DRUMMERS: Advice for a beginner

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

What I should I look into in terms of replacing drum heads?

Seems like there are tons of options - coated, non-coated, multiply plys - at a variety of price ranges. I've noticed big dents and flabbiness in my snare and kick batter heads and a small hole in the resonant head of the snare. This is a drum kit I bought for $100 total 8 years ago and have never done a single thing to since then so cheap is fine.

I'm also looking at replacing the snare wires as a bunch of them have come loose - how many wires do I need, really? Finally, I'm thinking about a new bass drum beater as they one I have is felt and looks pretty squished out and crusty, and I know you can go with a bunch of different materials and such.

coated (Remo) Ambassadors are always good, unless you hit reaaally hard and need more than one ply.

in 2 hours i am going to pick up my very first drum set. i have convinced myself +/- that i am not too old or too stupid. i finally have time and a basement and in 2 hours i will have some drums of my own, if this transaction doesn't somehow get screwed up. for a while i was looking for approval to go ahead and do this, but soon enough it became evident that i was just being a chicken. now i'm just going to finally see what i can teach myself in my oodles of spare time. this is one of the most self-indulgent things i have ever done in my life and i just have to get over that because i think it will be super fun and also good for my general health.

― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Saturday, June 15, 2013 9:22 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark

happy anniversary to me!

what does one year of progress sound like?
i think this was the first thing i recorded: https://soundcloud.com/marshmallowy/june-beat
this is me playing along to another drumless roy montgomery song about a month ago: https://soundcloud.com/marshmallowy/ill-at-home-drums

i haven't tried something new and scary in a long time, and i can't express how glad i am that i did it. it has been sort of like gaining another voice, or learning another language in which i can freely express things i would not otherwise express. i am extremely thankful to have friends who have made songs with me (this would not have been possible without friends i met through ilx) and also to this thread for answering my questions and taking me seriously and listening to my whining. i have stopped apologizing for myself (at least in this context) and i think i am ready for phase II. i have been composing this anniversary post in my head for weeks, and this is not exactly how i imagined it going, but that's ok. this is only a beginning. i feel like my foundation is strong now, i know the basics and am functionally conversant in the language.

in conclusion--> an earnest and genuine thank you to everyone who has helped and supported me over the last year. your kindness has been metabolized into sounds, and i'm proud of that!

i have stopped apologizing for myself (at least in this context) and i think i am ready for phase II.

:) congratulations - that's great! wha's in store for phase II? i am imagining a lot of pyrotechnics!

Right on! Congratulations! And your progress is insanely impressive.

(xp) playing in a suspended rotating cube like Tommy Lee

congratulations LL!!

thanks!! i have been working REALLY HARD!

i need to do some aggressive "reaching out" and "put myself out there" (barf)
i need to find some people who are interested, willing, and able to play with me irl. i have ideas, but need some compadres.

other things i would like to do: record a song, have a record with my name on it. nothing outrageous or flashy! (although wearing a costume on stage sounds like fun)

there have gotta be punk houses somewhere in chicago

probably -- i'm going to have to really suck it up and talk to some strangers.

my friends are playing a show at "Conny's Plank House" in Chicago next Tuesday - that seems like a place you might find likeminded people just based on the name!

I'm still willing to do something but all I know how to play worth a shit is drums and you already have that.

drum duets are great

i have been thinking that i would be a good person to have around to play the boring/repetitive parts while someone else did the flashy parts

i love being the boring one holding it down in double drum situations

still at it
just FYI
getting a lot faster, talking to people, this is still probably the most difficult and also most fun thing i have ever tried to learn how to do

If you lived in north jersey/NYC I'd totally jam with you. I've been struggling with establishing some level of regular "band mates" for about 6 years.

I miss playing with a drummer so much, such a great way of coming up w/ things, spontaneously syncopating etc.

Glad you're still working at it! I thought about you last night listening to WFMU -- the Evan Funk Davies show was a drumming special of sorts -- he and some other WFMU DJs who are also drummers got together and played songs they particularly loved the drumming on for various reasons -- amazing technique in some cases, but also "taste" and "feel" as they defined it.

Also a couple of weeks ago I watched part of a long video where 5 drummers/percussionists who had played for Frank Zappa got together and chatted about their time with him and drumming in general.

alas, my basement/practice space is in chicago
i've been wondering about skype jamming lately
is that even possible? seems like it would be.

i saw 2 drum-focused performances in a 4 day period and it felt like summer camp -- man forever + so percussion and then jon mueller's death blues ensemble. both were really enjoyable to watch and great. and emotional! THEN a few days later the solar motel band and then 4 metal bands (would list but i forget one of them) all in the span of like 10 days. i learned a lot tbh!

i still play every single day and have a fairly regular practice routine. it's keeping me going!

i've been wondering about skype jamming lately
is that even possible? seems like it would be.

that's an awesome idea but i don't think the tech is there for it yet. even a latency of 10-15 milliseconds would be enough to throw off timing, and then it might have a compounding effect as the sounds bounced back and forth with delays. i think the effect would be that each drummer would continually feel that the other is playing too slowly.

which...could be interesting actually! :)

yeah i was thinking that even if it sounded kinda fucked up maybe that would be cool?
i dunno
worth a try unless it's going to blow a hole in the universe or sthg

even then, why not
might as well go out with a bang
lol

I would be willing to try out a skype jam once I get all my stuff moved and set up.

haha, ok!

I'm not sure if I have the technology for a Skype jam but I'm always down for a collaboration by mail.