What do you sound like on Nu-ILX?

I just did my annual Messiah recital https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWN3UztfxCE

Had some good & fun shows for my band's 30th anniversary: https://www.instagram.com/p/C09ju0tgMnd/

Technique-wise I very recently switched to using a back fulcrum (ring finger & pinky) and a lot of things started clicking in terms of speed and consistency. Promising developments!

wait what were you using before as the fulcrum?

also congrats on your anniversary!!

Thanks! I was using the thumb and pointer finger as the primary fulcrum with the other fingers more free to do finger control stuff, but it felt inconsistent and on my right (non-dominant) hand I was still having trouble with a lot of things. I had the revelation when I strapped on the snare to practice for these gigs (which I almost never do), when I started using the back fulcrum and found that I was getting the consistent rimshots and volume (while still being relaxed) that I was looking for.

There's a famous Tony Williams clinic where he talks about this, but it never quite made sense to me since it seemed like a rigid way of playing. But it seems to me you can use the back fulcrum (or a middle finger fulcrum, where it's sort of a triangle between the thumb + first finger + middle finger) and still have rebound. That's what I'm working on anyways. And almost immediately my stroke started to look & feel better, more integrated with the wrist movement, less to think about, more consistency across different surfaces.

It's hard to find drummers who teach this, but I also heard Nate Wood very briefly say in an interview that he switched to a ring/pinky finger fulcrum three years ago and that he wished he had done it a long time ago, that it's a better way to play drums. Everybody's hands & brains are different though.

I'm still trying to figure out how this works when playing the ride cymbal (ie switching to french grip and playing jazz patterns) though, if I move back to more of a pointer/middle finger fulcrum or can keep the same grip.

Btw I reserve the right to repudiate all of this in the future. :) Maybe this will be a blind alley, or a situational tool for certain kinds of playing.

Here's Nate Wood talking about it in depth with Mark Guiliana (who clearly does something completely different, which goes to show that there's no one way):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCAQkeqCs54

I was on the Cities And Memory podcast stream yesterday - doing what I would do if I could record inside the abandoned submarine pens at Kotor, Macedonia: https://audioboom.com/posts/8419423-kotor-bay

that's a cool idea for a podcast and your track sounds awesome

What budo said. I am listening my way through close to 500 of these recordings now. Yours was a highlight.

Re: what I was blathering on about above, I've already gravitated more towards using the middle finger as a primary fulcrum rather than the back fingers, there's more bounce and it's easier to go back and forth with the ride cymbal if I'm playing jazz. But either way has helped my wrist motion a lot, and gives a lot more control & power than relying on thumb & first finger and letting all the other fingers move with the stick. It's hard to explain but I'm still letting the stick move in the hand & rebound, and I'm working on more freely moving between the different fulcra for different situations.

i made this short instrumental alt tuning guitar piece i'm happy with. i tend to not have the patience to see a chord progression through but this one came together nicely. i feel like it could use a soft bed of noise underneath or something. suggestions welcome: https://on.soundcloud.com/Va2jV5iQ2rvZBDdn8