might take a while, but once you've got it, it won't leave (muscle memory is a motherfucker). You'll also have that indescribable feeling of "I never thought I could do that, and I just did it."

i am super looking forward to that. in the meantime i am somewhat enjoying the maniacal fixation on learning how to do it :)

It will happen faster than you think. The key with the bounce (or a key anyway) is to let the drum do the work -- the drum head throws the stick back to you and you just let it bounce off your hand. Then catch it on the second bounce.

(That may not be a helpful way to think about it, I don't know, it's just how it feels to me.)

Still working on it, but it's definitely getting better. More info upon request, do not want to bore anyone.

I have a year-end update brewing, but there's one more thing that needs to happen before I can provide a complete update.

that was cryptic and pointless -- sorry for blogging!

I request more info! When you're ready.