How Do I Learn/Practice The Drums ?

[tonetripper]

I'm sure it's been stated before, but a good friend of mine who is also a great drummer said one word to me in practicing and becoming more proficient on the drums. He usually would practice this exclusively on the snare slowly, at first, then speed it up. Warm-up exercise.

PARADIDDLE

I know there are other rudiments, but this one seems to help with rolls and an over-all ambidextrous consciousness. If that means squat to you all.

[deshead]

With Blue's idea, if you open the hihat (each time), you get a funky pattern ala disco or chili pepperish

Or every Franz Ferdinand song.

I know there are other rudiments, but this one seems to help with rolls and an over-all ambidextrous consciousness

To really mess with your mind, do the paradiddle with your hands and feet simultaneously, but try to synch up opposite sides. So when your right hand hits the snare, have your left foot close the hat, and when your left hand hits the snare, have your right foot hit the kick.

Something like:

Code: Select all

Pedal XX X  X XX X  X  
Snare RRLRLLRLRRLRLLRL
Kick    X XX X  X XX X

[Albatross]

Or play the paradiddle on the kick and snare, with your left hand and right foot. Then once you get that going, add eighth-notes on the ride with the right hand. Then close the high-hat with the left foot on upbeats. Then once you get that going, move the left hand to the first 2-3 toms and back to the snare again.

Everyone within earshot will start doing a rhumba.

[frankie big face]

I was thinking about this thread the other day while listening to New Pornographers and it got me thinking that one piece of advice which (I don't think) has been mentioned is simply listening to three or four drummers you really like. They don't have to be super-technical guys; in fact, it's probably better if they're not. But that guy from NPs always impresses me with his ideas and the guy from Wilco is great (I didn't notice how much until I saw I Am Trying to Break Your Heart). Those are two who come to mind as guys who don't get in the way of the song but are still energetic and exciting.

[frankie big face]

I think I read somewhere in this thread that someone stated they felt click tracks were responsible for sucking the life out of the bands they'd played with and so it was bad. Having played with many bands, I'd venture that it takes an fair amount of talent and skill to be able to play with a click and retain the feel you are trying to play with. Most people can't do that in my experience. And most of them haven't worked long enough at trying to. They probably blamed the lifelessness of their performances all on the click and did away with it. Ignorance can sure sound groovy.

What I said was that in one situation where I rehearsed with a jazz combo for enough time to develop some good chemistry before making the recording, the recording suffered because a click track was used and the individual parts were laid down (one at a time) using said click. There wasn't one person in the room who was incapable of playing to a click track, so keep your bullshit analysis to yourself. In any kind of music where tempo is allowed to be a dynamic part of the music, what you are describing ("retaining the feel while playing with a click") is not possible. How do you stay with a click track if you want the chorus to be a little brighter? I mean a little brighter, not 4 or 6 or 8 bpm brighter, i.e. something you can calcuate and program into the click. Or if you want one note to have a little extra length? Do you try to catch up on the next beat? Expressive musical performance, whether it's opera or pop, needs to have space to breathe and if you haven't had that experience yet, then your "two cents" may be overvalued.

[blue]

help and howto forum rule #7:

Do not argue with anyone from Canada.

[tonetripper]

What I said was that in one situation where I rehearsed with a jazz combo...

Well if it's jazz then what the hell is a click ever used for in the recording process. The musical suggestions that become involved with jazz almost directly correspond (ofcourse not in all cases) with moving meter.

This being said this arguement seems to be a moot point. I've encountered the limitations of using a click and the disadvantages of feel that it can alter and also the advantages of adding sync moments when the band is rock solid to the click. But you can't argue one point and that is that if you practice with a click it only makes you more able to push and pull the groove around a pretty solid meter. Whether that's a drum machine or you are playing with some pretty solid players who know the difference.

I've played with some pretty heavy drummers/musicians over the years, recording or what not, and you bet your ass that when the ONE needs the drummer/musicians to be spot on to endeavour the hot, on meter moment to come alive, say back to the head after the noodle fest, they are thankful for their metric rudiments.

All jazzers I know practice with a click now and again. That's how you become a better session player! Along with personal chops ofcourse. That's got to be atleast 5 bucks worth. Invoice is in the mail Frankie.

BTW, my former opera singing girlfriend always sang through her parts at home to a metronome. Even opera has some very defined metric moments. The conductors' usually have a pretty solid sense of meter. You can time some operas out to a score and not be that far off the mark from the composer's tempo markings. Just sayin' is all. [/offtopic]

[blue]

What I said was that in one situation where I rehearsed with a jazz combo...

Well if it's jazz then what the hell is a click ever used for in the recording process. The musical suggestions that become involved with jazz almost directly correspond (ofcourse not in all cases) with moving meter.

This being said this arguement seems to be a moot point.

then now would be a good time to SHUT THE FUCK UP about it.

[tonetripper]

Aye, aye CC!!! haahahahaaha

[Märk]

You people are all very stupid. That is all.

[nyjm]

click tracks aside, this thread is just awesome! keep it coming, folks. not that i've ever sat behind a drum set (or really plan to, for that matter), but it's great even just for new rhythm ideas for the ol' leaf drums.

- njm

[DJ3XHC]

Please tell me that is you in that picture.

Yeah?

[Leaf]

A stock, standard rock (Bonhamish) fill, that I love to overuse!!

These are hand - kick drum patterns:

Repeat the pattern slowly, and evenly, so that it flows. Then speed it up. Sometimes people start to think, as it gets faster, that the kick is not in time. Sometimes it's true, but sometimes it's just the effect of having the kick drum on the floor, projecting a lower pitch forward as opposed to the toms in your face... I try to view speeding up on the drums like stretching a muscle.. so you take it up to a speed that you can play everything accurately, hold it for a half minute or so, then push past that point until you think you're gonna lose all control, then back off to the "safe" speed, then repeat. It seems that over a few days, you can speed up in a way that's even and accurate. Anyway, the riffs are:

TRIPLETS:

R L B (repeat, all of them can repeat)

L R B

T T B (T = hands together)

B R L ; B L R; B T T ; L B R ; R B L ; T B T

...then you can also play two kicks in there, like:

B B L , B B R, B B T, T B B ; ETC.

Ok. Once you can play those ideas, you can then take that three motion theory thing, and cycle through these fills with different motions on the kit.

Once you can play these ideas individually, quickly (at LEAST 120 bpm) and with different motions, you can apply a melodic concept to it... think of the pitchs of the toms as you would notes on a ... damn, I'm unclear of the term, anyway, of a guitar or sax or whatever... and when you do your fills, play the drums as pitches rather than things you just hit.

A few days/weeks/months/years later, try to cycle the above ideas in set patterns of variation, like (example...that I haven't even tried to play yet..I'm at work...) :

RBB LRB BTT RLB

(just tried it on my desk...seems cool and awkward at the same time..neat)

Finally, try to improv random variations using different patterns, dynamics, melodic concepts, motion patterns and singing "in a gada di vida" at the same time... that's where I'm at with this right now... but I like self inflicted mental toture as much as the next person.

Even though I'm kidding about singing Iron Butterfly at the same time, I'm actually NOT kidding about singing at the same time. Gary Chester, a wicked drummer...has a great book called "The new breed" that touches on interesting systems of independence and it involves singing while playing complicated patterns. It works dern guud.

By the way, if someone has the knowledge and the time, a thread about rock/blues/whatever GUITAR riffs and ideas would be bloody awesome. Especially the blues licks. I got one. And it sucks... anyone... anyone...

[Reist]

So I'm no pro, but I've played drums for about 4 years now, so I have some sort of a grasp of the whole drumming deal. If you are trying to develop your double bass playing, and have just gotten a double kick pedal of some shape or form, I've got some advice, as I bought a double kick pedal last year and still have some great memories of figuring it out.

One of the things that helped me grow as a double basser was playing more than the basic RLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRLRL etc thing that most metal drummers do. Doing this with your feet is cool, but not in excess. Use more variety. For example, often times, I use the basic double bass pattern RL double timed right before certain crash/splash/china/stax hits, which, when used correctly, can really help create a more powerful drumming feel. Also, use your kick drum in your fills. An example would be paradigm shift by Liquid Tension experiment. In italics are the feet. In normal are the hands
RL RL RLRLRL RL RL RL RLRLRL RL RLRLRL RL
etc. This helped me a lot. Look up Mike Portnoy on drummerworld.com and check out his tutorial on the opening of paradigm shift.

[pegor]

Stick twirling - how do you do it?

I guess I feel the need to impress the spider that watches me play my little electronic kit in my dingy little spare bedroom, all alone, late at night......

[Leaf]

Well...


Not that I ever, while 16, twirled sticks whilst playing a quarter note rock beat only to swing the other stick around my head... but...




Put one stick in between the first finger (pointer) and the middle finger. Hold it in the middle of the stick.


Grab the end of the stick with your other hand, and slowly (sLOWLY!!) rotate it in a large circle. Feel what that feels like...

you should notice that your two fingers will "want" to "walk" (you know ...like walking fingers in the phone book).

When I do it, the bottom (or middle finger) slightly bends towards the palm as I'm twirling... uh.. I mean, if I twirled the stick.

when you twirl the sticks with out assisting it with the other hand, it's like walking the phone book with your finger tips, really fast, with that bottom finger slightly angling at the first knuckle.

This is the cheesy Tommy Lee-Ricky Rokket twirl. Hey. I was 16 once.


You know... I COULD put up a webcam shot of it tonight. If I remember. and you want. It's kinda hard to explain further in typing..other than try to move it in circles. Maybe not much help.

Or go to baton school or something.

[deshead]

There're a 1000 different ways to do it ... here's a really simple one: http://unirunner.com/node/207/play