DRUMMERS: Advice for a beginner

oh! and the bouncing thing is totally creeping its way off the practice pad and into my actual playing -- i noticed i was doing it on the hi hat without even thinking. that is so neat.

getting so much faster! i have a lot of updates, but i stopped posting them. instead, i type them out as if i were going to post them, then i cut/paste and send it to myself in an email. there's a reason i don't have a blog to yammer about this stuff. i still practice every day and have been adding tons of songs to my arsenal.

however, major thanks to this thread (Jordan?) for recommending that practice pad!! it has made a HUGE difference and i can totally feel myself applying the technique when i try to play new songs. i haven't broken through to a full on drum roll yet, but i feel like it's possible now.

glad you like it!

ran into my teacher last night when i was seated directly next to him at a restaurant at the one remaining table. i was like oh hi !! and fortunately, he recognized me before i could see that awful "who is this person smiling at me" look people sometimes get. we had a very pleasant conversation and talked about drumming and playing and various other related things. it's nice to have someone ask about it because usually i get a strong sensation that i should not go on and on about my drumming experiences unless someone asks me. ime people (my mom, my bffs) aren't really into talking about music related things as much as i am, per usual. that doesn't bother me; it was just nice to have someone ask and be interested in my answer. dinner was good too!

i have a work-in-progress type thing i have a question about, but i don't know if i should ask here or on the general musical life thread. anyway, things are going well! i'm no mario rubalcaba (saw him last night, whoa), but i've heard worse drummers in recorded music, so i'm on my way.

usually i get a strong sensation that i should not go on and on about my drumming experiencesanything unless someone asks me.

Here's some advice for a beginner. Look up a couple of drum solos from John "JR" Robinson, and then listen to a few of the hundreds of songs he's played on - awesome and mundane alike. Steve Winwood's "Higher Love," Rufus & Chaka "Ain't Nobody," MJ's "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough." Then ponder the ability of a guy with a monster chops to just mentally suppress that a bit and simply play for the groove. And then focus a bit more and listen to how those monster chops actually do manifest themselves, albeit in simple, subtle, almost invisible but still mind-bogglingly impossible ways. That's some great drumming.

ok, thanks! i love dudes like that.

I was listening to "Don't Stop" the other day, and I realized there is no crash cymbal anywhere in the song. And there's about 750 opportunities for it that every other drummer would've jumped on, but Robinson wisely holds back. Kind of blew my mind.

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTg5WrZL3Eg#t=65

pardon me for one moment, i'm feeling proud
look who has a second song! ILX Compilation v6: FREESTYLER - rock your microphone

I don't know if I can stay this excited about making songs forever*, but for now it's definitely the most exciting thing I've got going on and is totally buoying my spirits.

*although I totally hope to drag it out as long as the world will tolerate me trying

still at it!

question -- is this a good price/type of mallet for a person like me? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Pro-Mark-MT3-Multi-Purpose-Felt-Drum-Mallets-Standard-/291067185034

that seems about right. mallets are the best, but i've found that they break really easily if you use the shafts to play on drum rims a lot. i went through a bunch of them over the summer when i was playing in a band using a Low-esque setup, and each time i was like "well, there goes twenty bucks." :(

I would just go to a store and try out different ones for the sound/feel if possible.

I love the sound of mallets on a drum kit

Me too. I'm partial to Vic Firth myself, but Jordan otm. Always pisses me off when they break.

i have thought about trying them out in the store but that has resulted in me going to one crappy store that had nothing i was looking for. considering the weather, it would be easier for me to have ones that are probably ok delivered to me. this winter has been brutal! on the upside, there has been nothing to do but practice so i've been improving a lot! getting much faster at least.

those seem a bit expensive? But then I used to run a venue and would just collect all the mallets and sticks people left behind, so I don't think I've actually had to buy mallets.

the key thing is to get ones the right size -- I have small hands (which is why I took up drums rather than guitar), and so I get sticks/mallets that are slightly smaller than average (in terms of girth). There are some expensive mallets out there that are geared for classical percussion.

i got the ones i linked upthread -- we'll see if they're right
if not maybe i can send them to jordan or throw them into the lake

i'm excited

xp -- differences in hand size/strength are one of the reasons it helps to try things out in the store. Best bet is just to hit a Sam Ash/Guitar Center type megastore that has large selection.

i know i know -- if they're unsuitable, i'll go to a store but it's a time/effort investment that makes me feel like

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51A2uEjoGwL.jpg

or throw them into the lake

XD

i ordered them and they still haven't come, but in the meantime i managed to finally play a decent enough sounding version of that roy montgomery song i posted waaaaaaaaay upthread. (it's not perfect sounding and the recording is bad. oh well!) there are no drums on the original recording, so i had to make up the parts myself and that's a whole new level of drumming that i am just getting ready to understand now that i can play fast enough. there were some days when i was feeling kind of low about my progress, but this song helped make me feel better. at least i am making some progress! this sounded awful 3 months ago.
anyway, this is me! https://soundcloud.com/marshmallowy/down-from-that-hill-and-up-to

Q for other drummers: have you ever had the experience of not playing for a really long time and then you sit down at the kit and you feel like you suddenly lock into a groove better than you ever have before? I find this often happens to me after prolonged periods of non-practice, but then I find it hard to duplicate as I get back into practice, almost as though something about my practice is harming my feel. But then again maybe it's just that I think I sound better than I do when I haven't played for a while.

I haven't touched any of my instruments for a while, but I'm planning on knocking out some guitar and drum tracks over the weekend to see if I can cobble together a tune or too, so I may have an answer for you then!

It doesn't happen to me with guitar, fwiw. Maybe it's something about the muscles involved -- when I don't practice drums for a while I probably use my arms more and hit harder rather than using those finely developed finger muscles when I practice a lot.

i can't answer that, but i did go for my longest stretch without practicing (4 days) recently, and when i sat down again i felt like i sounded great. (lol)
right now i'm focusing on fluency rather than expanding my sonic vocabulary. i want to feel comfortable above all else, and then i can proceed to learn new things without anxiety. it's working out better than i expected.
also i have contributed drums to three songs now!

i get irrationally happy whenever this thread is bumped btw

I haven't touched a set of drums for years, honestly, but I feel that aside from practical endurance or toughened hands, I could probably get up to speed relatively quickly. Like riding a bicycle.

Could totally imagine not practicing guitar being detrimental, though.

I played for the first time in like a year last night and it made me irrationally happy! I rented a space with a drummer friend and mostly played guitar but at the end he wanted to try some stuff on keyboard so I hopped over to the drums. It felt so good.

all my calluses are gone, which means my fingers will be torn apart if I really jam out on the bass

Other things to make you happy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0TeDKYtuQw

And Phil doing fusion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo7mYqaMKXA

You guys should post in this thread sometimes
Drum geek sick chops youtube thread

So this is not the place for Phil backing Howard Jones?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kpul9Xmjlv4

no it can go in both! I just want more people to post in my drum geek thread.

When I saw hojo in 1985 his drummer was playing inside a cage. Even at 15 I think I would have noticed if it was Phil though.

He also had a mime onstage (y'know, like you do).

still at it! i have a weird new habit of writing a bunch of stuff in this box with the intention of posting it ---> cold feet ---> c/p it to an email to myself where it's safe
but it has been almost a year and i have made a lot of progress
haven't gone more than 3 days without practicing and i only missed those days because i was traveling
i definitely need to do more boring drills -- my speed is much better, but i can't do very many interesting things with it so

anyway, almost a year!

Best advice is don't be afraid to hit that drum. If you feel it, beat the hell out of it!

best advice is really to be aware that playing drums is physical exercise and not to get into habits that are detrimental to your body.

also remember to hit them very quietly sometimes, that's cool too.

being able to play quietly is often the best indicator of good technique!

^

not a beginner, but about a month ago i found myself doing quadruple-stroke rolls and was very nerdily proud.

!! i have been training like Rocky all winter! Lifting weights and pushups and everything. My upper body strength is way better than it was even 6 mo ago. I'm sure I can't really keep up this pace (of improvement) but I've definitely noticed that I feel stronger in general. Not afraid to make noise anymore either.

Quiet thing thirded (fourthed?)

One exercise thing you might want to try is hitting the furthest reaches of the kit, creating a pattern going from one extreme to another (e.g., ride cymbal to hi-hat with your left hand), as slowly and quietly as possible, but still in time (with a metronome or whatever. The challenge is in building up speed while keeping the volume low.

I kind of wish someone had told me about the importance of physical condition to drumming earlier in my drumming life. I once heard a guy saying that lifting heavy weights could be bad for drumming, and I was pretty young at the time and I think I didn't realize that he meant, like, LIFTING, which I was never going to do anyway. Building core strength and arm strength helped my drumming a lot. Also I found that for the short time I did yoga it improved my drumming, but I wasn't able to keep up the yoga.

But I am also a big proponent of practicing quiet (it takes a lot of strength to do that too in a way). Read the opening pages of Stick Control -- they contain great advice on dynamic practice and also are dryly funny (maybe not intentionally).

i definitely practice quiet stuff -- even within a song -- don't worry!
exercise time is also study time
which leads me to this question -- can someone direct me to something i can read/watch that discusses the recording of "mother sky"? i watched the can dvd on youtube, and it was v interesting but did not answer my questions. and jaki hardly talked at all!

oh and also the book i've been reading has a chapter about musical prodigies* and draws many parallels between language learning and music, including quotation after quotation of people saying that they first learned to communicate emotion through music. i have come pretty close to answering my initial questions about the learning process itself.

*not a book about prodigies