STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

[NUTHA JASON]

a thread about the drummer's bible.

here you can talk about specific exercise numbers and ideas you had while playing them as well as your approaches in using the book as a whole.

for example:

ex 13 is a great one for practicing french finger technique.

or

ex 19 - 22 are useful for learning the open-close method for getting three stikes

or

ex 65 - 68 ... play them straight as written until the sticking is imbedded then play straight 16ths on the bass, 8ths with the hihat foot and swing the pattern (triplet feel) over the top playing it on the ride and snare or over the toms. voila...instant solo.

[n2xlr8n]

We have a fantastic resource here, and I feel there are many, many great ideas that can be contributed in regards to Stick Control.

I'm one of the older guys starting (over) at the beginning with rudiments, and I'd like to know the facts about the application of this book.

My recent practice involves the metronome-supervised (counting out loud) free stroke and the Moeller motion, focusing on my right hand (weak hand). I'm waiting on my copy of Stick Control to arrive at the music store, In the meantime, I have Accents and Rebounds, but I'm afraid it's too much too soon having not mastered the motions yet. i.e., Sometimes the accents are on the last note of a double stroke, and I'm clueless as to how to make that motion in a "closed" or finger-control-type stroke.

Qs relating to Stick Control:

-Is the book intended to be practiced in an "open" fashion until the comfort is acheived with the patterns? Is that the idea with most rudimental study books?

-Should I intuitively be using less and less "moeller" motion as the tempo increases?

-Should I stay away from implementing my "fingers" until I feel comfortable with the rudiments or patterns (in time and even)?


Thanks everyone, for the input. I certainly appreciate it!

S.

[centralzeke]

Just play the god damned exercises, lol. Slowly. Forget about Moeller and finger technique..

An example routine would be go through exercise 1-12 on the first page.. doing each one 3 times softly then 3 times louder and go through them without stopping.

[NUTHA JASON]

yeah. thats a good start but then you need to really work in each one discovering its application and feel. the temptation with the moeller thing is to only practice it in singles and doubles but actually stick control is a great platform for putting it to good use. by using the open close technique i can really relax into each double or triple stroke wherever it may be in the pattern. but yeah, first just overcome the problem of remembering which hand goes where.

j

[Just Drums]

There's just too many ways to use SC to list here! =)
Maybe one day, I'll write an article on it.

I'll make myself unpopular here but I think people get too caught up on trendy techniques. Moeller. Heel-toe. Etc. Sure - if you have all the time in the world to practice all these techniques and grips, knock yourself out. It surely can't hurt. But I can't say that I believe that it helps either. Pick a grip and just practice! =) I was introduced to Moeller in college after marching and that was it. I can play plenty fast and I never needed to resort to using a special technique.

OK - flame away for not being a Moeller fan.

[Garvin]

Groove, I wholeheartedly agree with you here. I think it is good to have some technique in mind while practicing these excercises, but I think the main goal is to get through the pages. I've gotten stuck while deciding how to hold the sticks and what strokes to do rather than just play the piece.

Converseley, SC can be used as a great tool for practicing anything you want from independence, to footwork, to technique (solely technique) and in that regard it is a very versatile and open teaching and learning tool. But I think that again, the main point is to decide what you want to practice and stick to it all the way through.

[n2xlr8n]

There's just too many ways to use SC to list here! =)
Maybe one day, I'll write an article on it.

I'll make myself unpopular here but I think people get too caught up on trendy techniques. Moeller. Heel-toe. Etc. Sure - if you have all the time in the world to practice all these techniques and grips, knock yourself out. It surely can't hurt. But I can't say that I believe that it helps either. Pick a grip and just practice! =) I was introduced to Moeller in college after marching and that was it. I can play plenty fast and I never needed to resort to using a special technique.

OK - flame away for not being a Moeller fan.


Wow. Maybe I misunderstood your post. While I agree it's not a good thing to get mired up in trends, I'd have to say for myself (not being concerned with BPM, gravity blasts, and the like) I'm more concerned with the correct application of Stick Control as it relates to my hand speed. Although I've been playing for 31 years, I've never studied rudiments and hand technique specifically.

As far as time goes.....if one wants it bad enough, there's time.

BTW, do you know Grant Menefee? I'm one of his OLD students, lol. Great guy.

Thanks for the input!

S.

[jazzsnob]

This is an awesome thread, and I hope it gets stickied. I'll add the way I learned.

This is by no means the only way to do stick control, but this is a proven way to get some serious technique together. It requires A LOT of patience, and I don’t suggest starting it if you aren’t going to finish it. It’s EXTREMELY difficult sometimes. And also, the method takes about 3-5 years to complete. And you only practice the first page of the book.

THE JIMMY SAGE/CHUCK BROWN/BILLY GLADSTONE METHOD FOR STICK CONTROL.
Set your metronome to an 8th note of about 100. Most drummers should be able to do anything on the first page at that tempo after a few minutes of messing around. Now spend an entire week working(I’m sorry, I don’t have my book with me, so I don’t have exact numbers) on the . Just singles, doubles, and the first paradiddle exercise. Only those two , extremely slow. The doubles and paradiddles should sound EXACTLY like singles. It’s good to go over this method with a teacher, or to record yourself doing it on a snare drum to make sure everything is perfect. Then, one week later, you practice single, doubles, and the next exercise, inverted paradiddles(RLLRLRRL). If it takes you two weeks to get it perfect, fine. Give youself time on these excercises.

Another difficult part of the exercise is that every minute or so you should raise your stick to at least a 12-16 inch height and play at that height for 8 measures. Then you bring in back down. You must do this perfectly in time and make sure all the strokes are still uniform in dynamic and tonal quality and all that jibba jabba. This will give you “good pain” after a while, your muscles WILL get sore, but they will never give you terrible pain.

Remember, just like G.L. Stone said, stay relaxed 100% of the time, even when you go up. You should be putting at least 30 minutes a day into these excercises.


So you spend 2 months, going through excercises 5-24 or something at tempo 100. Done now? Great! Now you do it all over again at 104! and 108! and 112! and 116! and so on!. Never go up more then one click on a metronome when starting the page over.




The reason this exercise method is so difficult is because you have to be so patient. A lot of younger drummers especially want to start faster, speed up the next day, blah blah blah. If you do that you WILL NOT IMPROVE AS QUICKLY. This exercise really seriously does require patience. It apparently takes an entire year to get from 200 to 208.


The reasons this exercise is GREAT are numerous. First of all, you are always working on singles and doubles. Singles and doubles are what most of drumming is made of. Second of all, spending a couple weeks on only one combination of 8 notes makes you completely intimate with the pattern, and you will be able to interchange it in time with any feel you want. I guarantee you that by the time you finish this exercise(in 2112 or so) you will have some SERIOUS technique. One of my drum teacher’s older students is on 176 or something(he's been doing for 3 1/2 years) and has some crazy technical abilities.

Good technique means you can learn parts faster.

Yay for good technique!


p.s. do these excercises on a practice pad with LOTS of rebound. Don't worry, you won't need a pillow to "feel the burn" once you get to about 138 or so.

[jazzsnob]

sorry double post

i am really samrt

[Just Drums]

Wow. Maybe I misunderstood your post. While I agree it's not a good thing to get mired up in trends, I'd have to say for myself (not being concerned with BPM, gravity blasts, and the like) I'm more concerned with the correct application of Stick Control as it relates to my hand speed. Although I've been playing for 31 years, I've never studied rudiments and hand technique specifically.

As far as time goes.....if one wants it bad enough, there's time.

BTW, do you know Grant Menefee? I'm one of his OLD students, lol. Great guy.

Thanks for the input!

S.

Maybe I wasn't clear. I am a huge stickler on proper technique. I'm all about rudiments, reading, and a good grip. When I was teaching, if I saw pinky fingers sticking out or thumbs facing up, you had to drop and give me 20! =)

But on the flip side of all that is that I think too many drummers get too caught up on the latest popular technique or grip. Push-pull. Heel-toe. Moeller. Etc. Just use good technique and practice the hell out of it. Period. I can play plenty fast doubles, triples, and even quad strokes without having to practice using some special technique. I'm sure there are some WFD champs lurking around who could play singles much faster than me and more power to them. They'd most likely tell me to use a certain method or technique to do what they do. But chances are, I wouldn't be asked to play 1500 BPM on a gig or audition. And if I did, I'd probably be fired. =)

I'm not saying working on multiple techniques is bad. I just think time can be spent better doing other things.

[Dr. Jones]

Ummmmm.... what's wrong with thumbs facing up? Isn't that the french grip? Nearly every jazz player I've seen play has their thumbs facing up when playing ride patterns. Just look at the picture of of Bill Stewart on the link to his second video.

http://www.drummerworld.com/drummers/Bill_Stewart.html

[centralzeke]

Great post jazzsnob!!! That is a right way to practice Stick Control. If everyone did this their technique would improve tremendously.

And that Bill Stewart clip is sick..

[Just Drums]

Ummmmm.... what's wrong with thumbs facing up? Isn't that the french grip? Nearly every jazz player I've seen play has their thumbs facing up when playing ride patterns. Just look at the picture of of Bill Stewart on the link to his second video.

http://www.drummerworld.com/drummers/Bill_Stewart.html

If an experienced student came to me wanting to play traditional jazz and only jazz, then sure, having a french grip in the right hand is OK. It gives a certain light feel to your right. But if a beginner came to me with 100% french grip on both hands, I'd correct it before diving into SC. I catch myself using french grip a lot but only when I'm swinging. It's all a matter of the context of what you're doing I suppose.

[jazzsnob]

If you're doing the method I wrote out, DO NOT use the french grip. My teacher's have always stressed that you don't really need to spend much time working on french grip besides isolated finger technique. This is similar to the heel-down/heel-up debate. It's better to practice 90% heel down and perform with either, because heel down works more muscles and helps both equally. American and german grips work the muscles that also help french grip a lot. French grip doesn't work the same muscles.


Don't use french grip on stick control. Most jazz drummers who play french on ride still play a flatter, more american grip on the snare and toms

[Styx]

To make it a bit interesting as well as working on a bit of independence, try playing a Samba pattern with your feet while doing the sticking exercises.

[NUTHA JASON]

good one.

i like to keep a record of what i've done to keep my practices structured and also to make sure i've covered stuff evenly. after an initial suck-it-and-see record sheet where i do each exercise for at least 12 minutes spread out over a couple of weeks i get down to business with this one below.
the horizontal dark lines show exercise groupings (which i think logically fit together) and i do not allow myself to go into the next group until all the boxes have been ticked in the current group. the vertical dark lines show practices at the same tempo. i vary the amount of time in each exercise to keep it fresh but these are only minimum times as i sometimes hit a sweet spot and will keep going. when the whole sheet is full i might change the speeds and make a sheet starting at 100 and going up in increments of 10 to go up to 160 but that will depend on a self assessment of the results after filling the chart. hope it helps some of you.
j
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y290/nuthajason/glsrecsheetforDW.jpg (http://s7.photobucket.com/albums/y290/nuthajason/?start=#imgAnch1)

[Wavelength]

Set your metronome to an 8th note of about 100 (and) spend an entire week working on (j)ust singles, doubles, and the first paradiddle exercise... The doubles and paradiddles should sound EXACTLY like singles...Then, one week later, you practice single, doubles, and the next exercise, inverted paradiddles.

This method of practice sounds great! However, I could use some clarifications. Should you practice the singles and doubles leading with both hands all the time, or just one hand? Or should you lead with the left only when the special exercise of the week starts with a left hand stroke?

How about stick height? You suggested raising the sticks to a 16 inch height every minute, but never mentioned how high you should play otherwise. So, is it half strokes and full strokes, or taps and full strokes?

And by the way, going through the page takes nineteen weeks according to my math, which sums up to almost five months rather than just two. If you spend only two months on one tempo, then you're cheating, mister! :-)

[NUTHA JASON]

Should you practice the singles and doubles leading with both hands all the time, or just one hand?

the GLS book is so written that for example ex1 (RLRLetc) and ex2 (LRLRetc) are mirrors as are 3 (RRLLetc) and 4 (LLRR etc) and so on. so leading hand is immaterial. he insists on making you do both systematically. i think jazzsnob is thinking in groups of related exercises as in my chart above.

j

[n2xlr8n]

Thanks for the help, folks.

I went through the ex.1-6 last night @ 8th=80 using full strokes (the "free stroke") for an hour.

To make sure I understand the method: Play the examples using half strokes for one cycle, then use tap strokes, correct?

Are you guys saying that I don't necessarily have to use a full or "free" stroke when playing this book (for the first time)?

I appreciate the help!

S.

[jazzsnob]

This method of practice sounds great! However, I could use some clarifications. Should you practice the singles and doubles leading with both hands all the time, or just one hand? Or should you lead with the left only when the special exercise of the week starts with a left hand stroke?

How about stick height? You suggested raising the sticks to a 16 inch height every minute, but never mentioned how high you should play otherwise. So, is it half strokes and full strokes, or taps and full strokes?

And by the way, going through the page takes nineteen weeks according to my math, which sums up to almost five months rather than just two. If you spend only two months on one tempo, then you're cheating, mister! :-)

As far as heights go, whenever you aren't "UP" you should be playing extremely low, about 2-3 inches. Taps you could say.

And you're right about the 5 month thing, but sometimes things can go faster. And it is one thing I forgot in my original post, but if you want, you can play the paradiddle sections and the triple stroke sections all in one week. You should only do that if you are seriously practicing 6-10 hours a day(like what I'm doing now that I'm out of high school).

But I stopped working on this excercise after two years because I changed to tradtional grip. Luckily, my drum teacher tells me that when I start it again in a month or two, I can start it just a few metronome clicks below where it was before, about 126.

Good luck with it!


edit:As Nutha said, you don't need to worry about leading with these excercises, G.L. Stone already did that work for you! And for clarification Nutha, the whole point of these excercises is to make sure that you are constantly working on singles and doubles every day, while looking and and working on variations of them, every single day. You can do a simpler excercise by taking maybe, a group of four excercises and practicing them for a week, but that unfortunately means less focus on the individual patterns.

[LinearDrummer]

the GLS book is so written that for example ex1 (RLRLetc) and ex2 (LRLRetc) are mirrors as are 3 (RRLLetc) and 4 (LLRR etc) and so on. so leading hand is immaterial. he insists on making you do both systematically. i think jazzsnob is thinking in groups of related exercises as in my chart above.

j

When I first started playing I think I made the mistake of only doing the right hand lead stuff....
Now I realize the importance of left hand lead exercises...Its probably time for me to back into that book...

[jazzsnob]

How'd you manage that linear?

[LinearDrummer]

How'd you manage that linear?

I would do only the ones that looped back to the right....

Like RlrlRlrl - R R L L....cause I would struggle with 16ths or 32nds (however you wanna count them) starting with my left...

Since most of my fills at that time started with my right hand I saw no use for it....
LOL - In otherwords I was being lazy...

[NUTHA JASON]

probably the same way i did...

no teacher
+
comfort zone

[jazzsnob]

I would do only the ones that looped back to the right....

Like RlrlRlrl - R R L L....cause I would struggle with 16ths or 32nds (however you wanna count them) starting with my left...

Since most of my fills at that time started with my right hand I saw no use for it....
LOL - In otherwords I was being lazy...


Oh I see, lame dude. Glad you've come to see the light.


I know of another way to use stick control in an awesome way. You know those gospel chops guys? Well, a lot of the fills they do are just stick control-ish patterns split up between the hands and feet. I'd suggest you take stick control, pick one of the later excercises and write it out with the bass drum as the L notes and and the R notes as a combination of your hands around the drum set. Screw around with, it works pretty well.

[LinearDrummer]

You know those gospel chops guys? Well, a lot of the fills they do are just stick control-ish patterns split up between the hands and feet.

Sounds like a plan...

I know I'm doing my own hybrid of BD type substitutions within paradiddle variations but I just don't quite have it completely up to speed...

But I know what your saying....

[jazzsnob]

Another great way to use the first page of stick control is to simply play R on the hi-hat and L on the snare and play independance figures with your bass drum. Put a back beat in their and then you have tons of random, awesome grooves.

[Chip]

The reasons this exercise is GREAT are numerous. First of all, you are always working on singles and doubles. Singles and doubles are what most of drumming is made of.

Jazzsnob, that is very near to my exact philosophy/take on practicing, very well articulated!!! The closer you get to the basics, the more you learn, the more you will use it. If you practice a 19/16 ostinato with a polyrhythm underneath, it's never going to give you the benefit that the 2-50 will.

Great post Jazzsnob!!!

[jazzsnob]

My drum teacher is a big fan/bastard about stick control. I have 50 ways to play it I could post(of course I haven't done all them by any means but I hope I get to in the next few years).

[shuffle]

Just a few comments on this very interesting thread

-) I see a lot of ideas/comments regarding pages 5-7, but not much on the remaining of the book. When I started practicing stick control, I also focused on those first pages. I do agree that you can spend years on those, especially when approached in the extensive practice routines explained in some of the previous posts. But there are also lots of benefits to gain from the remaining of the book.

-) By the same token, stick control doesn’t include any accent exercises per se . There is Accents and Rebounds, but I ended up buying Master Studies instead. I even bought the second Master Studies last week. Great great books.

How I personally use those books is as following, for what I could call my hands routine

-) I allow about 50% of the time to page 5-7. I feel those are the ground foundation. I try to stay around 20 repetitions of each exercices, and I focus on accuracy rather than speed.

-) I devote a 25% on triplets (don’t have the book with me… pages 8-9 ?) and 16th notes exercices (10-11 ?). I wish I could do the flams as well – would be great for me, but I’m not there yet.

-) Then the remaining 25% is devoted to Master Studies. At that stage, I will usually practice the exercises as written, but I will also often incorporate them as fills. I pick a groove, which I play on a metronome, and I incorporate the different exercices as 1 bar fills once every three measures, splitting each beat on a different surface. Many exercises in the second Master Studies are great for “groups of 6” development with various stickings, and this is what I’m mainly working on at the moment.. This last step eventually moves me on to the next step on my routine, where I practice grooves only….

Total time allowed will vary according to my other occupations. Usually 30 to 45 minutes, 3-4 times a week.. I realize this “routine” is nowhere as structured as some posted previously. I’m almost ashamed to post it. This is what I do with the time I have…

[Thomas]

Begin starting everything with your left hand, leading with you left and gives a great deal of coordination.
This thread has given me some great tips thanks.

[jazzsnob]

Well, I agree that this thread has focus on the single beat combinations of the first 3 pages, but I believe that is alright. Even though the whole book is full of useful information, the pure simple brilliance of those first few pages are what makes stick control "perfect" as Joe Morello says. Those pages are an infinite foundation, mainly because they have no accents or musical flourishes. They are perfect conditioners. And even though everything in the book is useful; for a drummer who is really looking for some professional technique, tone and facility needs to really spend huge amounts of time and focus on just that one page. If you work hard enough on the first page, the rest is almost superfluous.

I'll try the next 3 pages in 5 years.

[JWM]

Sometimes the accents are on the last note of a double stroke, and I'm clueless as to how to make that motion in a "closed" or finger-control-type stroke.
If you know the Moeller motion, you're halfway there.

Try doing a string of slow 16ths, accenting the quarters with the Moeller stroke. Now, as you're doing that, notice what you're doing on "a-1, a-2, a-3, etc." Now, remove the "e" and "&" and you have a tap and then a Moeller stroke. So you basically tap the first note of the double on the way up and then the accent is the Moeller stroke.

Hope that helps.

[shuffle]

They are perfect conditioners. And even though everything in the book is useful; for a drummer who is really looking for some professional technique, tone and facility needs to really spend huge amounts of time and focus on just that one page. If you work hard enough on the first page, the rest is almost superfluous.


Hummm. Almost superfluous ?

From a rhythmic perspective, combining different subdivisions in time has improved a lot for me with triplets, 16th notes exercices, as well as with many other Joe Morello exercices (the table of time....).

From a phrasing perspective, I've also seen lots of improvement in my dynamics since I started practicing accented snare patterns.

And I'm not too sure how pages 5-7 can help with flams either.

[torrid]

hi @ all.

i have a general question about stick control..

...they talking in the book about an "open roll" and a "closed roll"..

i dont underatstand the difference..

can anybody explain the difference to me..

thank you

[jazzsnob]

Open roll=Double strokes

Closed roll=A press roll, as far as I've learned.

But also when he talks about open and closed, he may be meaning starting slow, speeding up and slowing down again.

Anyway, shuffle-

I understand why you're questioning the method of focusing on just the first page for so many years, so I'll try and explain it even more thoroughly. This is awesome practice for me because I'd like to teach in some official way someday and it's hard to communicate these ideas..

By "almost superfluous" I mean that you could spend years going through the whole book stick control. Everything is useful, but essentially everything after the first page(that I can think of, I don't have the book right here. I apologize if I'm wrong) is a variation of the first page, or at least has similarities to the first page. The first page is the most basic, of course. My drum teacher, oh so many years ago, was studying with Chuck Brown(who studied for years under Billy Gladstone) and he did the first page(page 5) of stick control, it took him 4 1/2 years of working his butt off everyday, but he did it, he could play all the exercises on the first page at 200 for minutes at a time with ease. After he was done with the first page, he was able to go throught the rest of the book and got it ALL up to speed in 7 months or something. Once you get patient get through the first page FULLY, the rest goes quickly. To this day, he still practices the first page only, and plays it at 250 or something for maintenance.

The way I suggest is NOT the only way that works, and shuffle, I'm sure your way works for you. This "recipe" for stick control(I should copyright that) is designed for a young drummer, 16-18 years old(unless you're older and taking a break from work for 5 years to play drums 8 hours a day), who is planning on going to a music school or just becoming a working musician who practices at least 5 hours a day, and will be doing that for a few years. Because even thought it doesn't work on flam and accents, you'd be surprised at how many older, working drummers have somewhat lacking single and double stroke abilities. A drummer will spend their entire life on these things, but REALLY focusing on these things for 4 or 5 years (really an instant in a life long career of playing and practicing) will make learning ALL OTHER MATERIAL easier. After my drum teacher did this method, he tore through the rest of stick control, Accents and Rebounds, Master Studies and a few rudimental snare books in just a few years and now he's respected as a master technician in the Bay Area.

I'm sorry, I feel like Jared Falk or someone trying to sell something. Except I'm pretty darn sure this works if you have the time to put in(at least 45 minutes a day, non-stop, for 4 or 5 years). I'm also not selling anything. So Shuffle, I suggest you try it if you ever get the time, but looking back at it again, your way looks prety good as well. The whole mindset behind a lot of Gladstones teachings is that if you move to a new excercise before you have perfected the original is essentially moving backwards, so we spend A LOT of time perfecting excercises.

P.S. This is the way that GLADSTONE taught stick control, and the gladstone technique is fairly different from the moeller technique. If you play moeller, I'm not guaranteeing this will work for you. First of all, arm movement should be minimal. There should be NO ACCENTS, which will probably be the biggest problem. PM me or post if you play mainly moeller and want to get a little bit of gladstone in your playing. I'll try and help, or I can ask my drum teacher. I think Jeff Alymeda(sp?) and a few other players on here also could offer some great insight on the gladstone technique.

[centralzeke]

Jeff or JazzSnob, I'd be interested if either of you would post an example of a good routine for the first page, to be followed for a few weeks (including how many times each ex., etc.).

[jazzsnob]

Jeff or JazzSnob, I'd be interested if either of you would post an example of a good routine for the first page, to be followed for a few weeks (including how many times each ex., etc.).

Here's a good routine for 30 minutes a day, that you can get through in a few months and get some good improvement. You need a digital kitchen timer of some kind and a metronome. This method should always be done on a pad with lots of rebound.

I'm assuming you have intermediate technique when I post this, so change the starting tempo if it's too difficult. If it's "too easy," stay with it anyway. You can always get it more clean and even.

Start with the half-note 112bpm on the metronome. I say that because I'm pretty sure the subdivision for the beats on the first page is 8ths. I don't have the book in front of me, my friend borrowed mine, so forgive me. There should be four hand strokes per click.

Spend one week practicing the singles exercise, the doubles exercise and the four first paradiddle exercises. To practice each one of these, set your timer for 5 minutes. Play the exercises at about a 2 inch height, with NO ACCENTS. Watch the timer, and at the end of every minute, raise your stick height to 12-16 inches for 4 bars. Then bring them back down and play the exercise at 2 inches until the next minute is over. When you are raising or lowering your stick heights, don't do it quickly or in a "jumpy" way. Do it musically, "with flourish" as nutha would say, as a nice, even crescendo over a bar or two. Following your crescendo, you start your 4 bars at full height, and then after you finish those, bring it down in as musical a decrescendo as you can, over a bar or two.

After one week, do the doubles, singles and 4 different types of triple stroke combos at 112. Do the same 5 minute runs with the crescendos and such. After another week, do doubles, singles and the next "group" of 4 exercises. The next week, do the next set of four, along with your "building blocks" of singles and doubles. Once you reach the end of the page, start it all over with the paradiddles(while always working on singles and doubles) at 116, one click up on the metronome.

This routine is not as in-depth as others posted, but it definitely helps with your tone, speed, dynamic control(you start getting really good at dynamic changes after a month or two) and time. It helps your time because since you only move up one click on the metronome every month or so, you get pretty intimate with each tempo.

I know you asked for a method that will take weeks, but with stick control, you can go your whole life. I hope this works well for you, because it really is just 30 focused minutes out of your day.

Good luck!

[shuffle]

Thanks jazzsnob, for all this time you take for sharing your routines. Very interesting

It seems pretty obvious that your technique leads to a rock solid foundation. I don't even want to compare mine to yours. You started your first post by saying that it takes a lot of time and patience to start it. Considering the other drumming aspects I need to work on, and time available, I'm just not sure it can work for me.

I think what surprises me the most from your routines is the high number of repetitions you do of the few exercises you work on. What I actually love about stick control is exactly the opposite - the constant variations it provides. By doing 20 repetitions or so of each exercises, you need need to readjust and refocus as soon as your muscles are getting used to a given pattern. This constant re-adaptation is how I feel I eventually gain the more "control".

As soon as I'm confortable with a pattern, I skip to the next one. I never get bored doing this. The always-renewed challenge of landing each new pattern right on the beat is a pleasure that I end because there are so many other things I need to work on, and unfortunatly not enough time to do it.

[jazzsnob]

I think what surprises me the most from your routines is the high number of repetitions you do of the few exercises you work on. What I actually love about stick control is exactly the opposite - the constant variations it provides. By doing 20 repetitions or so of each exercises, you need need to readjust and refocus as soon as your muscles are getting used to a given pattern. This constant re-adaptation is how I feel I eventually gain the more "control".


I agree with you that my methods I've posted focus mainly on the basics, but I'm biased these days. This is because I'm 18 years old, I've taken this year off to really try and get my playing from a high-advanced level to an advanced level. That means major focus on the basics. But, there are limitless ways to practice Stick Control, your way sounds fine. It's going to show improvement in a different way, but it will help. If you set a metronome at a tempo, and go through the first page front to finish, doing twenty repetitions of one, then seamlessly going to the next one, is definitely a respectable hand workout.


The reason I focus so much on page 5 is that I've been pretty highly trained(by my teacher and my own hyper-focus) to think of myself as "unworthy" to continue beyond the first page until I really "finish it," as in I'd be willing to show Buddy Rich how I'm doing on stick control.

So if I act incredulous in response to you guys talking about doing stuff with other pages, I apologize.

[n2xlr8n]

If you know the Moeller motion, you're halfway there.

Try doing a string of slow 16ths, accenting the quarters with the Moeller stroke. Now, as you're doing that, notice what you're doing on "a-1, a-2, a-3, etc." Now, remove the "e" and "&" and you have a tap and then a Moeller stroke. So you basically tap the first note of the double on the way up and then the accent is the Moeller stroke.

Hope that helps.

It does, thank you. Right now, that particular motion is sllooooow. But that's okay for me at this point; I'm not starting over at 40 y.o. (technique-wise) to do things sloppily.

Sounds like I'm not the only perfectionist here (jazzsnob, lol).

Thanks for the help, folks!

S.

[NUTHA JASON]

to shuffle and jazzsnob

you guys are making this thread.

what about a combination of both your approaches? really concentrating on page one for 80% of the available time and 20% covering the other pages. kind of depth with some breadth.


?


j

[jazzsnob]

to shuffle and jazzsnob

you guys are making this thread.

what about a combination of both your approaches? really concentrating on page one for 80% of the available time and 20% covering the other pages. kind of depth with some breadth.


?


j


Nutha-
That totally works too. I play pretty much 100% Gladstone technique, and one of the problems with the gladstone technique is that it's so FRIGGIN HARD TO GET RIGHT. I'm lucky to have a teacher who is essentially a second generation Gladstone student. But one of the reasons I pound in the basics and the first pages so much kind of goes like this. "Hey, if I can't do this page as well as Vinnie Coliauta, why move to the next page?"

It's a perfectionist attitude that doesn't apply to everyone that I definitely need to work on, because I want to teach someday and I need to really figure out how to teach to kids who aren't willing to put in 6 hours a day. You know, kids who have friends and social lives and stuff.

It works for me, but doesn't for everyone. Even what shuffle said earlier, having 50% of time devoted to the first page is fine. The mindset is, if you get your basics down to a professional level, and you get really incredible doubles and singles, then everything else is patterns to learn. Even all the advanced stuff in Master Studies can be done fairly quickly if your basic hand technique doesn't impede you.

That said, getting the first page really down is a great technical achievement, but it isn't incredibly musical. I think the rest of the book is much more helpful for that stuff. I'll get my damn book back from my friend and screw around with stuff for those later pages. God knows I have the time to.

[LinearDrummer]

Another great way to use the first page of stick control is to simply play R on the hi-hat and L on the snare and play independance figures with your bass drum. Put a back beat in their and then you have tons of random, awesome grooves.

So do you use the same BD phrase and go through each sticking or do you create a seperate one that naturally works with each sticking...

I ask this cause I really struggle with my BD independence against a paradiddle type groove if my right foot is NOT following my right hand....

[jazzsnob]

Pick some pages from "Syncopation" and play them with your right foot while playing the stick control figures, and try and create grooves with it.

[LinearDrummer]

LOL - you've got a whole system worked out....
So your coordination is good enough that you can play ANY bass drum line under a paradiddle variation type groove??

Most people have to shadow their right hand not necessarily every note but most of the time I hear someone doin that type of thing the BD falls in with the hat...the sound of a BD and snare hit in unison is alot harder to me...

[shuffle]

That said, getting the first page really down is a great technical achievement, but it isn't incredibly musical. I think the rest of the book is much more helpful for that stuff. I'll get my damn book back from my friend and screw around with stuff for those later pages. God knows I have the time to.

You may be surprised to find that those pages actually also will help you in your quest for "the perfect page 7". You just have to accept to slow down the tempo accordingly. Everything up to page 15 are variations around the same theme. You "just" add the extra complexity of mixing the different grouping on each beat. And the big challenge soon becomes to play the 8th notes in time. Coming back from triplets and 16th notes to good strong in-time eight notes with all those sticking variations at different tempos is a lifetime project.

My favorite page is 15, where they all mix. While I don't pretend to ever master it enough to be able to play it in front of Steve or Vinnie, I feel it does contribute to make page 7 sound a bit better.

I never went anywhere past page 15. But if time would allow, I'd love to work on the flams.

Even all the advanced stuff in Master Studies can be done fairly quickly if your basic hand technique doesn't impede you..

Master studies is a very different beast. The accents are introduced, and I would agree that this aspect *can* be addressed "fairly quickly" (still require a lot of work...) with good hand technique. But there are many exercices which require several notes to be played by the same hand. I find these to be the more challenging, obviously for speed issue, but even more for dynamic accuracy. I'm just looking at #41 page 11 (first book), which goes like this :

L r l l r L r r L l l L l l l L

It is very hard to insert to right hand strokes in time and with correct dynamics in this flow of accented-unaccented left hand strokes. Master studies is loaded with these, and in that sense, I feel it is really a sequel to stick control, and not a variation on the same theme.

[jazzsnob]

Master studies is a very different beast. The accents are introduced, and I would agree that this aspect *can* be addressed "fairly quickly" (still require a lot of work...) with good hand technique. But there are many exercices which require several notes to be played by the same hand. I find these to be the more challenging, obviously for speed issue, but even more for dynamic accuracy. I'm just looking at #41 page 11 (first book), which goes like this :

L r l l r L r r L l l L l l l L

It is very hard to insert to right hand strokes in time and with correct dynamics in this flow of accented-unaccented left hand strokes. Master studies is loaded with these, and in that sense, I feel it is really a sequel to stick control, and not a variation on the same theme.


When I said that you can get through master studies quickly, I was never trying to delegitimize the fact that it is an extremely advanced and awesome book. I was saying that if you go through with the EXTREME gladstone method of stick control, then you can go through it quickly. But that doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile to do before you do that. One problem I realize is that most people don't really have the time for the first major routine I posted. But I would bet that if you full went through with it you'd be able to get master studies to an acceptable level in less than a year. Of course, Master Studies has a couple of those excercises that you can work on forever, but that's another thread.

[n2xlr8n]

THE JIMMY SAGE/CHUCK BROWN/BILLY GLADSTONE METHOD FOR STICK CONTROL.
Set your metronome to an 8th note of about 100. Most drummers should be able to do anything on the first page at that tempo after a few minutes of messing around. Now spend an entire week working(I’m sorry, I don’t have my book with me, so I don’t have exact numbers) on the . Just singles, doubles, and the first paradiddle exercise. Only those two , extremely slow. The doubles and paradiddles should sound EXACTLY like singles. It’s good to go over this method with a teacher, or to record yourself doing it on a snare drum to make sure everything is perfect. Then, one week later, you practice single, doubles, and the next exercise, inverted paradiddles(RLLRLRRL). If it takes you two weeks to get it perfect, fine. Give youself time on these excercises.

Another difficult part of the exercise is that every minute or so you should raise your stick to at least a 12-16 inch height and play at that height for 8 measures. Then you bring in back down. You must do this perfectly in time and make sure all the strokes are still uniform in dynamic and tonal quality and all that jibba jabba. This will give you “good pain” after a while, your muscles WILL get sore, but they will never give you terrible pain.

Remember, just like G.L. Stone said, stay relaxed 100% of the time, even when you go up. You should be putting at least 30 minutes a day into these excercises.

Never go up more then one click on a metronome when starting the page over.

The reason this exercise method is so difficult is because you have to be so patient. A lot of younger drummers especially want to start faster, speed up the next day, blah blah blah. If you do that you WILL NOT IMPROVE AS QUICKLY. This exercise really seriously does require patience. It apparently takes an entire year to get from 200 to 208.

Good technique means you can learn parts faster.

Yay for good technique!

p.s. do these excercises on a practice pad with LOTS of rebound. Don't worry, you won't need a pillow to "feel the burn" once you get to about 138 or so.


I started using this method 9/6/06. On the 10th, after my "chops" practice session, I went into my studio to play my kit. What I immediately noticed was that my dynamics were better than they've ever been, and the harder patterns required much less effort. Sure, we all have days where we can't do anything wrong (and the others, like we've never picked up a pair of sticks). Last night showed the same result. It may seem like I'm hyping this, but I find it easy to measure my progress: I record my playing (and practice).

I'm convinced.

Thanks for the great advice.

S.

[jazzsnob]

Awesome, dude. Being a perfectionist pays off with technique.

[Timmay]

Hey jazzsnob, how much time do you spend with your Stick Control method each day? Your whole practice time of 6-10 hrs?

[NUTHA JASON]

at the moment i'm doing 2 hours broken up into 30 min sections and then i put in an hour or more on other stuff.
j

[shuffle]

at the moment i'm doing 2 hours broken up into 30 min sections and then i put in an hour or more on other stuff.
j

Every day ? What an awesome schedule.

As I said previously, I'm only doing about 30-45 minutes 3-4 times a week.

I also keep a practice pad in the kitchen, and I can often squeeze a few 5 minutes here and there in the daily activities. What you can achieve in only 5 minutes can often be surprising.

I guess my point here is that regular short sessions seem better than sparse long ones. It is obviously true for most stuff, but I think it applies even more to stick control type of exercises

[NUTHA JASON]

sometimes even more. i'm between careers at the mo so i'm only working about 2 days each week and gigging all weekend. but i don't treat it as a holiday. my average day starts at 9:00 and i do sessions of at least 30 minutes but as long as 45 with 10 - 15 min breaks for food/DWforum/toilet/house-cleaning, and working like that i finish around 7:00pm for supper. first few days were torture but i'm fittening up.

j

[jazzsnob]

Hey jazzsnob, how much time do you spend with your Stick Control method each day? Your whole practice time of 6-10 hrs?

I try to to keep it 6 hours at least. I have a three hour routine that I do twice a day. 1 hour of hand stuff, one hour reading and one of drumset stuff. I pretty much without fail do that routine twice a day. Then, depending on how much stuff I have to do I maybe will play along to an album practicing time feels, or I'll transcribe some stuff and try and learn it.

I'm not even working on the stick control method I posted, but I'm reworking some techniques and such, so I'm starting that up in a month or two.

[centralzeke]

I have a question for you guys that have been hardcore into Stick Control. When you do these dynamic exercises out of the book, do you try to keep all your fingers on the stick or what?

[jazzsnob]

Tips of your fingers on the sticks at all times, definitely.

[Timmay]

I tried the hardcore method, it's killer, especially due to the crescendi. My control has vastly improved in two days (1 hour each). I'm definitely convinced.

[jazzsnob]

I tried the hardcore method, it's killer, especially due to the crescendi. My control has vastly improved in two days (1 hour each). I'm definitely convinced.


I'm gonna copyright that stuff. "HARDCORE STICK CONTROL"

It'll be my instructional book and I'll be on the cover with a big 80's Dave Weckl haircut.

And Billy Gladstone's ghost will haunt me forever because these are all his ideas.

[NUTHA JASON]

i don't know about the title of the book tho...

HARDCORE STICK CONTROL - hmmm, sounds like a forbidden website.

back to the topic tho. i've been doing pretty intesive stuff on page one for three weeks now and the effects are showing in gigs. last night i found i dared to do fills i would normally shy away from, and found that they rolled out perfectly and nearly effortlessly. all this leg work makes for a more daring drummer. it is worth it.

j

[jazzsnob]

ewww man


How come drumming has so many more accidental sexuall inuendos than other instruments?

Guess that's for another thread.

I'm glad that it's working for you nutha.

[NUTHA JASON]

here's a great bit of advice from bart elliot over at drummer cafe (in 2002):
http://www.drummercafe.com/content/view/13/28/



Expanding Stick Control for the Drumset http://www.drummercafe.com/templates/js_simplicity_red/images/printButton.png (http://www.drummercafe.com/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13&pop=1&page=0&Itemid=28) Written by Bart Elliott Monday, 21 January 2002 http://www.drummercafe.com/images/stories/lessons/stickcontrol.jpg

Many of us are familiar with Stick Control for the Snare Drummer (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=drummercafe-20&creative=373489&camp=211189&link_code=as3&path=ASIN/B000EB5PNM) by George Lawrence Stone ... especially the first three pages of sticking exercises. I wanted to share some ideas you can use to expand these stickings and apply them in creative fashion to come up with new grooves, fills, solos, and general coordination.

Let me first say that if you don't own STICK CONTROL (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=drummercafe-20&creative=373489&camp=211189&link_code=as3&path=ASIN/B000EB5PNM), you need to go out and buy it RIGHT NOW! It's the bible for drummers ... and you'll use it for the rest of your life. In fact, you can purchase the book right here at the Drummer Cafe by clicking HERE (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&camp=1789&tag=drummercafe-20&creative=9325&path=external-search%3Fsearch-type=ss%26keyword=Stick%20Control%20Snare%20Drumme r%26index=books)

Using One Pitch or Surface (meaning only one drum)



Play the sticking exercises just as it's presented in each book.
Accent all Right Hand parts.
Accent all Left Hand parts.
Accent consecutive down beats (meaning beats 1, 2, 3, 4).
Accent consecutive up beats (meaning all the "ands" of the beat).
Accent in random patterns of your choice.
NOTE: More extensive use of accents can be found in George Stone's Accents and Rebounds (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&camp=1789&tag=drummercafe-20&creative=9325&path=external-search%3Fsearch-type=ss%26keyword=Accents%20Rebounds%20George%20St one%26index=books) book.
Play each exercise (ie. pages 5-7 of Stick Control) in sequence but add 2 bars of quarter notes (4 rights and 4 lefts). Repeat and add 2 bars of eighth notes (8 Rights and 8 Lefts). Make the additions after each numbered exercise.

Using Two Pitches or Surfaces



Read sticking as written but with each hand on a different drum or surface.
Alternate the left-hand parts between two drums.
Alternate the right-hand parts between two drums.
Kick Drum taps quarter-notes while printed parts is played on the Snare Drum.
Hi-Hat taps quarter-notes while printed parts is played on the Snare Drum.
Kick Drum plays right-hand parts while the left hand parts are played on the Snare Drum.
Kick Drum plays left-hand parts while the right hand parts are played on the Snare Drum.
Kick Drum plays left-hand parts while the hands alternate the right-hand parts are on the Snare Drum.
Play as above but substitute alternated Flams for all the R's.

Using Three Pitches or Surfaces



Kick Drum plays any one of these foot patterns: Straight four, Samba, Baiao, or Salsa; Hi-Hat plays on 2 and 4; hands play printed part on Snare Drum.
Add accents to the above exercises (see previous examples applied to "One Pitch")
Substitute all R's with flams, but put the right hand on a Tom-Tom; play one of the Kick Drum patterns or Hi-Hat patterns.
As above but use the left hand on a different Tom-Tom.
Play Straight Four on the Kick Drum; play R's on Hi-Hat and L's on Snare Drum.
All R's with right hand on Hi-Hat; Kick Drum plays all R's; left hand plays all L's on Snare Drum.
Reverse the hands on the two previous exercises.
For Fusion or Funk styles, substitute all R's with flams, but put the right hand on the Hi-Hat; choose any Kick Drum pattern.
As above but use the left hand on the Hi-Hat.
Experiment with various Open Hi-Hat sounds on the two previous exercises.
For Jazz style, play Jazz ride pattern(s) with right hand; Kick Drum plays all R's and left hand plays all L's on Snare Drum; swing eighth-notes. (ala Alan Dawson)
Kick Drum plays one of these patterns (Straight four, Samba, Baiao, or Salsa); the hands play the written part on two different drums.
Hi-Hat plays one of these patterns (2 and 4, Downbeats, Upbeats); the hands play the written part on two different drums.
Play the previous two exercises again, but this time the hands play alternated flams for all R's, each hand on a different drum. Great for Solos!
To produce Jazz variations, repeat the previous exercises and put the right hand on the Ride Cymbal. Use Jazz interpretation and intersperse this with some straight-ahead Jazz time.
Play above exercise again, but substitute the left foot on the Hi-Hat for all L's.
Using Four or More Pitches / Surfaces



Try using two drums on the first measure and two different drums on the second measure.
Add Hi-Hat (with foot) on 2 and 4, straight quarter-note down-beats, straight eighth-notes, or up-beats to any of the Three Pitch Exercises.
Play the above exercise again, but use your left foot on a Cowbell, Wood Block or Tambourine instead of the Hi-Hat. You'll need the Gajate Foot Bracket to make this happen.
Try coming up with various other syncopated figures to play with the Left Foot, such as various clave patterns. Use the previous two exercises for sound source examples.
For a challenge to four part coordination, play single R's on one drum, single L's on another drum, double R's on a fourth drum, and double L's on a fourth drum; triple R's on the Kick Drum, and triple L's on the Hi-Hat (with foot).
Starting on the snare drum, move each R around the drumset clockwise (each stroke on a different drum). Reverse right hand motion to counterclockwise.
Starting on your lowest Tom Tom, move each L around the drumset counterclockwise (each stroke on a different drum). Reverse left hand motion to clockwise.
I encourage you to experiment and come up with your own ideas on how to apply ANY exercise onto your instrument. Remember to practice slowly at first and always use a metronome.

A few other source materials that work well with my application suggestions include (but not limited to):



Progressive Steps to SYNCOPATION for the Modern Drummer (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&camp=1789&tag=drummercafe-20&creative=9325&path=external-search%3Fsearch-type=ss%26keyword=Syncopation%20Ted%20Reed%26index =books) by Ted Reed
Modern Reading Text in 4/4 (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&camp=1789&tag=drummercafe-20&creative=9325&path=external-search%3Fsearch-type=ss%26keyword=Modern%20Reading%20Text%20Louis% 20Bellson%26index=books) by Louis Bellson
Odd Time Reading Text (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&camp=1789&tag=drummercafe-20&creative=9325&path=external-search%3Fsearch-type=ss%26keyword=Odd%20Time%20Reading%20Text%20Lo uis%20Bellson%26index=books) by Louis Bellson
Syncopated Rhythms for the Contemporary Drummer (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&camp=1789&tag=drummercafe-20&creative=9325&path=external-search%3Fsearch-type=ss%26keyword=Syncopated%20Rhythms%20Contempor ary%20Drummer%20Chuck%20Kerrigan%26index=books) by Chuck Kerrigan
The possibilities are endless! Create your own, write out the formula and work it until you get each coordination pattern sounding smooth. Always go for musicality while you practice. Once the coordination is down, use dynamics, phrasing, accents, etc., to add interest to your playing. Music notation for other instruments also makes for great study materials (ie. solo transcriptions).

Enjoy!

[shuffle]

Almost scary. One could end up practicing nothing but this book...

The one and only variation that I sometimes try is not included : I try to swing the patterns (only with page 5). Too obvious to mention may be...

One idea that I never thought of, and that I find very very interesting is the following :

Play each exercise (ie. pages 5-7 of Stick Control) in sequence but add 2 bars of quarter notes (4 rights and 4 lefts). Repeat and add 2 bars of eighth notes (8 Rights and 8 Lefts). Make the additions after each numbered exercise.

I usually just do a small pause between the exercises.

[jazzsnob]

Almost scary. One could end up practicing nothing but this book...

The one and only variation that I sometimes try is not included : I try to swing the patterns (only with page 5). Too obvious to mention may be...

One idea that I never thought of, and that I find very very interesting is the following :

Play each exercise (ie. pages 5-7 of Stick Control) in sequence but add 2 bars of quarter notes (4 rights and 4 lefts). Repeat and add 2 bars of eighth notes (8 Rights and 8 Lefts). Make the additions after each numbered exercise.

I usually just do a small pause between the exercises.


It's also pretty good practice to switch between them seamlessly

[shuffle]

It's also pretty good practice to switch between them seamlessly

I can do this between the singles, the doubles, and the paradiddle.

But if I try to do this with the other ones, I often end up getting a bad start at the patterns, and it always takes a few bars to recover from it.

[jazzsnob]

I can do this between the singles, the doubles, and the paradiddle.

But if I try to do this with the other ones, I often end up getting a bad start at the patterns, and it always takes a few bars to recover from it.


That's why you gotta keep practicing it.

[KalashnikoV]

Sometimes the accents are on the last note of a double stroke, and I'm clueless as to how to make that motion in a "closed" or finger-control-type stroke.S.
First off, I love the book, and it's that all my teachers have said they've loved, and used to work with me, along with encouraging me to practice on my own with.

But, as for the question at hand, I've always learned that if if playing in an open to closed fashion using accents on the second beat of a double usually that it's the same as a rudimental roll in that it means to do it as best as you can until you get up to a speed where in your efforts to accent the second note, you recieve an even sounding roll rather than ending up with a Rr Ll, like most starting percussionists and any one who's developed bad habits and misunderstandings throughout the years, but instead with a RR LL RR LL. It's to kill bad habits, give good technique and create a percussionist with even doubles and rolls.

[NUTHA JASON]

to jazzsnob and shuffle
doing that becomes a bit more of a sight reading exercise. so it does depend on your goals. the good thing about GLS is that it is plain and therefore adaptable. in this manner (above posts) you can use it to improveyour reading skills of sticking patterns.
break the patterns over the kit with foot ostinatos beneath them and you get independance. play the patterns using popular techniques and youfind application for gladstone, moeller and the like. dynamics. grooves. accent patterns. feet proficiency...

... and all this just on page 5, 6 and 7.

j

[n2xlr8n]

First off, I love the book, and it's that all my teachers have said they've loved, and used to work with me, along with encouraging me to practice on my own with.

But, as for the question at hand, I've always learned that if if playing in an open to closed fashion using accents on the second beat of a double usually that it's the same as a rudimental roll in that it means to do it as best as you can until you get up to a speed where in your efforts to accent the second note, you recieve an even sounding roll rather than ending up with a Rr Ll, like most starting percussionists and any one who's developed bad habits and misunderstandings throughout the years, but instead with a RR LL RR LL. It's to kill bad habits, give good technique and create a percussionist with even doubles and rolls.

Thanks for the help.

My strokes are getting much better. It seems that working on the FULL strokes has helped, but at this point, only my full stroke stick height is perfect. The next few weeks will be concentrated on less-than-full strokes.

One thing I noticed of importance:

My stick heights are pretty good at various dynamic levels, but when counting out loud (BD on 1/4s, HH on 2&4) the act of "snapping/following" the stick back to its' original start position is faster than the actual count, which throws me off the tempo......another reason why counting out loud is so important.

If I didn't articulate that in a understandable manner, please ask.

S.

[mikei]

My book just came in.

Any words of advice before I start?

Thanks

[plooker68]

Read the first two pages written by George....then read them again. As I progress through the book, I find those first two pages of written word a salvation. Those days when I think I suck....I read them. Those days when I think I will never make it through the book...I read them. Enjoy!!

[jazzsnob]

My book just came in.

Any words of advice before I start?

Thanks


Read the thread from the beginning.

[mikei]

Read the thread from the beginning.
I read the thread from the beginning.

Here is a question. In the first couple of pages, Stone states to practice at different levels. Meaning hitting hard, medium and soft. For this, starting at 100 BPM using 8th notes (now at 200 BPM)

I would do a full free stroke or rebound stroke so that the stick finished at the vertical position.

For medium, I would take the sticks to about 7 to 9 inches up.

For taps, I went at 2 to 3 inches up.

Now, I read your thread and you state to play at 2 levels. 12 to 16 inches for full strokes and 2 to 3 for taps.

Am I wasting my time doing the middle of the road strokes? Should I just be concerned with the full stroke and taps only?

I did the first 6 exercises for 3 minutes each (it was late last night, I am going to move it to 5 minute each tonight) with a minute of full, a minute of medium and a minute of taps.

Thank you for any advice you might give.

[jazzsnob]

I read the thread from the beginning.

Here is a question. In the first couple of pages, Stone states to practice at different levels. Meaning hitting hard, medium and soft. For this, starting at 100 BPM using 8th notes (now at 200 BPM)

I would do a full free stroke or rebound stroke so that the stick finished at the vertical position.

For medium, I would take the sticks to about 7 to 9 inches up.

For taps, I went at 2 to 3 inches up.

Now, I read your thread and you state to play at 2 levels. 12 to 16 inches for full strokes and 2 to 3 for taps.

Am I wasting my time doing the middle of the road strokes? Should I just be concerned with the full stroke and taps only?

I did the first 6 exercises for 3 minutes each (it was late last night, I am going to move it to 5 minute each tonight) with a minute of full, a minute of medium and a minute of taps.

Thank you for any advice you might give.



Well, if you choose to do one of the methods I posted, then you don't spend as much time on middle strokes, but you have long cresendos every other minute which give a lot of control to the mid range. The focus on playing mostly low is just because they are conditioners, and it's all about control. So from what I've learned, practicing medium isn't a waste of time, but it doesn't increase control like play very softly, and doesn't build muscle like playing very high.

Just remember to take what you want from it.

[Dr. Jones]

So when you say the Gladstone method of stick control, do you mean that the stick should always be in the "up" position? So with 2-3" stick heights the hand should be closed at the top and after a stroke should return to the 'up' position as quickly as possible?

Also, should rebound be used on doubles at slower tempos, say 112?

[jazzsnob]

So when you say the Gladstone method of stick control, do you mean that the stick should always be in the "up" position? So with 2-3" stick heights the hand should be closed at the top and after a stroke should return to the 'up' position as quickly as possible?

Also, should rebound be used on doubles at slower tempos, say 112?

It was pretty clear...

This is an awesome thread, and I hope it gets stickied. I'll add the way I learned.

This is by no means the only way to do stick control, but this is a proven way to get some serious technique together. It requires A LOT of patience, and I don’t suggest starting it if you aren’t going to finish it. It’s EXTREMELY difficult sometimes. And also, the method takes about 3-5 years to complete. And you only practice the first page of the book.

THE JIMMY SAGE/CHUCK BROWN/BILLY GLADSTONE METHOD FOR STICK CONTROL.
Set your metronome to an 8th note of about 100. Most drummers should be able to do anything on the first page at that tempo after a few minutes of messing around. Now spend an entire week working(I’m sorry, I don’t have my book with me, so I don’t have exact numbers) on the . Just singles, doubles, and the first paradiddle exercise. Only those two , extremely slow. The doubles and paradiddles should sound EXACTLY like singles. It’s good to go over this method with a teacher, or to record yourself doing it on a snare drum to make sure everything is perfect. Then, one week later, you practice single, doubles, and the next exercise, inverted paradiddles(RLLRLRRL). If it takes you two weeks to get it perfect, fine. Give youself time on these excercises.

Another difficult part of the exercise is that every minute or so you should raise your stick from a 3" height to at least a 12-16 inch height and play at that height for 8 measures. Then you bring in back down. These should be even and musical crescendos. You must do this perfectly in time and make sure all the strokes are still uniform in dynamic and tonal quality and all that jibba jabba. This will give you “good pain” after a while, your muscles WILL get sore, but they will never give you terrible pain.

Remember, just like G.L. Stone said, stay relaxed 100% of the time, even when you go up. You should be putting at least 30 minutes a day into these excercises.


So you spend 3 months, going through excercises 5-24 or something at tempo 100. Done now? Great! Now you do it all over again at 104! and 108! and 112! and 116! and so on!. Never go up more then one click on a metronome when starting the page over.




The reason this exercise method is so difficult is because you have to be so patient. A lot of younger drummers especially want to start faster, speed up the next day, blah blah blah. If you do that you WILL NOT IMPROVE AS QUICKLY. This exercise really seriously does require patience. It apparently takes an entire year to get from 200 to 208.






No, most of the the strokes are low, but every minute or two you play a 2 bar cresendo, then full height(12'-16") and then slowly decresendo. Most tim is spent on low playing.

[mikei]

Well, I did my first day of 5 minutes per exercise. I minute 12 to 16 then one of 2 to 3.

I went straight from exercise 1, then to 2 and so on. I stopped after exercise 5 to let my fingers rest. My left thumb, index and middle fingers were almost numb. My right hand was well on its way.

After about a 5 minute rest, I did exercise 6 for 5 straight minutes.

I will start learning the other exercises tonight.

Thank you for taking your time to help us newbies.

[Dr. Jones]

It was pretty clear...





No, most of the the strokes are low, but every minute or two you play a 2 bar cresendo, then full height(12'-16") and then slowly decresendo. Most tim is spent on low playing.

I think you misunderstood the question. I understand the stick heights stay 2-3" if you're not playing the cresendo. By 'up' position I didn't mean all the way up as if you were doing 2-50 for the freestroke. I actually kind of answered my own question anyway, but thanks. Sorry if I was unclear.

[jazzsnob]

I think you misunderstood the question. I understand the stick heights stay 2-3" if you're not playing the cresendo. By 'up' position I didn't mean all the way up as if you were doing 2-50 for the freestroke. I actually kind of answered my own question anyway, but thanks. Sorry if I was unclear.


Well, when you're playing this way it's kind of assumed that you've done the free stroke and/or understand rebound pretty well. You don't start the stick at a 3 inch height, you quickly lift it up and allow it to jump back into position.

[Dr. Jones]

Well, when you're playing this way it's kind of assumed that you've done the free stroke and/or understand rebound pretty well. You don't start the stick at a 3 inch height, you quickly lift it up and allow it to jump back into position.

Well I definetly study/understand the freestroke and rebound. After I posted I kind of looked at it and went "duh". Should have just deleted the question.

[jazzsnob]

So how exactly are you using stick control?

[rendezvous_drummer]

Yea I love this book! In my opinion it's the most essential book for someone to have if they are serious about drumming. I've been working on this book for quite some time now, took a little break (unwillingly) from it because of school (The amount of reading I have to do is amazing haha). I just began starting it up again, and I decided to start from the beginning even though I was well into it. It's just a great book.

[Dr. Jones]

So how exactly are you using stick control?

Exactly the way you described, using the freestroke.

[theduke86]

Hey gang, just checking in for a post- this thread's right up my alley right now.
At school, I'm studying with the best cat in town for technique- a guy name of Dave Laing who's got chops coming out you know where, and the musicality and creativity to go along with it, so we're going to cover Stick Control this semester, Master Studies the next.
Now, while the method that JazzSnob posted is pretty much tearing at my soul and destroying my heart with the intensity of it all, this way isn't half bad either. This is posted verbatim from printout he gave me.
David C. Laing's Recipe for Success In All That You Have Ever Wanted to Accomplish (ie. how to really play the s-- out of a set of drums)
Ingredients: George L. Stone's Stick Control, three months, a stopwatch, an iron will and a rock hard disposition!
Directions: Take the Stone book, open to the first playing page, play each example in the following fashion:
- Turn metronome to 60, play in eighth notes the first example. Start stopwatch. When you reach 80 seconds, double time to 120 in eighth notes. This should result in you playing said example twenty times as so described in introduction of book.
-This should take you 48 minutes a page. Do three pages at a time, spend a week on each unit of three pages.
- Keep it quiet, from the p to mezzo dynamic range- control is accomplished by soft playing... make sure everything is consistent and perfect. You are not allowed to make mistakes, under fear of eternal torment from the ghosts of Buddy Rich, Billy Gladstone and Mr. Stone for sloppiness.
- Keep this up for 6-8 weeks. You shall see the results. You shall see.
There you go- a nice new routine for some of you all who are frightened by JazzSnob's level of commitment (by the way you should get recording with some jaaaazzzz stuff man. I bet you're killin that stuff!)
My teacher is obviously a little idiosyncratic, weird and eccentric... but man, am I ever learning things...

[LinearDrummer]

Take the Stone book, open to the first playing page, play each example in the following fashion:
- Turn metronome to 60, play in eighth notes the first example. Start stopwatch. When you reach 80 seconds, double time to 120 in eighth notes. This should result in you playing said example twenty times as so described in introduction of book.
-This should take you 48 minutes a page. Do three pages at a time, spend a week on each unit of three pages.
- Keep it quiet, from the p to mezzo dynamic range- control is accomplished by soft playing... make sure everything is consistent and perfect. You are not allowed to make mistakes, under fear of eternal torment from the ghosts of Buddy Rich, Billy Gladstone and Mr. Stone for sloppiness.
- Keep this up for 6-8 weeks. You shall see the results. You shall see.
There you go- a nice new routine for some of you all who are frightened by JazzSnob's level of commitment ...

Thanks Duke....
You must have read my mind about Jazzsnob's method cause there is NO WAY I have the time, patience, nor mental capacitiy to stick with his program :-P

I will try this out for a while (until I get bored) cause I do feel my technique is holding my back from playing at the level and control I want to be at....

[jazzsnob]

Hey Duke--
Well, believe it or not I'm not even doing my posted routine right now. I'm doing some work specifically on my left hand because I'm trying to get my traditional grip ergonomically perfect. So I'm not ready for my own method yet. I originally got up to 144 or something but when I start again I'll probably have to take it down a notch. I spent some time screwing around with the method you posted and it's pretty awesome I must say. It works the muscles in a very different way. And believe it or not Duke, I have no jazz groups to play with. I've been going to some jam sessions in the city, but I'm only working with rock bands and a fusion band right now. Can find any great piano players or horn players. And I'm really not down with a guitar/bass/drums jazz group. I just hate that instrumentation.

[mikei]

Hey gang, just checking in for a post- this thread's right up my alley right now.
At school, I'm studying with the best cat in town for technique- a guy name of Dave Laing who's got chops coming out you know where, and the musicality and creativity to go along with it, so we're going to cover Stick Control this semester, Master Studies the next.
Now, while the method that JazzSnob posted is pretty much tearing at my soul and destroying my heart with the intensity of it all, this way isn't half bad either. This is posted verbatim from printout he gave me.
David C. Laing's Recipe for Success In All That You Have Ever Wanted to Accomplish (ie. how to really play the s-- out of a set of drums)
Ingredients: George L. Stone's Stick Control, three months, a stopwatch, an iron will and a rock hard disposition!
Directions: Take the Stone book, open to the first playing page, play each example in the following fashion:
- Turn metronome to 60, play in eighth notes the first example. Start stopwatch. When you reach 80 seconds, double time to 120 in eighth notes. This should result in you playing said example twenty times as so described in introduction of book.
-This should take you 48 minutes a page. Do three pages at a time, spend a week on each unit of three pages.
- Keep it quiet, from the p to mezzo dynamic range- control is accomplished by soft playing... make sure everything is consistent and perfect. You are not allowed to make mistakes, under fear of eternal torment from the ghosts of Buddy Rich, Billy Gladstone and Mr. Stone for sloppiness.
- Keep this up for 6-8 weeks. You shall see the results. You shall see.
There you go- a nice new routine for some of you all who are frightened by JazzSnob's level of commitment (by the way you should get recording with some jaaaazzzz stuff man. I bet you're killin that stuff!)
My teacher is obviously a little idiosyncratic, weird and eccentric... but man, am I ever learning things...
Thank you so much. I have a couple of questions for you if you do not mind.

Question 1, how long are practicing each line? 80 seconds at 60 then 40 seconds at 120?

Question 2, do you practice 3 pages each night for a total of 144 minutes? Or, one page each day?

I have been doing jazz snobs routine. It is already making a difference. But, I just don't see being able to do this for 2 to 3 straight years.

[shuffle]

Question 1, how long are practicing each line? 80 seconds at 60 then 40 seconds at 120?

Question 2, do you practice 3 pages each night for a total of 144 minutes? Or, one page each day?


He Mikei

I had the same interrogations when I've read Duke's routine as well.

But I've done the maths, and I came to the same conclusions as yours.

80 seconds at 60 (played in eight notes) leads exactly to 20 repetitions.

Obviously, when you doubletime to 120, your 20 repetitions take 40 seconds, hence 2 minutes per exercise, and 48 minutes per page.

That sounds very slow tempos for page 5-6-7 to me, but as you progress to the book, it must become very challenging.

For pages 5-6-7, what I like to do myself is set the metronoome to 90, played cut-time as written, 30 seconds for each exercise (12 minutes par page). Also leads to about 20 repetitions of each.

[theduke86]

JazzSnob- Glad you liked it, sounds like you got it figured out man.
Mike- 80 at regular time, 40 at double time. It works out to 20.... which is the way George wanted you to play it. I usually practice two or three pages at a time, but you can do any amount you want, really. Because I'm studying with this teacher for two years, he runs all of his students through stick control for six weeks, then he gets to whatever you want to do for the rest of the time you study with him- he just wants to make sure you have control of the basics. However, I have been informed that using this method, you can do as many pages at a time as you want... it's a matter of mastering the specific pages, so I do the routine 5 or 6 times, say a week on one page. You can do other pages at the same time, or do one at a time and use six months to go through the book. It's flexible to what you want. If you want to spend 24 minutes a day working on technique, do half a page, 48 minutes, do a full page. I'm doing 48 minutes three times a day, so it works out to like 144 minutes or something, but do whatever you want.

[mikei]

It is funny,

I want to do your program, at 60 at 8ths (120 per minute) I am fine, but when I double the tempo, my left hand form is not perfect. Especially during the triples and quadruples.

I know that 120 with 8ths is easy for most, and again, I can do it, but my form on my left had starts to show. Should I start at 50 and then double? Or, do it at 60, double and eventually my form will get better on my left hand.

Now, I am doing 100 at 8ths, so it isn't much slower than the 120, but enough to be noticable.

What is your advice.

[meandhimcallitus]

This is an awesome thread, and I hope it gets stickied. I'll add the way I learned.

This is by no means the only way to do stick control, but this is a proven way to get some serious technique together. It requires A LOT of patience, and I don’t suggest starting it if you aren’t going to finish it. It’s EXTREMELY difficult sometimes. And also, the method takes about 3-5 years to complete. And you only practice the first page of the book.

THE JIMMY SAGE/CHUCK BROWN/BILLY GLADSTONE METHOD FOR STICK CONTROL.
Set your metronome to an 8th note of about 100. Most drummers should be able to do anything on the first page at that tempo after a few minutes of messing around. Now spend an entire week working(I’m sorry, I don’t have my book with me, so I don’t have exact numbers) on the . Just singles, doubles, and the first paradiddle exercise. Only those two , extremely slow. The doubles and paradiddles should sound EXACTLY like singles. It’s good to go over this method with a teacher, or to record yourself doing it on a snare drum to make sure everything is perfect. Then, one week later, you practice single, doubles, and the next exercise, inverted paradiddles(RLLRLRRL). If it takes you two weeks to get it perfect, fine. Give youself time on these excercises.

Another difficult part of the exercise is that every minute or so you should raise your stick to at least a 12-16 inch height and play at that height for 8 measures. Then you bring in back down. You must do this perfectly in time and make sure all the strokes are still uniform in dynamic and tonal quality and all that jibba jabba. This will give you “good pain” after a while, your muscles WILL get sore, but they will never give you terrible pain.

Remember, just like G.L. Stone said, stay relaxed 100% of the time, even when you go up. You should be putting at least 30 minutes a day into these excercises.


So you spend 2 months, going through excercises 5-24 or something at tempo 100. Done now? Great! Now you do it all over again at 104! and 108! and 112! and 116! and so on!. Never go up more then one click on a metronome when starting the page over.




The reason this exercise method is so difficult is because you have to be so patient. A lot of younger drummers especially want to start faster, speed up the next day, blah blah blah. If you do that you WILL NOT IMPROVE AS QUICKLY. This exercise really seriously does require patience. It apparently takes an entire year to get from 200 to 208.


The reasons this exercise is GREAT are numerous. First of all, you are always working on singles and doubles. Singles and doubles are what most of drumming is made of. Second of all, spending a couple weeks on only one combination of 8 notes makes you completely intimate with the pattern, and you will be able to interchange it in time with any feel you want. I guarantee you that by the time you finish this exercise(in 2112 or so) you will have some SERIOUS technique. One of my drum teacher’s older students is on 176 or something(he's been doing for 3 1/2 years) and has some crazy technical abilities.

Good technique means you can learn parts faster.

Yay for good technique!


p.s. do these excercises on a practice pad with LOTS of rebound. Don't worry, you won't need a pillow to "feel the burn" once you get to about 138 or so.


Post of the year, am going to start using it. Btw When you said bring it back down what stick height are you using?
Oh and whose your teacher?
Stick Control never gets old.
Chris

[jazzsnob]

Post of the year, am going to start using it. Btw When you said bring it back down what stick height are you using?
Oh and whose your teacher?
Stick Control never gets old.
Chris

When you go down, you just go as low as you can while still fully utilizing rebound, about 2 inches I guess.

My drum teacher is Jimmy Sage. He does a ton of studio work in the Bay Area, and his main gig is with Lee Rocker(of Stray Cats fame). He also plays with an awesome fusion group called Heavy Rubber. Check out to hear some amazing grooves. He's also an incredible technician. He teaches the Gladstone technique exclusively, and even though he respects the Moeller method, he doesn't use it at all. If you're ever in the Bay Area, seek him out. Trust me. He can teach you anything you want.

[FunkTional Art]

HERES A GOOD BASIC KIT DRILL .... USING STICKING COMBINATIONS ...

Play pages 5,6,7 of Stick Control and play for example all RH strokes on Ride or Hi Hat and LH strokes on snare. Try 1 and 3 or 4 on the floor with KIk to start and vary your dynamics with the hand patterns. Hi Hat can play 2 and 4 or 4 on the floor with Rh hand on Ride cymbal. Some sound quite funky such as line 5 which is the PARADIDDLE.. ah yes rudimental stickings are a lot of fun_ky. Play each line as 2 bars of 8ths in 4/4 time instead of Cut time.



Another kit based drill is to play each stroke with a swung shuffled feel as 8th note triplets with the above method still using pages 5,6,7.

Take line 1 as an example on page 5.
The single sticking thats written

R.. L.. R.. L..
>.. >.. >.. >..
R 7 r L 7 l R 7 r L 7 l

1 7 let 2 7 let3 7 let 4 7 let .................... counted thusly so each line would become 4 bars of common time

MAKE SURE TO ACCENT THE DOWNBEATS.


Play from first line page 5 thru page 6 to last line page 7 non stop reading down the pages playing each line 1X .
Start at a medium slow tempo say around 80 bpm and really swing hard to develop a strong shuffled lope.
It will take 1 page which is now 96 bars long at 4 bars a line played at 80 bpm just under 5 minutes per page approx. So all three pages around 15 minutes give or take.
After you can execute everthing cleanly bump up the tempo another 10 bpm and do it all again.

Blues and Jazz..
Swing feels,texas shuffles,doubles and lots of interdependance benifits.




Hope you enjoy ........







Ciao for now,

[Gil_drummer]

Hmm, wouldn't it be a good idea to practice both jazzsnob's and theduke's methods? It seems jazzsnob's method includes more muscle development in addition to control, while theduke's routine focuses more on control. It seems it would be a good idea to play through both of these routines, maybe during different times of the day. They both seem like excellent ways to develop control.

[jazzsnob]

Hmm, wouldn't it be a good idea to practice both jazzsnob's and theduke's methods? It seems jazzsnob's method includes more muscle development in addition to control, while theduke's routine focuses more on control. It seems it would be a good idea to play through both of these routines, maybe during different times of the day. They both seem like excellent ways to develop control.


Hey man, if you have the time, go for it.

[theduke86]

It is funny,

I want to do your program, at 60 at 8ths (120 per minute) I am fine, but when I double the tempo, my left hand form is not perfect. Especially during the triples and quadruples.

I know that 120 with 8ths is easy for most, and again, I can do it, but my form on my left had starts to show. Should I start at 50 and then double? Or, do it at 60, double and eventually my form will get better on my left hand.

Now, I am doing 100 at 8ths, so it isn't much slower than the 120, but enough to be noticable.

What is your advice.
Don't worry, you'll get it. Pay lots of attention to that left hand, and if it's really bothering you, slow it down. The idea is that you are supposed to practice each page five to seven times, so it really soaks in. Just keep working, and the control will come. It always does, just keep working it.

[Gil_drummer]

There were definitely some great posts here for Stick Control.. with the hands of course. I know many people suggest using the book's exercises for the feet as well. Though the book was designed for the hands, applying the same concepts to the feet has been a suggestion from many drummers. Does anyone have a particular routine they go through for stick..err foot control ?

[traxo]

Just a quick question for people working through the book,
do you think a drummer with not alot of experience could work through the book?
by not alot of experience, i mean i haven't even learnt a song yet (i'm at the bottom end of the drumming spectrum).

I ask because i was looking through these pages, and although i could decipher some of what you were saying, it all still seems daunting and confusing.

[NUTHA JASON]

yes. and welcome to the hobby. my advice would be to, for now, ignore most of the book. as a new drummer you should only really be concentrating on the first 8 exercises. try to get comfortable with each one and then work on a schedule of playing each of the 8 for at least a minute or two everyday (15 minutes in total) at a stready easy tempo.

you are making a great start in your drumming. i wish i knew about GLS when i first started. i would strongly suggest also studying the dvds by tommy igoe (getting started and groove essentials) at this stage in conjunction with the first 8 exercises. don't rush as well. if you take four months just on those 8 exercises you will be doing well. then add two or four at a time but i wouldn't even go onto the next page until after a year of very regular work. so 15 minutes on GLS and 15 on the igoe stuff ...at the least...everyday. really concentrate on keeping all the beats even and at the same volume (initially). a year of this will set you up for life.

j

[HardcoreLogo]

I had Stick Control a couple years ago but it got stolen from me(AAUURG!!!) but some of the ideas on here have inspired me to reorder the book and make it part of my practice......One thing someone turned me onto was to play some of the paradidle invertions(I can't remember what #) with a samba kick/hi-hat ostinato under them. Great for independance!

[rendezvous_drummer]

I had Stick Control a couple years ago but it got stolen from me(AAUURG!!!) but some of the ideas on here have inspired me to reorder the book and make it part of my practice......One thing someone turned me onto was to play some of the paradidle invertions(I can't remember what #) with a samba kick/hi-hat ostinato under them. Great for independance!
How did it get stolen? What is the world coming to when a man's most precious book gets stolen!

[jazzsnob]

A word of advice to a beginner:Most of these excercises are just combinations of single and double strokes(and the triple and quadrule strokes are basically more advanced doubles). So it would be worth to spend MOST of your time on singles for a while, then most of it on doubles. If you delve into stick control too deeply too early, without a teacher, you may develop some bad habits.

[DrumProgressive]

Ok, i don't even own the book and i've just spent about 2 hours (while doing some school stuff) on stick control. My interest really grew troughout the thread. I was actually a bit disappointed to see it stopped here.

Jazzsnob: in your last post u mention being comfortable with singles and doubles before eventually getting into the hardcore stick control stuff. Now, i'm deffinatly gonna get the book some of these days. My approach was leaning towards your 30 minute a day approach. In the past i spent about 30 minutes a day practicing plain singles to a metronome about 3 times a week (some paradiddles as well occasionaly). The same went for my doubles. They are at speed but i was unfortunate to never having heard of accenting the double stroke untill a couple of weeks ago. So i guess my singles are ok but my doubles are all R r L l.
I'dd like to know if i should get that fault out of there before starting your approach ?

Thanks to you and everyone for all this great info in tis thread. I'm really exited !

[jazzsnob]

You should try and get them as good as possible. I mean, Stick Control works for people at almost any stage, but if you have good double strokes, you can use it to a much higher degree. At higher speeds, it's all about learning to put together single and multiple bounce strokes in many different ways. The goal should be to play all the exercises at between 200-250 bpm for five minutes at all volume levels. That's 10-15 year goal depending on how you practice, but if you can do that, you're golden. You can't get to those speeds without great double strokes. You'll get stuck at around 138.

[DrumProgressive]

Thanks, i'm gonna use Derrick's approach to get my doubles better now, i'll go through it for a month hoping to get to work on it at least 30mins a day. (Damn high school and scouting is draining all my time) I'll compare my progress as with the moment of today and i'll decide then wheter i'm better than to start stick control. Thanks for all the info.

[HardcoreLogo]

How did it get stolen? What is the world coming to when a man's most precious book gets stolen!
It was during a Percussion class in college.........bastards!!!!! Was probably one of those smug vocal majors............lol!

[jazzsnob]

Thanks, i'm gonna use Derrick's approach to get my doubles better now, i'll go through it for a month hoping to get to work on it at least 30mins a day. (Damn high school and scouting is draining all my time) I'll compare my progress as with the moment of today and i'll decide then wheter i'm better than to start stick control. Thanks for all the info.


There is NO SHAME in waiting a bit on stick control to get your doubles together.

[classic*beat]

This was introduced to me as paradiddle expansion.
Every R = RLRR and every L = LRLL

So Ex. 3 written as RRLL etc. will become:
RLRR-RLRR-LRLL-LRLL
R-------R-------L------L

One idea for the drum set would be to play all R’s with RC/BD in unison and all L’s on the SD.

By using paradiddle expansion, playing one two bar exercise in stick control will turn out to be 8 bars. So I’d play 8 bars of time between each two bar exercise.

[ReX]

I've been away for awhile...

I picked up GLS's stick control when I was in the States several months ago. I've been having a go at it for about two months now, and have gotten up to page 14...and then I thought it might be useful to look for some tips on how to better use this fine publication (hence, my return to this site).

Lo and behold I find this thread! There are numerous excellent posts, but I have to extend a particular hats-off to JazzSnob and Nutha. I was thinking that I was dragging ass to cover only 14 pages in two months time...now I'll be going back to pg 1 to try things a little differently. OK, a lot differently.

Nutha, I like your practice record thing that you posted back on the first page...I am curious though as to why you show increments of five for the speed, as opposed to the normal 'nome increments. Did I miss something?

[NUTHA JASON]

cool rex. i'm not sure what a nome increment is but i found that increasing speed by 5bpm on average
a) felt faster (2bpm often doesn't)
b) was not too much of a leap either.

when i set out to make a record sheet i first experiment with the exercise and my metronome. i find the slowest speed i am comfortable with (not too boring nor too open to learn the actual piece) and then i jump forward in 10s to the highest speed i can manage (even if i am playing it untidy). lets say i find i can do ex19 from 80 to 140. then i'll try to be as realistc as possible and set up a chart that runs from 80 to 150 in 5bpm increments.

BUT

as i progress up a chart i am always assessing its viability. the above experiment and result is an approximation. when the real results deviate i terminate the chart and devise a new one. perhaps for example i find that i'm still untidy when i start to passing 130 bpm then i will draw up a new chart with more time spent on the slow practices
eg from a chart that looks like this:
80 85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150
to perhaps
100 100 105 105 110 110 115 115 115 120 120 120 125 125 125 125 130 130 ...

i never terminate a chart immediately. i always give it another day as all of us have off days too. as i become more experienced using this reward system i learn what increments work best for me in certain exercises. sometimes it is up in 2s and other times i jump up in tens.

j

[ReX]

^ thanks!!!

The 'nome increments that I was thinking of are the traditional ones which appear on a good old analog version. Don't have one before me, but they go like 120, 126, 132...etc. Further up, the increments change from 6 to 8 (144, 152, 160...200, 208). Anyway, that's secondary to the what is more salient here: the effective use of GLS Stick Control.

[ReX]

[QUOTE=jazzsnob]

THE JIMMY SAGE/CHUCK BROWN/BILLY GLADSTONE METHOD FOR STICK CONTROL.
Set your metronome to an 8th note of about 100. Most drummers should be able to do anything on the first page at that tempo after a few minutes of messing around. Now spend an entire week working(I’m sorry, I don’t have my book with me, so I don’t have exact numbers) on the . Just singles, doubles, and the first paradiddle exercise. Only those two , extremely slow. The doubles and paradiddles should sound EXACTLY like singles. It’s good to go over this method with a teacher, or to record yourself doing it on a snare drum to make sure everything is perfect. Then, one week later, you practice single, doubles, and the next exercise, inverted paradiddles(RLLRLRRL). If it takes you two weeks to get it perfect, fine. Give youself time on these excercises.

Jazzsnob -- having closely reread that first post of yours, it appears that you may have inadvertantly left out a few words (see bold area above). I can't guess what you meant from the context. Could you clarify? Note that I deleted some other parts of the quoted post, just to shorten things up here

[Wavelength]

Having closely reread that first post of yours, it appears that you may have inadvertantly left out a few words (see bold area above). I can't guess what you meant from the context. Could you clarify?

He probably just meant that he didn't remember each individual exercise's number. The point is still clear: work on singles (number 1), doubles (number 3) and the first paradiddle (number 5).

[jazzsnob]

Edited version

THE JIMMY SAGE/CHUCK BROWN/BILLY GLADSTONE METHOD FOR STICK CONTROL.
Set your metronome to an 8th note of about 100. Most drummers should be able to do anything on the first page at that tempo after a few minutes of messing around. Now spend an entire week working(I’m sorry, I don’t have my book with me, so I don’t have exact numbers for the exact patterns). Start with just singles, doubles, and the first paradiddle exercise. Only those two , extremely slow. The doubles and paradiddles should sound EXACTLY like singles. It’s good to go over this method with a teacher, or to record yourself doing it on a snare drum to make sure everything is perfect. Then, one week later, you practice single, doubles, and the next exercise, inverted paradiddles(RLLRLRRL). If it takes you two weeks to get it perfect, fine. Give youself time on these exercises.

[Anduin]

Does anyone have a particular routine they go through for stick..err foot control ?

I've been using Stick Control with my feet lately. The basic exercise is playing a simple rock groove with the hands (8th notes on the ride; 2 & 4 on the snare) while feet read from the book. Once you've got that down you can move to things like playing a simple paradiddle with hands while reading with feet, or pick one exercise as a hands ostinato and read all the exercises with your feet, then pick another for hands and start over.

I've also recently become a big fan of using a timer during practice. It's easy to, for instance, play each exercise for exactly one minute and then move on. Among other things, that means I'm not spending mental energy on counting bars, and each exercise gets equal time (or not, depending on mood etc.).

[Auger]

[QUOTE=Anduin]
I've also recently become a big fan of using a timer during practice.QUOTE]

Me too. It helps me divide up my practice since I often have limited time to spend. I also find it enhances concentration. If I set the timer, I find I'm a lot more likely to stay focused on the one thing I'm working on and not get distracted.

[NUTHA JASON]

i have a giant kitchen clock in front of my drums.

j

[jazzsnob]

Digital timers have always worked best for me.

[Anduin]

I've been using Stick Control with my feet lately. The basic exercise is playing a simple rock groove with the hands (8th notes on the ride; 2 & 4 on the snare) while feet read from the book. Once you've got that down you can move to things like playing a simple paradiddle with hands while reading with feet, or pick one exercise as a hands ostinato and read all the exercises with your feet, then pick another for hands and start over.

I've also recently become a big fan of using a timer during practice. It's easy to, for instance, play each exercise for exactly one minute and then move on. Among other things, that means I'm not spending mental energy on counting bars, and each exercise gets equal time (or not, depending on mood etc.).

Another point worth mentioning is to use different sounds on the two feet (meaning use kick and hi hat instead of double bass) so you can really hear the interplay between them.

[jazzsnob]

I have another method to post. It's an extremely simple approach, but it's REALLY great for developing tone and your backbeat(a very underpracticed facet of drumming).

STRETCH WELL BEFORE THIS EXERCISE

You basically get a kitchn timer, set the metronome to 112, set the timer for 5 minutes, and play exercises 5-8 for 5 minutes each. You need to play them as high as you can, you need to let them rebound as much as you can. Let the stick do the work, you will still feel a burn, but you will be letting the stick work a lot. This "teaches" your muscles a lot about rebound and will help your tone a lot.

Whenever you can do the first "set" easily, move to exercises 9-12 at 112. Work in "sets" and once you get to the last set, start over at 116. It should take a month or two to get through the page. This method works REALLY WELL if you do it along side another stick control method, like the one Duke posted.

I don't know why this helps your backbeats, but after I did for a few months my backbeat started sounding a lot more confident and professional.

[NUTHA JASON]

good one.

GLS is also very good for breaking in a foot ostinato. once you can play the ostinato steadily for prolonged peroids you are ready to add hands on top. a lot of guys freeform stuff over the feet but for a bit of structure in your practice as well as a way of ensuring you can pretty much play anything over the feet, try working through page 5, 6 and 7 over the ostinato. its good because you are also familiar with the hand patterns alone, then adding them over the feet adds a new challenge - independance!

j

[jazzsnob]

good one.

GLS is also very good for breaking in a foot ostinato. once you can play the ostinato steadily for prolonged peroids you are ready to add hands on top. a lot of guys freeform stuff over the feet but for a bit of structure in your practice as well as a way of ensuring you can pretty much play anything over the feet, try working through page 5, 6 and 7 over the ostinato. its good because you are also familiar with the hand patterns alone, then adding them over the feet adds a new challenge - independance!

j



Here's a great way to get the independence to solo over various latin rhythms, you can do it with any latin "bass line" like the baio and samba foot patterns.

You set a metronome pretty slow, and play a samba. Play with just your feet for a minute or two. Then play through the first page of stick control, devoting eight bars to each exercise before SEAMLESSLY(very important, make it sound like a single stream of notes) switching to the next pattern. Go through this and bring up the tempo on the metronome gradually. Another technique is essentially the same, but instead of playing eight bars of each pattern, you play four bars in normal time, then 8 bars of double time, then seamlessly switching.

I just tried this method out on the drumset and it's really damn hard. I suggest it strongly.

[Wavelength]

STRETCH WELL BEFORE THIS EXERCISE

And do warm up before stretching. Stretching cold muscles is baaad.

[CVdrummer]

i have a giant kitchen clock in front of my drums.

j



me too..lol



i notice this book needs alot of self motivation. Not that i lack of any, just an observation.

[shuffle]

i notice this book needs alot of self motivation. Not that i lack of any, just an observation.

I think you need to enjoy doing those exercises to a certain extent. It won't work otherwise, because you really need to do it regularly, and for a quite a long period of time in order to observe significant results. One is likely to give up pretty quickly if every session seems just like boring repetitions of the same pattern.

My personnal thrill is the accuracy challenge. I set my metronome in cut-time, I listen to the sound of each strokes, try to make them as even as possible, and I just try to catch the beat right on the money every 4 strokes (first three pages) . Amazing how each pattern becomes different than the others when approached that way.

As much as I have fun doing that, I still don't practice stick control on my set very often. I use a practice pad, because all the other goodies on the drum set are ... quite fun as well. Too distracting.

I guess you need to find ways to "entertain" the self-motivation with this book.

[CVdrummer]

I think you need to enjoy doing those exercises to a certain extent. It won't work otherwise, because you really need to do it regularly, and for a quite a long period of time in order to observe significant results. One is likely to give up pretty quickly if every session seems just like boring repetitions of the same pattern.

My personnal thrill is the accuracy challenge. I set my metronome in cut-time, I listen to the sound of each strokes, try to make them as even as possible, and I just try to catch the beat right on the money every 4 strokes (first three pages) . Amazing how each pattern becomes different than the others when approached that way.

As much as I have fun doing that, I still don't practice stick control on my set very often. I use a practice pad, because all the other goodies on the drum set are ... quite fun as well. Too distracting.

I guess you need to find ways to "entertain" the self-motivation with this book.



hm..i think my words came out wrong. i enjoy this book alot. I enjoy working out of it and i work on it and practice daily on it. but for some reason i tend to look at stuff in different points of view, so i put my self on a person shoe that's ..hmm i guess you can say lazy or just not discipline. so that's where that came from.

[Skitch]

Here's a great way to get the independence to solo over various latin rhythms, you can do it with any latin "bass line" like the baio and samba foot patterns.

You set a metronome pretty slow, and play a samba. Play with just your feet for a minute or two. Then play through the first page of stick control, devoting eight bars to each exercise before SEAMLESSLY(very important, make it sound like a single stream of notes) switching to the next pattern. Go through this and bring up the tempo on the metronome gradually.
I just tried this method out on the drumset and it's really damn hard. I suggest it strongly.

I have done this as well and it is really good for pushing technique to a higher level. And you're right - it is hard!! It takes alot of self-motivation to work this!

Mike

http://www.mikemccraw.com
http://www.dominoretroplate.com


http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=drummermikemccraw

[NUTHA JASON]

so i have been working on the first three pages for two months now and have tried different practice tactics. i though i would share my most streamlined on with y'all.

its a progress chart that allows me to keep a record of what i have done each day. in the little boxes i tick off each 'session' which is described in the column headings above. so each block in the first column is worth 1 minute 30 seconds of the GLS exercise at 120 BPM where each bpm is a quarter note (ie two strokes per count). this mathematically works out to twenty playthroughs in the alloted time. by way of reward as i progress through the chart the speed goes up and the time goes down but it always comes out at 20 times per exercise.
generally speaking i do a solid run through 12 exercises without stopping (ie one half of one page) before taking a break from GLS and working on something else. i try to get through all 72 exercises every day. fitness and ability are improving and so i am finding this easier to achieve each week.
the control ability i am developing is already showing in all my playing. it has been well worth it.
when i have completed this chart i am going to step it up a notch and make a maintenance routine that will see me playing the first three pages @ 180bpm for 45s and then later on honed to 200 bpm for 30 seconds (so a session will take 36 minutes). this i feel will be easy to do daily.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y290/nuthajason/glsforDW.jpg (http://s7.photobucket.com/albums/y290/nuthajason/?start=#imgAnch1)

[shuffle]

He Nutha, I've said it once in this thread, but I'll repeat it at the risk of sounding cheesy : I'm amazed by your schedule and discipline with this book...

One little comment : From a rhythmic perspective, I personnally prefer to set my metronome at 4 strokes per count. I'm at work and I don't have my book with me, but aren't some exercises becoming somehow too similar if you're set at two strokes per beat ?

I really don't devote as much time as you do with these... 30 minutes a 3-4 times a week. I navigate between 80 and 95 bpm, 4 strokes per beat for roughly 30 seconds per exercises. It is faster than you, which only makes me think I should probably slow way down... Food for thought.

The only other comment I would have is that the 20 bpm increment seems a bit steep.

But amazing schedule, again, congrats, and thanks for sharing.

[NUTHA JASON]

THANKS

One little comment : From a rhythmic perspective, I personnally prefer to set my metronome at 4 strokes per count. I'm at work and I don't have my book with me, but aren't some exercises becoming somehow too similar if you're set at two strokes per beat ?

i haven't noticed this. the more metronome ref points at this slow speed the more accurate i can be. to combat any boredom or exercise similarity i ...

- occasionally play the exercise with one hand on the ride or middle tom and the other on the snare.

- always set aside extra time to mess arround with these exercises informally (no metronome, within a groove, made into fills, orchestrated on the kit, swing the feel etc)

I really don't devote as much time as you do with these... 30 minutes a 3-4 times a week. I navigate between 80 and 95 bpm, 4 strokes per beat for roughly 30 seconds per exercises. It is faster than you, which only makes me think I should probably slow way down... Food for thought.

even at 200 or in your case 95 i find most of the exercises easy to do. but at those speeds some of the triple stroke stuff is not as even as i would like. so i slowed it right down to really study my technique.

The only other comment I would have is that the 20 bpm increment seems a bit steep.


remember that in terms of your settings it would only be a jump of 10 bpm. also, as i've said, the tempos are not too challenging for me so the jump is quite refreshing once the exercise is nailed. i can play most of these pretty smoothly at 180 already.

j

[shuffle]

i haven't noticed this. the more metronome ref points at this slow speed the more accurate i can be. to combat any boredom or exercise similarity i ...


Trying to remain accurate with less reference points is exactly what combats boredom for me. At the extreme I would like to be able to play these at 8 strokes per count, and I would probably be bored after a few minutes at 1 stroke per count. We usually play with a quarter note click in band rehearsals, and I found practicing GLS at 4 strokes per count helped me a lot keeping 16th note fills clean, and landing properly on the downbeat.

But I havn't worked at tempos as slow as yours. May be it would change my mind. I'll try

even at 200 or in your case 95 i find most of the exercises easy to do. but at those speeds some of the triple stroke stuff is not as even as i would like. so i slowed it right down to really study my technique.

I start struggling with many exercises around 100 (200 for you...), but some triples and quadruples could surely benefit from lower speed work as you do. I just don't have the discipline to slow down all a given page for these few, and I don't work on specific exercises either. What I like is going from one to another.

remember that in terms of your settings it would only be a jump of 10 bpm. also, as i've said, the tempos are not too challenging for me so the jump is quite refreshing once the exercise is nailed. i can play most of these pretty smoothly at 180 already.

Of course. I was mentionning this because I usually jump in increments of 5. But since your objective is to cover a much wider range of tempos, I guess your 20 bpm increment makes sense.

[NUTHA JASON]

I just don't have the discipline to slow down all a given page for these few, and I don't work on specific exercises either. What I like is going from one to another.


yeah i'm always tempted to cheat on the first 8 and some of the other simple exercises (sinve i've been doing rolls and diddles for years). having the charts helps because after filling in a few columns and knowing how valuable each tick is i find it hard to cheat on the jason of the past who slogged it out nor cheat on the jason of the future who will want to be proud that he covered it all well.

i also do like going from one exercise to the other. perhaps there is a future chart for playing 12 exercises through once each and repeating this all 20 times. it does keep you on your toes and there is an element of problem solving like when you end with three lefts and then the next exercise wants you to start with three (six strokes in all - quite a beast at high speeds).

j

[Wavelength]

It's amazing that practicing Stick Control slowly has such a big effect on faster playing. I've been practicing SC at 100 bpm for a month or so using a variation of Jazzsnob's program, and I can already see, hear and feel a big improvement in my singles and double stroke rolls at higher tempos.

It makes sense, since all that changes is the rate of strokes; the strokes themselves are quick, sharp and powerful even at 100 bpm.

[NUTHA JASON]

exercise 72 of page 7 is really weird. totally out of place and alone. almost a hint from Mr.stone that there was more he wanted to include. in the first three pages we see singles, doubles, triples, quadruples and near the end even two sextuples. so from this i deduced a further page with some 5s, 7s and more. i feel it is a faithful estimation of where GLS could have gone next.


http://jasonhorsler.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/jasonhorslerstickcontrol.jpg

j

[plooker68]

Jason, good one, I did the same thing with # 73. But, thats as far as I went with it. The rest of those you came up with are cool. Maybe, that's why Stone wanted Joe Morello to re-write the book. Joe did not want to do that, he thought it was perfect the way it is. Good work Jason.

[shuffle]

It is funny that you mention this, I was also thinking #72 was completely out of place. Actually, I think many exercises are strange starting at #63, which is (from memory) RRRL LLRR RLLL RRRL.

I don't think such asymetric stickings are present in the first 62 exercises

Many exercises among those last 10 feel more difficult to me - some definitely require more concentration. He may very well had many others in mind, but (unlike you !) he may have felt those first 72 were more than enough for single beat workout. As I mentionned previously, I somehow feel one should also reserve some practice time for page 8 and following.

Your "page 7.5" looks great. Thanks. I'll print it for sure, and insert it in the book, though I'm still not sure if I'm happy or not to now be aware they exist. I used to feel satisfied when completing the first 72, and now, here's another 24.... :)
.

Thanks again. Great post.

[NUTHA JASON]

i like those asymetrical ones the most. they are full of rhythmic tension and resolution.

yeah i'll merge this one in there eventually.
j

[plooker68]

I would move #77 up to the #75 position. I love #74... I like the feeling of that one.

[hotsauce3n]

what is the basis of the stone killer exercises... how does it start out for someone who has the book, i have heard nothing but good things bouat this book i just havent had time to check it out yet.

[plooker68]

"The Stone Killer" is out of Joe Morello's book...Master Studies.

[dpakman91]

Hi I'm new here. Here are a few things I've done with stick control pages 5-7 on the kit:

1. Play jazz time with your ride hand and hi hat foot, while playing any Right's with your kick, and Left's on your snare. This can be done both with the stick control examples as SWUNG 8th's, or as TRIPLETS.

2. Same as above, but take the Left's and move them around the snare and toms, so that RLRL RLRL would be kick-snare-kick-tom1-kick-tom2-kick-floortom

3. Do the same as 1 and 2, except with Right being the hi hat foot rather than the kick.

4. Same as number 3, but with quarter notes tapping on the kick.

5. Play a samba foot pattern (dotted 8th + 16th kick, hi-hat foot on 8th note upbeats) while playing the stick control examples with one hand playing rimclicks on the snare and the other hand playing a cowbell or ride bell.

6. Play the stick control examples with your hands while playing straight 8ths between your feet (LRLR for every 4 stick control notes)

7. Play the stick control examples with your hands while playing straight 16ths between your feet (LRLRLRLR for every 4 stick control notes)

8. Play the stick control examples with your feet (L=hi hat foor or left bass drum pedal, R=right bass drum pedal) whike playing straight 8ths with your hands (LRLR)

9. Same as number 8, but playing a double stroke roll with your hands (16ths or 32nds, either way).

[jazzsnob]

1. Play jazz time with your ride hand and hi hat foot, while playing any Right's with your kick, and Left's on your snare. This can be done both with the stick control examples as SWUNG 8th's, or as TRIPLETS.




This is a great exercise, but it warrants a WARNING.

Practice this kind of stuff to your heart's content but really make sure you know when to use it. This stuff is great for solo material and more intense sections of "out there" stuff but a lot of the times when you hear a jazz drummer that just doesn't do it for you is when you hear little traces of his practice routine(stuff like this) when he's supposed be accompanying a soloist.

So make sure you're musical with these.

[dpakman91]

This is a great exercise, but it warrants a WARNING.

Practice this kind of stuff to your heart's content but really make sure you know when to use it. This stuff is great for solo material and more intense sections of "out there" stuff but a lot of the times when you hear a jazz drummer that just doesn't do it for you is when you hear little traces of his practice routine(stuff like this) when he's supposed be accompanying a soloist.

So make sure you're musical with these.

right, many of these would be STRICTLY exercises and not for playing situations.

[yakbutter]

The way I'm using Stick Control now is by practicing the first few pages as 16ths over a 16th note single stroke roll on the kick. I usually play the right hand on the hi-hat or ride and the left hand on the snare or broken up between the snare and the high tom. I experiment with accents, ghosting, etc. until I find a cool sounding "groove."

I find that I've gained a lot of coordination between the hands and the feet, my hands have obviously gotten better but also my single stroke roll with the feet has improved a lot.

I also believe that it's important to find a musical application for technical exercises. If you experiment you can make things sound musical by applying the stickings around the kit or by accenting certain notes. It makes it more challenging and more rewarding to do it that way.

[NUTHA JASON]

okay so i'm down to doing each exercise for 1 minute at 160bpm (so 20 times each as recommended). so the first three pages takes 72 minutes spread over 6 sessions with other stuff in between. i want to do this for a couple more weeks but then i want to streamline the whole thing down so that i am only doing 20 minutes of GLS a day. so i want to choose the best 20 exercises. i noticed that many of them are just halves, doubles or inversions of other exercises.

for example:
ex: 9
RRRL X4
ex: 11
RLLL X4

can be neatly found in
ex: 58
RRRL RLLL X2

At the moment i think these are the ones i'm going to use:
5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 23, 26, 32, 37, 38, 40, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 70 and 71

i'm leaving out 1 to 4 as i have been doing these for years and they find their way into all sorts of other exercises.

what do you think? any i'm missing that are super important? anybody else doing something similar?

j

[shuffle]

for example:
ex: 9
RRRL X4
ex: 11
RLLL X4

can be neatly found in
ex: 58
RRRL RLLL X2



Those three feel very different to me. The fact that 75% of the strokes are from the same hand makes 9 and 11 totally different than their juxtaposition in 58, where each hand is equally distributed.

My feeling is that the strength of these exercises lies in their diversity. I don't think it is possible to find the 20 "best" ones.

Why don't you simply just practice one different page a day ? That's roughly 20 minutes. If you really want to stick to 20 exercises a day, choose 4 on each page that you'll just leave out - you already made you choice on page 5, and you could alternately leave out 4 different ones on pages 6 and 7 - and page 7.5 :)

Varying the exercises sounds less boring to me than doing the same 20 each day. I also like to vary the tempo

About 1 to 4, what I often do myself is practicing just 2 and 4, but for twice the time.

[NUTHA JASON]

thanks shuffle. i've had a rethink and have half taken your advice. i have selected another twenty GLS exercises and put together an alternate routine. so i will, when i'm ready, be working on one routine every other day.

j

[nhzoso]

Has anyone gone past the 1st few pages?? I am about to finish up the single combinations @120 and plan on going right through the book. I was thinking of maybe continuing to do 10 examples from the 1st 3 pages @140 or 160 and then 3-4 ex from the next part in the book every day. I am new to drumming and really need to work on everything not just the first few pages. Any thoughts?

[JacobKaye]

This may have been posted...it's just that there are sooooo many posts about this general topic...We can use GLS for development of the "left-foot" clave or whatever ostinato you wish to develope.
1) play as written (on SD) with bass drum on beat one. **approaching each exercise, of the beginning pages as though it's one measure of 4/4 w/ 16th notes***. Over that work on your "left-foot" clave or ostinato ***finish the page***
2) go back to Top-Left exercise, "seperate" hands, (rh cym./ cb/ etc.) ***finish the page***...
3) go back to Top-Left exercise,with hands still "seperated", make one change *move the left hand around the set, where ever to want...***finish the page***
4) go back to Top-Left exercise, and permutate the bass drum, moving it forward one note (8th or 16th) contine until you finish the that cycle.. ***finish the page***
5) use Ted Reed's "Syncopation" playing the printed "synco"lines on BD...either in 4/4 or cut time...with the hands seperated & moving left hand around the toms as in #3

***All above is done while maintaining the Left Foot ostinato through out (IMPORTANT: develope one ostinato at a time)

Finally, the above is for "development" of independence - Not for "hot-licks" practise with this in mind...and eventually you have your own ideas!

[jazzsnob]

Has anyone gone past the 1st few pages?? I am about to finish up the single combinations @120 and plan on going right through the book. I was thinking of maybe continuing to do 10 examples from the 1st 3 pages @140 or 160 and then 3-4 ex from the next part in the book every day. I am new to drumming and really need to work on everything not just the first few pages. Any thoughts?



You know you can keep going on the single beats? 120 bpm isn't done. You should try to get up to at least 160 before moving on, and getting to 176 will really give you some technique.

Good post JacobKaye.

[nhzoso]

You know you can keep going on the single beats? 120 bpm isn't done. You should try to get up to at least 160 before moving on, and getting to 176 will really give you some technique.

Good post JacobKaye.


Yeah thats my plan, I am going to continue working on the 1st 3 pages at 140 then 160 but am going to split my time and only do 3-4 lines at a time then do 3-4 lines from the rest of the book.

[jazzsnob]

Remember, if you really work at it, you can get most of these excercises up to 220-250 bpm, so don't feel bad about coming back and "taking it to another level" in a few years.

[n2xlr8n]

As far as heights go, whenever you aren't "UP" you should be playing extremely low, about 2-3 inches. Taps you could say.

Good luck with it!




I wanted to comment on this quote.

After practicing SC for two months, a minimum of 6 hours per week, the above technique has improved my playing more than anything ever has. I try to make my strokes as small as possible during the "taps".

I worked long and hard to develop my "free stroke", then started using jazzsnob's method. I'm impressed, for sure. I go back and forth between full, half, and taps during my practice, finally ending up stretching my tempo until it sounds undesireable (as Matt Smith alluded to in another thread).

Thanks for the great information, folks!

S.

[jazzsnob]

I'm glad it worked for you N, it's a really great method. A lot of people don't like it because you do have to start pretty slow and you have to be really patient, but onnce you start getting it up, six weeks in or so you start to just way more chops on the set, and soon you're a lot closer to just being able to play way more musical ideas than you thought you could.

[vadrum]

you must be careful w/ the applications of these exercises. they are trully meant to be used when you discover you have an issue w/ palying a certain type of phrase. for example, when comping you have a hard time integrating both snare and bass drum together when playing a phrase. thus, you go to the stone book for a possible solution. if you are just going thru the exercises as exercises then they wont do much good.

above anything else you should always sing melody on top of what you are playing when you do these exercises. this will allow you to hear how they may relate to song form or specifically to the song you are singing. then they will take on an added dimension relevant to the music you're playing.

here is one of my favorite applications to the drumset

r.h. side you move between the floor tom, ride cymbal, and snare drum (all right hand)
l.h side you move between the high tom, crash cymbal, and snare drum (all left hand)
play stone exercises w/ accents on all ubpeats (1-AH, 2-AH, 3-AH, 4-AH)
never hit the same instrument 2x's with the same hand (obviously, it is okay to play 2 notes on the snare as long as they are alternating strokes r-l, or l-r)
move in a counter clockwise direction in the r.h. (f.t-ride-snare) and a clocwise direction in the l.h.(small tom-snare-crash)
i still struggle with this exercise

[jazzsnob]

you must be careful w/ the applications of these exercises. they are trully meant to be used when you discover you have an issue w/ palying a certain type of phrase. for example, when comping you have a hard time integrating both snare and bass drum together when playing a phrase. thus, you go to the stone book for a possible solution. if you are just going thru the exercises as exercises then they wont do much good.

Unless, I'm misunderstanding you greatly, I must say you are absolutely, completely wrong. You can spend a life time on the first page of this book for hand technique, and another five life times for drumset exercises. The way you suggested to practice, as in "only going to the stone book if you can't something" sounds like some of the worst practice you can do. Instead waiting till you screw up on something, you simply condition yourself to be able to play all options from the beginning. Just read through this thread, and read all the "wow it really works" posts. Smart stick control practice garner results, end of story. If I misunderstood you, sorry.

[vadrum]

Unless, I'm misunderstanding you greatly, I must say you are absolutely, completely wrong. You can spend a life time on the first page of this book for hand technique, and another five life times for drumset exercises. The way you suggested to practice, as in "only going to the stone book if you can't something" sounds like some of the worst practice you can do. Instead waiting till you screw up on something, you simply condition yourself to be able to play all options from the beginning. Just read through this thread, and read all the "wow it really works" posts. Smart stick control practice garner results, end of story. If I misunderstood you, sorry.

im not in any way trying to say that going thru the stick control book as written or as a general form of exercise would not have any benefit. i spent my time doing the same, either by choice or because it was assigned. i'm speaking as to how it will benefit you as a musician. these exercises are a means to an end, the end being the performance of music. that's why i stress singing song form against everything, no matter how academic the exercise is

if you have 2 hours that you can devote to going thru the book everyday, then do it. more power to you. me, i work a job and go to school and play, so my practice time is limited. with limited practice time i tend to focus on things that are important to me. going thru the stone book just as a way to keep my hands in shape is not important to me. finding a way to express and comfortably play what i hear in "my mind's ear" is important to me. i don't believe in going thru exercises just for the sake of doing so. i would rather focus on a weak point in my playing and find a way to overcome it. if that means going to the stone book to play it as written or use a variation of it applied to the drumset, then i will p/u the book. i love the drums to death, but i want every amount of my time playing the instrument to be geared towards playing music. this is the approach that works for me.

smart practice time, to me, involves maximizing your time w/ your instrument. obviously, anytime spent playing your instrument will make you perform on the instrument better. however, i also believe that everything that you practice should have music as the ultimate goal. i can go thru the stone book start to finish for the rest of my life, performing those exercises and all the variations over and over and over, and have it do more harm than good. as a matter of fact, my instructor at graduate school told me to stop playing thru the ted reed book, etc. and to stop playing exercises. he wanted me to focus on transcribing and playing, and this was all a result of me being determined to go thru the reed book and the stone book playing every possible variation.

my original post was also a reaction to one of your earlier posts with regards to your warning. and i was simply expounding on what i felt you were saying, that these exercises are not the end. that once you get thru the exercise you need to be able to apply the lessons learned musically. i just happen to approach the situation retro actively. like i said, if i have a problem with a phrase that im playing, or maybe i want to take a concept i find in one of my trasncriptions and expound upon that idea. THIS is when i break out my books and find ways to work on my issues. when im done working on it, i put the book down and move on. i don't think you misunderstood me or that your viewpoint is wrong, we are simply different in our approach.

[jazzsnob]

I'm glad that you cleared that up, but i still must disagree with you. I'm glad that you've figured out what works for you, but the information you gave is not very good for a lot of drummers on this forum, who really need to clean up their technique, and also take their independence up to another level. There are also a lot of young kids who do have the time to practice this stuff, and who could really benefit from this stuff. Therefore I thinks it's a bad idea to suggest your personal methods (sans explaination) if it's possible that it could send the majority of readers in the wrong direction.

I understand the warning, and I agree that the should know that the exercises are not an end, but I think that's clear by not. I still disagree about "going to the book when I have a problem" why not just practice it intelligently and not have problems with rhythms because you've gone through the permutations already?


I'm sorry, I'm spoiled myself, because I practice all day. But I live on my own and eat rice three times a day, which is not that great, but it evens out.

[vadrum]

well, here again, we are disagreeing on what you mean by "practicing intellegently." although i certainly recognize the benefit of playing thru the exercises to try to head off any potential problems i might have, i find it less satisfying than going to the music first to find a piece of a drummer's sound that i like and trying to emulate it. if i have issues or want to expand on the idea then i will return to ted reed's book or stick control and devise a way of voicing that info on the set so that it helps me to overcome my obstacle. this is my idea of practicing intellegently because i am focusing on a weakness.

let me give you an example.

problem: i want to play 3/4 (or 6/8) time like elvin
solution: i create a mix tape of elvin playing tunes in 3/4 and play along with it everyday. i go thru ted reeds sync book playing triplet voicings w/ elvins not so standard hihat patterns and play them everyday. i solo and play time in 3/4 ala elvin while singing song form. i repeat this daily for 2 mos. at the end of 2 mos i move on to something else.

if there are young readers or readers on here that have issues w/ their hands and stone can help then do it, just make it musical. play all those patterns on the snare drum at a certain tempo while singing song form (c jam blues for example). now you are relating your exercise to playing music. my only issue was with doing the stone exercises just to do them. it will help you sound better and give you better control of the instrument, and if that's you're primary goal in doing the exercise then your mission has been accomplished. but, if you want it to make musical sense for you, you eventually have to move beyond the book or start to incorporate song forms and melodies to add the next dimension to what you are doing. and this will help you play these ideas w/o sounding like youre reading from a book on stage. i do believe that the greatest benefit would be gained by applying all exercises to the music you are trying to play. but, again, this is just my view point and i believe that it is healthy to have opposing view points on issues like this. it gives up and comers a chance to try different approaches to see what works for them.

[jazzsnob]

Even though your method sounds very musical and wonderful, if a young student doesn't have the double stroke ability to play jazz time correctly, they can't benefit from the kind of stuff you're doing. It's a no brainer that once you do exercise, you have to apply them musically. It's obvious to anyone who is interested in actually making music. I'm glad that the way you approach stick control is the one you prefer, but it's not going to give you the most options and it's certainly not a good way to advise a student who possibly isn't ready for the book in the first place.

[vadrum]

Even though your method sounds very musical and wonderful, if a young student doesn't have the double stroke ability to play jazz time correctly, they can't benefit from the kind of stuff you're doing.
I wouldn't plan a routine like that for a beginner.

It's a no brainer that once you do exercise, you have to apply them musically. It's obvious to anyone who is interested in actually making music.
evidently its not a no brainer if there are drummers out there that don't sound right when they play because you hear bits of their practice routines while they are playing with the soloist. if it were a no brainer then you would not have those drummers that sound like all chops and no taste.

I'm glad that the way you approach stick control is the one you prefer, but it's not going to give you the most options
i disagree, because of the very nature of the way i approach the stone book i am forced to find NEW ways to apply the material as well as using the established variations

and it's certainly not a good way to advise a student who possibly isn't ready for the book in the first place.
if the student is not ready for the book in the first place i would not put him thru it.

This thread asked for suggestions and experiences related to working thru the stone book. i dont recall that it asked for beginner routines only. if there are folks out there that don't agree w/ the way that i practice or my suggestions for practice time, they dont have to listen to what i have to say. suffice it to say that we can agree to disagree on the subject.

[jazzsnob]

You're right that this thread doesn't ask for specifically beginner exercises, and you posted some excellent advanced exercises, but the problem is that you didn't specify how advanced they were, how one-dimensional(in a good way, that they applied well to your needs) they were, AND then you say that just practicing the exercises isn't as helpful as what a beginner drummer could think of as screwing around. You practicing to elvin jones mixes could be useful to someone at your level, and useless to a beginner.

So why should that matter in the response to your post? I guess the main issue I take is that you haven't sussed out what the majority of drummers would benefit on this forum, and some problems a lot of them have. One major problem is that when they read about some advanced or mystical and cool sounding thing(like your mixes and transcribing) they jump on it, even if they are completely not ready. So I guess I just would suggest kind of prefacing your exercises, and showing a bit more how you got to the level to be ready for the exercises.

And even though I don't understand it, you probably have a reason to say "don't just use the exercises in stick control, they don't help," but you shouldn't say that here because kids are impressionable and those kinds of statements are poison in any context.

[NUTHA JASON]

fair debate. its down to approach and opinion but i have heard and read that many well known drummers swear by stick control and books like them.

that and the fact that as i work in the book i'm noticing loads of gains in all my playing.

j

[vadrum]

fair debate. its down to approach and opinion but i have heard and read that many well known drummers swear by stick control and books like them.

that and the fact that as i work in the book i'm noticing loads of gains in all my playing.

j

here again, i want to be clear that i'm not saying that you shouldn't use the stone book at all. if you have the time and you want to run thru the book each day in any capacity, that is great. but there should not be anyone on this forum that feels that if they do not work thru stone on a regular basis then their hands will fall off. the stick control book is a means to an end. it gives you better control of the instrument. the reason you are working the control of the instrument is so you can play music better. period. no one wants to hear the greatest performer of stick control exercises.

for this reason, i advocate going to the music first to find your problems and issues and then work on them. if youve never gone thru stick control as written and you are young in your efforts on this instrument, then you should go thru the book as many of the other posts here suggest. if you dont have coordination together for playing jazz and the stone book provides a challenge, then use it. play the basic variations. but you have to ask yourself this question, how does this relate to the music i am playing. blind devotion to just playing all of the stone exercises day in and day out without regard for how they will be used in the musical context does not do the musician good. and that's what i was trying to say. i can list several names in the jazz world that have used the stone book and its applications. for example: tony williams, clarence penn, al garnett, howard curtis, etc. however, i come up short when i try to find a jazz drummer that uses that book religously, day in and day out, for their entire lives. most will work on something for a while then put the book down and move on. but i guarantee you that they are always thinking about how their practice routines will affect the music that they play. this is what you do when you practice the drums, you practice playing music. everything you do, exercise, transcription, etc. will always end in the same spot....you playing music somewhere.

this is the reason why instructors like alan dawson had their students sing song form over EVERYTHING. if you played a rudiment from open to close to open, you would have to sing satin doll over it. if you are playing an exercise from the stone book or reed book, you have to sing song form over top so you have an idea how these exercises relate to music. this is where you have players that sound like all chops and no taste. because they think that dexterity on the instrument is the whole deal and don't realize that bandleaders dont care that you can play pg 1 of stick control at 250bpm. they want to hear you play what fits the music. this why i advocate applying everything you do to music. don't just go thru the exercises as exercises, treat them as a musical phrase and realize that they way you practice playing your instrument is the way you are going to sound when you step on stage.

if you took what i wrote earlier to mean that i thought that the stone book was useless all together, then i was not clear. but i also do not believe in playing exercises on the instrument just to play exercises. everything, no matter how academic, is music and should be treated as such, if you are not following that guideline then you are doing yourself a diservice as a musician.

[NUTHA JASON]

i agree. i was playing great drums long before i heard of this book. this is merely a refinement of my technique, a seeking for extra ideas and some forward thinking/planning for when i find i have to play something that my current battery of skills won't smoothly cope with.

j

[kaseli]

I personally believe that what's important in this debate over stick control is exactly that; stick control.
Let me explain.
During my times at Berklee College of Music, where you come across a new idea on how to use stick control on a daily basis, I was practicing technique for hours a day, only to get a small percentage of increased speed and dexterity in return! Over the years I have noticed that same problem over and over. After countless hours of practicing, I have come to the conclusion that my hands simply aren't the greatest and there is only so much I can do to get faster.

But, what I did notice is that the more I practice the more control I get over the stick (even if my hands aren't getting much faster) and control is, in my opinion, directly related to your feel on the drumset. I think that my grooves sound better when I have more stick control. A lot of stick control let's you, well, control ghost notes better and makes your grooves more fluid.

I believe that this stick control can be achieved by mixing up just about any stick patterns under the sun, and I thus don't believe that Mr. Stone's book is any better than any other exercises you might use.

We used to use the "Louie Bellson" reading text a lot, which you can turn into the most challenging exercises with just a little bit of imagination.

Here are two examples:
1. Play all notes in the right hand and fill up in between with triplets, played in your left hand. So quarter notes in the text now become four beats of triplets where you play the first of the triplets in your right hand and the two others in the left.

2. You use this principle and fill in with sixteenth notes, sixteenth note tiplets and so on.

Not only is this great for your hands, but it can be easily applied to the drumset. It'll turn simple reading text into musical figures you can orchestra any may you wish over the drumset.

Good luck.

[JacobKaye]

this kind of "stuff"? (hope the attached file is a reasonable size)

[ILikeMacs]

Totally agree with Jacob, except I cant yet play it because of my lack of technique. S.C. can be great at face value or once to start applying rolls to it, or using it as independence stuff, just gotta find the time to site down and get though it all!

[n2xlr8n]

this kind of "stuff"? (hope the attached file is a reasonable size)


As my last item, I work this technique every night. I think this is what Ian Ballard mentioned in another thread about speed goals.

It has produced amazing results, and my "feel" for odd note groupings has improved.

[StriveForMelody]

I haven't read all of the posts completely on this thread so I'm not sure if this suggestion has already been made, but I figured I'd share something I learned at the Jamey Aebersold camp with Steve Davis a few years ago.

Steve presented a complex coordination exercise using the first 72 exercises of SC. Keep in mind, this is coordination, not so much hand technique. Hopefully the hand technique is relatively happening by this point.

Here's how the exercise goes:

Assign the R and the L to a limb and a surface (i.e. R means left hand on hi tom, L means right foot on bass drum). Start looping exercise 1 using that limb/surface set. Now, pick another set, maybe R means right hand on ride bell and L means left foot on hi hat. Here's where the coordination comes in. Keep playing exercise one with the original set, and start playing exercise 1 with the other set at the same time and same rate, so two surfaces are always sounding. Now, with that second set, go through all 72 exercises, still playing exercise 1 with the first set. Then, flip 'em around, then do it with each of the 71 other exercises as the ostinato. Now pick a couple new sets and do it all over again.

As you can see, this will take a long, long, long time to get through. I've only experimented with it a little bit, but it seems pretty obvious how beneficial it would be from a coordination standpoint. The possibilities are almost endless. Not quite, but pretty close.

Best wishes,
Lucas

[lovemysonors]

I'm trying to get all of the fundamentals down to build a solid base. I've been playing for a few years but never practiced outside of band rehearsals, and started playing shows immediately, so as you can guess, my solid foundation is missing and I learned the quick and dirty way!

Which exercises in this book are best? I mean, it's clear that Single Beat Combos and Triplets are key, but I don't know what Short Roll Combos or the rest of the book are for. Although I've played for a little while, I still consider myself somewhat of a beginner. The Stick Control thread seems more applicable to drummers at higher levels than myself.

any tips?

[jeffwj]

Think of the exercises in four categories:

1.Single and Double Combinations
2.Flams
3.Double Strokes
4.Buzz or Multiple Rebound Strokes

Pick one page of each of these exercises in Stick Control and you will be off to a good start. Also, read the preface material in the book which explains that they are "conditioners." They are meant to be practiced with loose muscles and you should stop at the slightest feeling of tension.

A metronome is always a good tool when practicing Stick Control. It will not only keep you in time, but also allow you to track your progress.

The exercises in Stick Control do not have accents. You can add your own (as Morello did when he was studying with Stone,) or work out of Stone's Accents and Rebounds or Morello's Master Studies.

Morello's videos are also a good tool to get an insight into Stone's techinque. There are two available through Hot Licks and two available with Danny Gottlieb through Mel Bay.

Hope this helps,
Jeff

[vadrum]

the point to the short roll combinations will become evident when you first try to play them. don't skip that section. further, the latter sections of the book are very good about including odd note groupings (5, 7) into the exercises. so then you are forced to be able to play a very symmetrical feeling even note grouping together w/ an not so symmetrical feeling odd note grouping. that alone, will add some new dimensions to your playing, particularly when you can begin to apply them to the drumset as an instrument.

this is a fantastic book. if you feel that you are at the beginning stages of technique i can't help but stress learning to play the rudiments open to close to open as well. take one rudiment a day and practice it a few times open-close-open, and if you want to be really strict break out a watch and time yourself. try playing the rudiment open-close-open for total of 3 mins. 1:30 open-close, 1:30 close-open.

practicing the rudiments in this way in addition to working thru the stone book will help you to get your hands in shape.

personally, i liked focusing on 1 column at a time and running down that column several times a day at different tempos. make sure, as mentioned above, that you are not straining to get the exercises out. the main ideas are to stay relaxed, keep your stick heights even, and get a nice logato sound out of your instrument.

[Zorlee]

Hello people!
I've just this entire thread, and thank you SO much for your tips and routines everyone! This really is one great forum! :)
I'm actually going to start doing what jazzsnob wrote.
I'll do 30 mins a day, 5 mins on each exercise, always starting with the singles and doubles leading with both hands at 100 BPM. In addition to this I'll to two more exercises on the first page for 5 mins each. I'll do this for one week, then continue to work with two new exercises (still doing the singles/doubles).
When I finish the page after a while, I'll do it over in 104 BPM.
I'll do 4 notes per beat at 100, right? (16ths at 100 BPM in reality) That is what felt like a slow, yet good tempo to start this with...
Does this sound like a good start people?
I'm pretty fresh in Stick Control, but I've been playing drums for about 7 years. I just want to take my technique to a whole different level!
Zorlee...

[junglelord]

I am going to start teaching drums again and I really enjoyed this post. I took advantage of the charts and the different practice stragies. I have some excellent results for myself from renewing my efforts towards the development of a teaching protocol for students of different levels...(I must be fully rehearsed in the fundamentals, so I do three hours a day, half of that on rudiments and Stick Control.)
The fundamental difference is apparent already after three weeks of this. My meter and my control are improving rapidly and I have been drumming for 35 years. Its a wonderful drug, to get better consistently....a great natural high. Amazing that we learn our whole life when it comes to music and control....simply amazing. Even the master Buddy said he was continually learning....I know I am, and I am still improving. I now do flashy stick twirls in time, open/close hand technique, heel/toe foot technique, finger tapps and dribbles, Moeller and Galdstone, lots of odd time stuff and my next goal is the Gavin Harrison DVD series.....off to do my exercises...have a great new year every one

Cheers

[Zorlee]

I hope I don't offend anyone, but I'm really want to start doing this stick control metod, but I need to clarify that I'm doing things correctly, so would someone give me some feedback on me previous post? Thanks :)

[jazzsnob]

You're doing fine. Just do it.

[vadrum]

I hope I don't offend anyone, but I'm really want to start doing this stick control metod, but I need to clarify that I'm doing things correctly, so would someone give me some feedback on me previous post? Thanks :)

your work will not be in vain. youve set some good goals, now be confident that youve done the right thing and dedicate yourself to acheiving your goal. you may want to follow this same route down the road, you may want to change the way you approach the book. don't worry too much about it being the "right" way. as long as you are paying attention to the fundamental requirements asked of you (same stick height, stay relaxed, etc.) then your work will pay off.

[Zorlee]

Thank you guys :)
I found that it was a really good way to condition my feet too! Again, thank you...!

[junglelord]

I made copies of the material presented here for my good friend Jody. He is presently the only drum teacher in our town of Cornwall Ontario of about 40,000 people. We are one hour south of Ottawa and one hour west of Montreal....(can you say Montreal Drum Festivale??< I knew you could)
LOL

Anyway we have about 150 drummers in our little town. Jody has taught for 15 years and his uncle was the last good teacher in our parts, so its in the family. I had lessons from Jody's Uncle Eugene (he was into Tony Williams) at age 17-19 after 7 years of drumming and got a lot better. He would go down to Pottsdam U for studies. We also had a good friend go down to Pottsdam U for lessons from the giants down there so some good stuff was going around. I was told by Jody that he had 25 students on a waiting list. Well I decided to open the doors after the last 3 years of intense practice due to breaking my neck in 2003. I have spinal cord injury and have the same break as poor Christophor Reeves. I am a walking miracle (I was a body builder and my big neck saved my spinal cord). I do have spinal cord damage, in fact two spinal cord conditions...one is called a Central Cord Syndrome, the other is a Browns Sequard.

Basicly I am an invisible quadrapelgic they say or an invisible grade 5. I have general weakness and extra weakness on the left, with sensory loss on the right from the 5th rib down. I use drums as a rehabilitation tool. I use the Web as a study tool. I have a pension now, so teaching is a good way to go. I love drums and what they have done for my spinal cord rehabilitation. If it was not for drums and stick twirling, and body building and the LORD, where would I be?

I ordered a series of books, and have these two presently
Stick Control and Master Studies.
I am getting the folllowing books

New Approach to Snare Drumming, Mark Wessels
Next Level: Rudimental Snare Drum Techniques by Jeff Queen
Syncopations by Ted Reed
Four Way Coordination by Dahlgren and Fine
Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer by Jim Chapin

and I am getting Gavin Harrisons DVD's and books.

I think thats a good intelligent progession from beginner, intermediate to advanced student.
Any suggestions?

Cheers

heres a link to my pre accident pictures.
http://www.drummerworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22505

[dea]

I posted this in another thread, but thought it would be benefitial to post it here as well.

Here is an unconventional approach to really nailing down your stick control. Instead of sticking ( no pun intended ) with the status-quo hard and soft accents only, I have found that introducing multi-level accents ( 2in, 4in, 6in, and 8in ) has been the single most important skill I practice today. You can incorporate this into your double strokes as well ( not limited to triple and quad strokes ). In fact, it works well with single strokes as well.

I think you all can figure out the triple and quad strokes, but here is an example of how one can incorporate this into double strokes...

2> 6> 2> 8> 4> 2> 6> 2>
R R L L R R L L .... and so on...the weirder the better.

It will for sure cause you some serious frustration at first. However, as this becomes easier, you will find all kinds of new avenues pop out of nowwhere. One riff ( for lack of a better term ), I like to incorporate this with is when I want to walk my ride from the outside to the bell ( 2, 4, 6, and 8 on the bell ). Its a nice effect and when you reach the 8in on the bell, it just slaps that puppy ( the build up sounds wonderful and the feeling is to die for ).

Have fun, explore, experiment, and don't be afraid to go against the grain.

[whitehousec]

I came up with taking the first 12 excercise from the first page and playing at around 100 bpm. Play them as quarter's, eights, 16ths, 32nd and if poss 64th's and so on. It's a really good warm up and conditioner for your hands-esp single strokes and doubles

[Robdrmz]

JUNGLE MAN! - Yo, I am a Jungle man too. I really admire your strong spirit. Keep slammin'

Right now, I just made an EXCEL practice sheet and stuck in on my bedroom wall next to my practice kit. I'm starting at CLICK = 100 and have the chart listing every metronome click upto 140.

I am practicing, Singles, double, triplets, diddles each 30min a day. When completed I check the box.. I met a guy about ten years ago named PHIL MATURANO. Killer drummer and he told me about drawing a 'practice matrix' - with sunlight and funky stuff like that. I did it for awhile but got lazy and just did gigs.

Anyhow, this is my new goal, different dynamic levels and speeds. Real control of the sticks. They should call this stuff stick control. ERP!

[nhzoso]

Go through the whole book at a comfortable bpm, (probably a page a day depending on your level and speed) then restart it with a faster bpm.(a page a day is just an estimate, I actually did a page every 2-3 days)..

There are actually about 15,537 ways to do it, but I would stick to the author's intention the first few times then make up your own routine or a combination of the 15,537 routines.

[jazzsnob]

nhozo, I'm sorry to contradict you, but a page a day is WAAAY too fast. Try a page a month. What's the deal with attention spans these days?

[nhzoso]

nhozo, I'm sorry to contradict you, but a page a day is WAAAY too fast. Try a page a month. What's the deal with attention spans these days?


I had a great response but forget what it was now..Sure I will remember it soon. : )

Seriously your right a page a day is fast, but I must admit that a page month is too slow imo. I guess it's all a matter of opinion, but my thought is to go through the whole book comfortably 1st then go back and do your own thing, to some that may be a page a month, to others it may be a variation of pages a week.

This is just my opinion, I assume there are others like me out there that the thought of doing the same page everyday for a month makes it feel to much like work and not much fun. Has alot to do with your goals and wherever you may be in your life. It has nothing to do with attention span (atleast not for me), Not everyone is 20 something, been playing for 10 years, and wants to do it for a living.

[jazzsnob]

I had a great response but forget what it was now..Sure I will remember it soon. : )

Seriously your right a page a day is fast, but I must admit that a page month is too slow imo. I guess it's all a matter of opinion, but my thought is to go through the whole book comfortably 1st then go back and do your own thing, to some that may be a page a month, to others it may be a variation of pages a week.

This is just my opinion, I assume there are others like me out there that the thought of doing the same page everyday for a month makes it feel to much like work and not much fun. Has alot to do with your goals and wherever you may be in your life. It has nothing to do with attention span (atleast not for me), Not everyone is 20 something, been playing for 10 years, and wants to do it for a living.

First of all, complaing about it seeming like work and no fun and then going on about how it has nothing to do with attention span is complete bull. These are conditioners, they are not about fun. You can have fun working on them, but realistically if you want to get something useful out of this book, you going to having have to *gasp* have some restraint and work on a few things for long periods of time. A page a day, or even a page a week is a WASTE OF TIME. It's simply not enough repetition and focus.

In any situation, if you take two players of a similar level and have one do a page a week for a year and one work on just the first page for a year, the one who worked on page a week will want to punch his advice giver in the crotch after seeing the other guy play.

It's just a better way of doing it. It's not that fun, but technique practice is not about fun. If you waste time thinking that itt is, you are at a disadvantage.

And by the way, a page a month is better ESPECIALLY for a player who isn't too serious, because you will get more bang for your buck than just flitting around the book without any focus.

[nhzoso]

In any situation, if you take two players of a similar level and have one do a page a week for a year and one work on just the first page for a year, the one who worked on page a week will want to punch his advice giver in the crotch after seeing the other guy play.

.


WOW same page for a year now?? What if you had one guy work on the 1st line only for a year, and the other guy work on 2 pages in 2 years?? Who would win this battle??

I mean by that logic the guy who played the 1st excercise for a year should really be a great player and the 2nd guy would want to punch a crotch or something.??

Seems to me when I did it after the suggested 20 times on each excercise I pretty much had it committed to memory and did not need to look at it, I did do each one more than 20 too and every week or 2 I go back and play a page from the front to make sure I am maintaining. I am pretty sure if you did one page a year, (which no matter how committed you try to sound most people will not do) your chops may be good assuming you are atleast increasing speed, oh I don't know every 3 months or is that to short of an attention span?

I bet your reading skills suffer, I find my reading has really improved, being able to look ahead to whats coming and still play it note for note is not easy for us beginner's.

Like I said, it's different for people who are at different points in life. I don't try to play it like I know these things for a fact because I don't.. This is what has worked best for me and I realize we are not all the same and most do not have the time to sit there and play one page a year. If most did have the time I seriously doubt most would anyway.

I would think a decent instructor would recommend your way to all beginner's but he/she would also realize that it's probably not that realistic for most people, and would then recommend other options instead of tell them they have no attention span and no real commitment to the instrument because they have other commitments.

[jazzsnob]

WOW same page for a year now?? What if you had one guy work on the 1st line only for a year, and the other guy work on 2 pages in 2 years?? Who would win this battle??

I mean by that logic the guy who played the 1st excercise for a year should really be a great player and the 2nd guy would want to punch a crotch or something.??

Seems to me when I did it after the suggested 20 times on each excercise I pretty much had it committed to memory and did not need to look at it, I did do each one more than 20 too and every week or 2 I go back and play a page from the front to make sure I am maintaining. I am pretty sure if you did one page a year, (which no matter how committed you try to sound most people will not do) your chops may be good assuming you are atleast increasing speed, oh I don't know every 3 months or is that to short of an attention span?

I bet your reading skills suffer, I find my reading has really improved, being able to look ahead to whats coming and still play it note for note is not easy for us beginner's.

Like I said, it's different for people who are at different points in life. I don't try to play it like I know these things for a fact because I don't.. This is what has worked best for me and I realize we are not all the same and most do not have the time to sit there and play one page a year. If most did have the time I seriously doubt most would anyway.

I would think a decent instructor would recommend your way to all beginner's but he/she would also realize that it's probably not that realistic for most people, and would then recommend other options instead of tell them they have no attention span and no real commitment to the instrument because they have other commitments.


I've been working on just page one of stick control for two years. It's not hard to do once you realize you can NEVER finish that page. You can't finish any of them, but the first page is one of those thing you can practice forever. It is not about "learning" the pages, most drummers can learn those rhythms in 5 minutes. They are "conditioners," even says so in the book. Those exercises need thousands of repetitions.

The crotch-punching thing was a bit of affective language, yes, but it's still a logical argument. Let me clear it up. If one person went through a page a week or day for a year, and another similarly skilled drummer just worked on page 5 for a year, the one working on page 5 would see much more improvement. That's because this book is designed so well that you need to put more time into each exercise than you'd expect.

And by the way, you joke about how I'd suggest one line per year, well, really, I've done that too. Just straight singles and straight doubles for years. It worked GREAT for me when I was a beginner. I was only practicing 30 minutes a day, I was in middle school, but I was practicing smart. 10 straight minutes of singles, 10 of doubles, and ten on a drumset groove. Focus and sensible exercises are the things that allow you to go "oh wait, I'm not a beginner anymore. Cool."

You seem to be suggesting that beginners be content with being beginners, but that's just lowering the bar and that's no good for the art.

A few more things. Stick Control isn't about reading, so yes, if you only practice stick control, your reading will suffer. You can decide whether to supplement it with other books or not. But if you think you're really improving your reading with stick control, you gotta wait till you get to Belson's modern reading text.

You're absolutely correct, things in the world are different for different people in different situations and stuff. Enlightening stuff(sorry for the sarcasm, but come on). But does any of that have to do with drumming? People with less time to practice should do more focused exercises instead of flitting about an entire book essentially screwing around and not teaching their muscles anything. You gave BAD advice for someone on a minimal practice schedule.

The less time you have the less material you should try and go through, because you'll move on before you've really finished anything.

And let's not screw around with language, when you say "most people don't have the time to spend a year on one page" you're really saying "most people don't have the attention spans to spend a year on one page."


You're GREATLY underestimating yourself. Start that page at 100 bpm and see how long it takes you to get to 200 bpm. It takes about 3-5 years, I'm in the middle of it right now.

Good luck man, you're getting yourself caught up in a lot of stuff, and I'm sorry if I'm being harsh but you're not giving your advice-listeners enough credit and it's no good.

[n2xlr8n]

I'd say my thirst for knowledge, attention span, and desire to be the best I can be exceed that of most 40 yo couch potatoes ; )....and I'd not spend a page a month, unless I felt that I was technically deficient with a specific group of patterns.

Sure, there are countless methods to employ GLS, but I'm working strictly on my hands at this time.

The beauty of a technical forum is that everyone has an opinion. They may not agree with you, but it's okay. To each his own.

Do I have time enough to spend a year (jeez!) on one page? No. For those that do, well, I guess they'll have better hand technique than I.

I'm with nhzoso on this one: Becoming extremely procient with one's hand technique is hard enough (one might even say tedious); I'm not going to make my practice time 100% work. I try to devote 1 hour to hand technique, and the rest to "fun".

SRJ

[millersc]

[QUOTE=jazzsnob;278172]Start that page at 100 bpm and see how long it takes you to get to 200 bpm. It takes about 3-5 years, I'm in the middle of it right now.

QUOTE]

Hey Jazzsnob, when you do these exercises it's quarter note = the bpm you're talking about, right? Just for my clarification.

[jazzsnob]

Yeah, metronome is a 1/4 note, and I play the patterns as 16th notes. I think they're written as 8ths in the book, but that doesn't force you to do anything.

As far as nhozo and n2xlr8n are concerned, you guys can do whatever the hell you want. But I think you gave bad advice and I want to give some refuting evidence, so that someone looking at the discussion will realize that maybe they don't want to use your method. There's no incentive for me to be nice or politically correct so I'm not going to be. If you are working on ANY type of drum exercise and move on before you have it completely perfect, you are wasting your time. You'll never get a professional tone skipping around like that and you certainly won't be able to apply it as well. Just because you may not want to be a professional shouldn't hinder you from trying to master each and every thing you do. If you think that spending a week on each page of stick control is enough for you, fine. I can't tell you what to do, but I'd strongly encourage anyone reading this thread to realize that rushing through is the lazy way of approaching stick control and you will get more out of it if you really devote yourself to mastering each exercise, and you shouldn't be afraid to give yourself the time to do it.

Because it's really damn hard and it takes time and patience.


And man, it's amazing how you guys want to avoid admitting it's an issue with attention span. I've introduced the logical method for technical improvement for those who only have 15 minutes a day, but you guys don't seem to want to even consider the challenge and the benefits. Do what you want gang, I guess I'm just NO FUN AT ALL.

[nhzoso]

Well I don't know why you seem to be taking it personal. All I suggested is another way to do it. Which is the way the AUTHOR suggested it as well, so why you may feel you are more of an authrity on the subject than the author I will take his advice just a little more to heart. You can write you want to give some refuting evidence and not actually give any and thats good for some people but not me. I still have the same questions, it's nothing against you but unless you have done years of study with different kinds of personalities and documented the results than all you have is an opinion..Just like everyone else.

Nutha told me along time ago reader beware, So if your reading this thread or any thread on here realize that they are just opinions. Sorry Jazzsnob, even your suggestions are just your opinions. While you continue to want to say that anyone who does not have the time or desire to stay on a page for a year has a short attention span, I will kindly disagree with you.Hopefully you don't really feel you need to have an incentive to be a nice person.. That seems to be some bad advice for someone reading that.. Then again thats just my opinion.

[millersc]

Yeah, metronome is a 1/4 note, and I play the patterns as 16th notes. I think they're written as 8ths in the book, but that doesn't force you to do anything.

As far as nhozo and n2xlr8n are concerned, you guys can do whatever the hell you want. But I think you gave bad advice and I want to give some refuting evidence, so that someone looking at the discussion will realize that maybe they don't want to use your method. There's no incentive for me to be nice or politically correct so I'm not going to be. If you are working on ANY type of drum exercise and move on before you have it completely perfect, you are wasting your time. You'll never get a professional tone skipping around like that and you certainly won't be able to apply it as well. Just because you may not want to be a professional shouldn't hinder you from trying to master each and every thing you do. If you think that spending a week on each page of stick control is enough for you, fine. I can't tell you what to do, but I'd strongly encourage anyone reading this thread to realize that rushing through is the lazy way of approaching stick control and you will get more out of it if you really devote yourself to mastering each exercise, and you shouldn't be afraid to give yourself the time to do it.

Because it's really damn hard and it takes time and patience.


And man, it's amazing how you guys want to avoid admitting it's an issue with attention span. I've introduced the logical method for technical improvement for those who only have 15 minutes a day, but you guys don't seem to want to even consider the challenge and the benefits. Do what you want gang, I guess I'm just NO FUN AT ALL.

I was just wondering because playing at 200 bpm with the strokes as eighth notes wasn't going to take 3-5 years to accomplish. But as 16th notes, I guess that would be something. ;). Thanks for the info.

[jazzsnob]

Trust me, 200 bpm 16th notes (for at least ten minutes, perfectly even, at any dynamic level) takes a few years.

[Drad-dog]

...I guess I'm just NO FUN AT ALL.

BINGO!

Why so sour, Jazzsnob?

[jazzsnob]

I'm not sour, just dissapointed. But it's all good. Do what you want with the book. Jeez.

[Raymond Bloom]

My oppinion about how much time to spend on a page or exercise is that you must reach a level when you are 100% comfortable with the exercise you are doing, you can play it to every tempo, speed up and down and you never mess up, if you are able to do it, then practice a little bit more and move on to the next exercise. Some need a week, someone might be able to obtain this goal in a day, repeating is good but you must find a balance between repeating too much and learning something new

It's all about knowing the balance, being able to controll your body and know how it works, because we're all different.

If your mind and body is in controll with each other then it's good. You might have the ability to play something but you lack muscle memory or coordination, so that means you need to practice more! Musicality comes from your mind and soul but tehcnique is in your hands and feet, but they work all together, you can't play music without technique and you can't have great technique if you don't know how to apply it.

The bottom line is that two days, a few hours or a year on one exercise is not the answer, you must know what YOUR body needs

[cnw60]

Jazzsnob - thanks for your contributions to this thread. Some of us do appreciate your attention to detail and I know that my technique improves when I pay attention and do the things you're talking about, even though I am not following the 'method' exactly. I also spend some time working good old 'open/close/open' technique - IMO, there's still something good to be said for this old school rudimental approach. It has a way of finding any shaky spots, especially in the mid-tempos when you're in that transition zone where doubles aren't quite rebounds, but they're a little bit faster than just individual strokes.

One question - awhile back you mentioned that your teacher still plays pg 5 at 250 bpm for maintenance. We're talking about 16ths at 250 - right??? - so basically he's playing the entire page at close to WFD speed!!!???? that's some monster chops!

To me, the bickering lately in this thread comes down to something my first teacher told me -

question - how much I should practice?

answer - "how good do you want to be? - practice that much and stop."

...so anyone who feels like they're playing pg 5 as well as they want to, move on... it's just a page in a book.

[millersc]

Jazzsnob - thanks for your contributions to this thread. Some of us do appreciate your attention to detail and I know that my technique improves when I pay attention and do the things you're talking about, even though I am not following the 'method' exactly. I also spend some time working good old 'open/close/open' technique - IMO, there's still something good to be said for this old school rudimental approach. It has a way of finding any shaky spots, especially in the mid-tempos when you're in that transition zone where doubles aren't quite rebounds, but they're a little bit faster than just individual strokes.

One question - awhile back you mentioned that your teacher still plays pg 5 at 250 bpm for maintenance. We're talking about 16ths at 250 - right??? - so basically he's playing the entire page at close to WFD speed!!!???? that's some monster chops!

To me, the bickering lately in this thread comes down to something my first teacher told me -

question - how much I should practice?

answer - "how good do you want to be? - practice that much and stop."

...so anyone who feels like they're playing pg 5 as well as they want to, move on... it's just a page in a book.

So true. You only get out of practicing what you want to put in to it.

[n2xlr8n]

As far as nhozo and n2xlr8n are concerned, you guys can do whatever the hell you want.

You're disappointed / ill because while I respect your opinion, I choose to practice differently from you?



But I think you gave bad advice and I want to give some refuting evidence, so that someone looking at the discussion will realize that maybe they don't want to use your method.

Or, they may choose another's method. To each his own. Just because I think I have enough discipline and initiative to arrive at a level of technical proficiency following a different path than you, doesn't make us enemies, for God's sake. Please be professional; I've not given you reason to react that way.



There's no incentive for me to be nice or politically correct so I'm not going to be.


You're right; there is no incentive to be kind to people, so let's all be sanctimonious and patronizing. I think you're smarter than that.



f you are working on ANY type of drum exercise and move on before you have it completely perfect, you are wasting your time...And man, it's amazing how you guys want to avoid admitting it's an issue with attention span. I've introduced the logical method for technical improvement for those who only have 15 minutes a day, but you guys don't seem to want to even consider the challenge and the benefits. Do what you want gang, I guess I'm just NO FUN AT ALL.


I agree, but what IS perfect, exactly? If I'm happy with my sound, but Dave Weckyl is not, does that make me wrong? No, just amateur, which is what I am. I try to best the best that I can, and with that comes the knowledge that I'm not going to have the hands of Vinnie, et al. Do I strive to? Yes.

I respect your opinion. It's okay with me that you don't agree.

SRJ

[jazzsnob]

I get frustrated man. Very frustrated. And I didn't try and suggest that we should be "enemies"(oh man enemies on the internet). I don't know you guys at all, but when I talk about political correctness I'm talking about this stupid idea that "there is no wrong way."

Yes there is. There are different methods that work better than others. Sorry I''m not Mr. Feelgood. But to respond to you

Let me cut out ALL emotive language. A practice routine was posted that I felt would be extremely innefective. Early in my playing I sped through stick control like nhozo suggested and got almost nothing out of it. No improvement. Then my drum teacher introduced me to the idea that even if I thought I was "done" with a page, I really wasn't and I had to stick with it. I've since just worked on the first page and gotten amazing results. I'm sorry if our little argument seemed like it was a you guys vs. me thing, but the only reason I responded was to point out to any objective reader that I felt your method was too rushed and was not as effective as other options.

Let's make it clear; I have no issue with you in anyway and I'm sorry that I seemed like it, but my only goal is to argue against what I believe is bad advice(again, nothing against you, but I have to be honest) and hope than any objective reader will have at least two sides to weigh out before spending and possibly wasting time on something.

ps-i hope i used that semi-colon correctly

did i??
not sure.

[Legacyrik]

personally, i liked focusing on 1 column at a time and running down that column several times a day at different tempos. make sure, as mentioned above, that you are not straining to get the exercises out. the main ideas are to stay relaxed, keep your stick heights even, and get a nice logato sound out of your instrument.

I always wonder how long I should spend on a page before moving on. A lot of people on here would say, work the first page for 3 years then move on... that can't be right. to me you should probably work some kind of cycle working a page or so for perhaps a week, move on, enventually coming back again to that page and starting the cycle over. Thoughts?

Take in mind I'm pretty crappy so my weakness are many:) I don't have to think to hard to find them:)

[n2xlr8n]

I always wonder how long I should spend on a page before moving on. A lot of people on here would say, work the first page for 3 years then move on... that can't be right. to me you should probably work some kind of cycle working a page or so for perhaps a week, move on, enventually coming back again to that page and starting the cycle over. Thoughts?

Take in mind I'm pretty crappy so my weakness are many:) I don't have to think to hard to find them:)


I think "3 years" is overstating it a bit, but I see both sides having advantages. Personally, I think it all boils down to the individual practicing GLS. What are you trying to achieve? Are you a perfectionist attempting to become a professional? Are you trying to become the best YOU can be? Or, is your desire to learn a solid double stroke roll? I'm in the 2nd bunch.

Find what works best for you, staying within the accepted terms of technique, and work hard at it. One thing I'll universally agree upon: There are no shortcuts when it comes to speed, control, and endurance.

SRJ

[NUTHA JASON]

very good post.

i second that.

to me there is application for the sticking patterns both at fast tempos or at slow tempos. the first 6 or so patterns are essential and should be perfected to the point where they can be played with morello speed and ease (IMO). but there are many patterns on the next two pages that are perfect to be transmogrified into funk patterns or fills and then therefore these are to be played at much slower groovier tempos than say a double stroke roll would. to me this indicates that one could spend a lot more than three years on the first column of the first page BUT should also spend time constantly exploring and achieving degrees of ease and execution on other pages.

having useful, applicable stick control is a matter of breadth and depth. each drummer has a unique blend of ability across the various patterns and plays to their strengths (hopefully) while judiciously working on their future strengths (whether in GLS or in other sources).

perhaps then, it is useful with this book to see a session as a depth session or a breadth session. in depth sessions we really concentrate on technique with an eye to have speed and accuracy advancing together over a long period (rolls and paradiddles for example). in our breadth sessions we work on other patterns further into the book (like RRLRRLRL - second line drumming pattern) and rather than aiming to play them fast we aim to orchestrate them over the kit and gain an ease of playing the sticking that allows for expression. it stands to reason then that one should spend time on each type of practice every day...while not ever advancing past perhaps the first page in depth perhaps finally finding ourselves on page 20 in breadth. i would advocate a daily 70/30 split in favour of depth myself... but each to their own.

j

[ValS]

hello,

I just was reading all your suggestions and tips how to practice this book and i made my own routine, so here it is:

it has 4 phases:
first one- just tapping few inches of your pad for a few measures (2-4-?more?, but i dont recommend to keep it for more than 8 ones.. you'll be bored, thats would be no fun!)

start at some 60bpm 8 notes, than double time (16notes) and play same number of measures, then non stopping go a bit higher, 5 inches, not more, and play the same way, then up your sticks a little bit more once again, so it would be some 10 inches.. then 4 phase, as high as possible playing with your hands, wrists and fingers combined.(not unusually high, just about your head level) then do same exercises without stopping in reverse mode, from 4 phase to 1st one.
Thats it, its the best way to gain stick control for me, because you play only wrists( in 1-2 phases), wrists and a little bit fingers in phase nr.3 (i'm playing it with a free stroke) and in phase 4 - combined, so you dont get bored by 1 or 2 playing styles with same speed while learining rudiments..
then you'll feel that you're good at this speed, move up a metronome by 4 to 64, so fast part of it will rise by 8 to 128, i believe what after perfecting all at speed 60 you could rapidly go up to some 80/160 in just few months. and dont play phase 4 at higher speeds, lets say .. keep only first 3 after some 70-80bpm.

i'm trying to play 1 page per day (play 5-7 pages first, then you'll play all rudiments in this pages clearly and at decent speed you can check out some triplets,flams etc. as award :-) , but not earlier than after few months of 5-7 only, every day,or at least every second day)
and try to spends few minutes for singles and doubles daily, no matter at what page you are now.

have fun ;-)


p.s usually after playing all page, i play everything what goes to my mind at variuos speeds, just soloing on my pad, what builds up some motivation and you could check your progress.
p.s.s play it with a right technique too ;))

[bart60]

hey guys, i need to start working on my stick control and i was thinking of using jazzsnob's suggestion. but what i need to find out is, what book are you all talking about? is it this one? (http://www.amazon.com/Drummers-Bible-Every-Afro-Cuban-Zydeco/dp/1884365329/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-8311007-0303059?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173455548&sr=8-1) if not, please post where i can find the real one. thanks :)

[millersc]

The book that we are all talking about is George L Stone's book, STICK CONTROL. You can find it on Amazon. It shouldn't be more then 7-10 bucks. Hope this helps.

[bart60]

Thanks alot :) i was confused by the first post since it said something about "the drummer's bible" :P
EDIT: btw, is Stone's "Accents and rebounds for the snare drummer" worth it to buy? Will it help me with my stick control and if that's the case, what would i have to do in order for it to help me? thanks again :)

[caprisun3484]

Stick Control is such a great book and i can honestly say that book has probably improved my drumming the most overall of any book. It allowed me to use pretty much any sticking in my drumming without any effort

[jay_roub_drummer]

One of the best books I´ve ever studied.

[raavail]

Well some of senior members might be sick of this, but what can I do, this is a really long thread. So sorry everyone if this has been discussed before.

Anyway Ive been playing for about 2 years. Ive only recently bought a kit so before that it was basicly my hands on a table or sumthing. Anyway hmm I can play quite a bit, and have decent speed, I can play most stuff, hmm. Hav'nt ever done rudiments, and usually i dont need them i can lissen to something and then i can play that roll, really agsaint getting proper lessons, cuz I right now wht i play has a very "me" flavour to it.

Hmm so watched a few samples on the site about stick control, and started reading through the thread and people were talking about french grip and american grip and what not, i dont know which way i play, I really hav'nt thought about it alot.

So how important do you guys think it is to learn the exact grips and, and rudiments and everything, i can go till like 175 bpm, doing quarters with single stroke and hmm, about 225 with with double strokes pretty easily.

i know its a little jumbled up, but comments :D, cuz i havnt started practising with a metranome yet ( i know i know ). But iam going to so just thought i should know is it ok if i hold the stick anyway i can, or should i work on doing it a certain way .

cheers.

[xdrmusclex]

Anyone think there is any benefit with Practice with heavier sticks (than you would normally use)? or does that just screw up your techniqe

[centralzeke]

Anyone think there is any benefit with Practice with heavier sticks (than you would normally use)? or does that just screw up your techniqe

In my opinion, I think it screws with technique. Everyone should just get good with an average pair of sticks. I used to be pretty fast and back then I practiced with really light sticks (7b's).

[Echo]

I never practice on the kit with heavier sticks but if i'm on a pad and trying to boost speed and strength and obviousyl control i use some faily beefy sticks. but no not on the kit that does mess you about particularly in the finer points of movements around the set.

[Echo]

Well some of senior members might be sick of this, but what can I do, this is a really long thread. So sorry everyone if this has been discussed before.

Anyway Ive been playing for about 2 years. Ive only recently bought a kit so before that it was basicly my hands on a table or sumthing. Anyway hmm I can play quite a bit, and have decent speed, I can play most stuff, hmm. Hav'nt ever done rudiments, and usually i dont need them i can lissen to something and then i can play that roll, really agsaint getting proper lessons, cuz I right now wht i play has a very "me" flavour to it.

Hmm so watched a few samples on the site about stick control, and started reading through the thread and people were talking about french grip and american grip and what not, i dont know which way i play, I really hav'nt thought about it alot.

So how important do you guys think it is to learn the exact grips and, and rudiments and everything, i can go till like 175 bpm, doing quarters with single stroke and hmm, about 225 with with double strokes pretty easily.

i know its a little jumbled up, but comments :D, cuz i havnt started practising with a metranome yet ( i know i know ). But iam going to so just thought i should know is it ok if i hold the stick anyway i can, or should i work on doing it a certain way .

cheers.


Personally I use the French grip because i find it the most versatile and controlable, the ability potentially rely on just your hands (rather than bounces) for every single stroke suits me. However to get really accurate control is much harder with the french grip as it relys on the fingers not the wrist mainly, so when i play with orchestras and brass bands i often use the american grip for quiet and dynamic snare playing.

And yes rudiments are very very important if you wish to become a skillful musician, as is perfecting a really spot on double roll, to be honest it is not really about speed but regularity, a roll (and don't worry i can't do this anywhere near perfectly) should be a continuous sound that you should be able to switch on and off. Try playing a D roll very slowly and accenting the second note of each stroke then over time (long time) when you speed it up the roll will be in controll and even,

Wow! an even longer reply...
(p.s. i didn't practice to a metronome for 10 years)
E

[dea]

Sorry, I have to harp again. The french grip is not just for jazz. In fact, you can check with your health professional re: the french grip vs. the wrist down approach. I'd bet he will tell you that the french grip is the healthiest way ( for your wrists, forearms and shoulders ) to hold the stick since it doesn't create tension in the wrist, forearm and shoulder muscles.

Its so funny. For years my teacher would say, turn your wrists down, turn your wrists down. I hated doing it and fought it tooth and nail. I kept telling him, I'm trying to force comfort onto myself when there is already a natural comfy way of holding the stick. He kept insisting though. I ended up asking my pops about it - who was a medical doc at that time. I asked him why is this so difficult to force your wrists down. He said because your doing just that... "Forcing your wrists down".

Don't do it and not only will your speed increase, but your finesse will and you will not pre-dispose yourself to wrist, forearm and shoulder issues when you get older.

I can't imagine why we continue to push this wrist down grip posture. Its bad for your health an increases tension. An increase in tension will slow you down. Period.

Don't believe someone just because they are known as an expert. In fact, experts are the ones you want to question the most. The reason is that they have been doing something for a long time, and since times change, and people understand more as time goes on, they are not as likely to change things up. Its the old dog, new trick premise. This premise is all so true. You see it everywhere and in all industries. People are inherently stubborn and will tend to stick with what they know. Even the experts.

Don't believe me either. Find out for yourself. You won't regret it.

[dasilvs]

xdr

does a batter lose or screw with his technique or feel when he swings with a donut on his bat, or with two bats in his hand? no! this is how he builds enough strength, endurance, and generate enough speed to swing the bat efficiently, especially when it counts the most.

this is no different with drummers. i HIGHLY recommend warming up or practicing with heavier sticks to build up endurance. then, perform with lighter sticks and see the difference! of course, like a batter, you cannot take batting practice wit a donut or two bats in your hands, so you cannot pratice with the heavy sticks all the time.

to the skeptics, i say this: i use vic firth 5B sticks for practice, and 5A sticks for performance. because they are made by the same manufacturer and with the same wood, the differences between them are much less pronounced then mixing and matching. i could not have developed the proper arm and small muscles in my hands, wrist and fingers without having practiced with heavier sticks. keep in mind, they do sound differently when you play them on your kit, but for practice and strength building purposes, i see no reason why a drummer cannot succeed by employing the use of heavier sticks...

ECHO: if you have developed your skill enough moving around the kit, having heavier sticks in your hand should not affect the positioning of your hands when you strike the drum. it may affect the RATE or SPEED in which your hands have to travel, but the positioning NEVER changes. somewhere on this site there is a video of some drummer playing that crazy 60s surfer beat "wipe out" with GIGANTIC sticks, and yet he is still able to pull off fast single stroke rolls and fills. his hands never change positions...can you explain that?

[Echo]

I am not saying that you cannot play quickly or in controll with large sticks, you only have to listen to Lang, I just personally like to sit down on the kit with my preffered sticks and that i don't practice with heavier ones.
However i have since post tried it and would like to sheepishly retract the blanket opinion as it can be very useful!!

As for off kit pratice have been away fro, kit for a week and have been practicing with monster sticks on a folded blanket... goooooood.

P.S. Agree with all the french grip support very much, also you utilize all of your arm, wrist and fingers how can that be worse?

[dea]

I'm with Echo. Changing up your sticks, albeit is a preference, it is not necessary. There are cons to switching sticks. The one that sticks to my mind - being that I have kids who suck my time dry - is that you lose precious time when you switch sticks to what I call, "clumsy time". This is the time it takes for you to get used to the current sticks at hand. Personally, I'd rather be using that time more effectively. One can acquire all the speed and control they need by using the same lighter pair of sticks.

[Echo]

Excactly.
-With time- however i think building up fundamental muscles and relaxation can be aplified by using a heavier stick. For example my right hand is extreemly fast at single strokes using the fingers for each stroke but my left is well behind and i am concentrating on that hand a lot using a larger stick but for the finer points your regular stick must be in use i feel.

[Chris the Drummer]

Excactly.
-With time- however i think building up fundamental muscles and relaxation can be aplified by using a heavier stick. For example my right hand is extreemly fast at single strokes using the fingers for each stroke but my left is well behind and i am concentrating on that hand a lot using a larger stick but for the finer points your regular stick must be in use i feel.

I have the same problem, so what I do is I just do some of the exersises with my left hand every once and a while and then I try to balance it more in my playing.

[nhzoso]

hey guys, i need to start working on my stick control and i was thinking of using jazzsnob's suggestion. but what i need to find out is, what book are you all talking about? is it this one? (http://www.amazon.com/Drummers-Bible-Every-Afro-Cuban-Zydeco/dp/1884365329/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-8311007-0303059?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173455548&sr=8-1) if not, please post where i can find the real one. thanks :)


Did you get the book yet??

If not I can send you the 1st 3 pages via e-mail since thats all you need anyway. Could save ya a few dollars. PM me if you want it.

[skate4flip]

I've just started working on good way to develop coordination between the hands and feet using the first page of stick control. What I do is keep the feet doing the same pattern while the hands alternate (or vice versa). By this I mean, I will have the feet repeat exercise 1 over and over again while I will play Exercise 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc... with my hands (repeating the exercise 2 or 4 times with my hands). You can also do the opposite and have the hands stay the same, while the feet rotate exercises.

Another thing to try is take 2 separate exercise and play them with the hands and feet. Repeat it "x" amount of times and then switch to do excercises.

Hands: Exercise 4 (LLRR LLRR LLRR LLRR)
Feet: Excersie 14 (RLRL RRLL RLRL RRLL)

Repeat that ^ x amount of times and then switch to do totally different numbers (such as 10 for hands and 6 for feet) and repeat that x amount of times. I am working on this one right now, which is giving me some trouble:

Hands:
Exercise 1 (RLRL RLRL RLRL RLRL) repeat 4 times
Exercise 3 (RRLL RRLL RRLL RRLL) repeat 4 times
Exercise14 (RLRL RRLL RLRL RRLL) repeat 4 times
Feet:
Exercise 8 (RLRL LRLR RLRL LRLR) repeat 12 times

[bart60]

I've just started working on good way to develop coordination between the hands and feet using the first page of stick control. What I do is keep the feet doing the same pattern while the hands alternate (or vice versa). By this I mean, I will have the feet repeat exercise 1 over and over again while I will play Exercise 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc... with my hands (repeating the exercise 2 or 4 times with my hands). You can also do the opposite and have the hands stay the same, while the feet rotate exercises.

Another thing to try is take 2 separate exercise and play them with the hands and feet. Repeat it "x" amount of times and then switch to do excercises.

Hands: Exercise 4 (LLRR LLRR LLRR LLRR)
Feet: Excersie 14 (RLRL RRLL RLRL RRLL)

Repeat that ^ x amount of times and then switch to do totally different numbers (such as 10 for hands and 6 for feet) and repeat that x amount of times. I am working on this one right now, which is giving me some trouble:

Hands:
Exercise 1 (RLRL RLRL RLRL RLRL) repeat 4 times
Exercise 3 (RRLL RRLL RRLL RRLL) repeat 4 times
Exercise14 (RLRL RRLL RLRL RRLL) repeat 4 times
Feet:
Exercise 8 (RLRL LRLR RLRL LRLR) repeat 12 times
To add to that; my teacher showed something that also improves hand-feet coordination. it's very fun to do. it goes like this:
Hands: RRLL RRLL RRLL RRLL
Feet: RLRR LRLL RLRR LRLL
So it's paradiddles with the feet and alternating doubles with the hands :)

[Wavelength]

Accent the first note of each four-note grouping, and play the three remaining notes as quietly as possible. This will work wonders for your basic stroke (full-down-tap-up) control.

Recently I've been using the "abridged" version of Stick Control, which contains just the following basic stickings.

a) Singles and doubles

01: R L R L R L R L
02: R R L L R R L L
03: R L L R R L L R
04: L R L R L R L R
05: L L R R L L R R
06: L R R L L R R L

b) Paradiddles

07: R L R R L R L L
08: R L L R L R R L
09: R R L R L L R L
10: R L R L L R L R
11: L R L L R L R R
12: L R R L R L L R
13: L L R L R R L R
14: L R L R R L R L

c) Three strokes

15: R R R L R R R L
16: R R L R R R L R
17: R L R R R L R R
18: L R R R L R R R
19: L L L R L L L R
20: L L R L L L R L
21: L R L L L R L L
22: R L L L R L L L

d) Four strokes

23: R R R R L L L L
24: R R R L L L L R
25: R R L L L L R R
26: R L L L L R R R
27: L L L L R R R R
28: L L L R R R R L
29: L L R R R R L L
30: L R R R R L L L

[bballdrummer34]

Some teachers say that Stick Control is the ONLY book you'll EVER need.
Check it out: My teacher was a student of Robert Honer. Honer was GREAT friends with Joe Morello. So this excercise is straight from Morello himself. Start at a reasonable tempo for this beacase it gets fast, maybe 100. What you do is play the the two measures as written, but istead of repeating them you play the hand it ends with for two measures and then go on. For example:
1. RLRL RLRL RLRL RLRL
LLLL LLLL LLLL LLLL
2. LRLR LRLR LRLR LRLR
RRRR RRRR RRRR RRRR

It's EXTREMELY important to stay as RELAXED as possible when doing this excercise or you will defeat the purpose. Once you get this up to about 300 you're ready to challenge Morello!!! Now he'll tell you to do this using the Moeller, probably match grip. I have found that this is the most natural way of playing, especially, when trying to acheive a great amount of speed with the least amout of energy.
For Drumset there are COUNTLESS excercises. A few to start with is taking the ride cymbal in your right and the snare in your left (or vice versa). You play the ride cymbal beat while filling in the L or left hand rhythms with the snare. So if you were to do number one you would play the ride cymbal beat while play off beats with the opposite hand. Number two would be the opposite of that. You would play the downbeats while playing the ride cymbal beat.
Now you can put this same excercise in ANY of your limbs.
You can play the ride cymbal beat while doing the opposite hand in your left foot. Or, you could to both feet running down the book with the ride cymbal beat going. These are great independence excercises. You dont necessarily need Thomas Lang's video. He's great but, over 100 excercises?!?! You might as well go and study Indian Classical.
I'd put more excercises but i dont want to take up too much more space.

[ajgdrums722]

I got this book a few weeks ago and have been working out of it alot. I've devised my own little practice method with it (certainly not as in depth as the one listed on page 1 of this thread) but I think it gives me a good amount of hand work each day and will build up my control through the weeks.

Basically I divide up the first page over a week. I set a metronome to 8th notes at 100 BPM. Exercises 1-4 are constants. I play the singles and doubles everyday. I spend 4 minutes on each exercise, throwing in cresendos into full strokes for a set amount of time/bars. On Monday, I play the first 4 exercises with the following 3 (5,6,7). On Tuesday, I play the first 4 with the next 3 (8,9,10). Wednesday is the first 4 with 11,12,13, Thursday 1-4 and 14,15,16, Friday 1-4 and 17,18,19, Saturday 1-4, 20,21,22, and Sunday caps it off with 1-4 and the remaining 2 exerices (23,24).

Then on Monday I start all over again, but bump the BPM up to 102, and 2 more BPM every week thereafter. Playing 7 exercises a day at around 4-5 minutes straight gives you approximately 30 minutes of hand work straight out of this book.

I also run down this same exercise with my feet, but play 2 minutes on each exercise: the first minute heel down and the second minute heel up. This is about 15 minutes a day, so basically I'm getting what I feel is a solid hand-foot workout for about 45 minutes to an hour a day. I use it at the very beginning of the practice session, as a warm-up, and then delve into other things.

If anyone has any criticism and/or suggestions for my method, please let me know. I think it's been working ok so far, but it's only been sort of a test (had the book only for about 2 weeks now) so I'm definitely not married to the method. I hope you guys can help me improve it. Thanks.

[h3r3tic]

Is it ok to practise the exercises in diferent tempos?
For example: Exercise 1. I can do 16th notes with with my hands and feet at 90 bpm but I can't do paradidles at 90 bpm... I can do it slower ofcourse

Is this bad?
Or is it normal to practise exercises at diferent tempos. I mean at any confotable tempo?

[jazzsnob]

Is it ok to practise the exercises in diferent tempos?
For example: Exercise 1. I can do 16th notes with with my hands and feet at 90 bpm but I can't do paradidles at 90 bpm... I can do it slower ofcourse

Is this bad?
Or is it normal to practise exercises at diferent tempos. I mean at any confotable tempo?

I've always tried to practice at whatever tempo was weakest. So say I can do everything at one tempo except for the RRRLs and the LLLRs, well, it's not like I'm perfect at any of the other parts either, so I'll bring it all down, focus on the parts I'm struggling on, and try and refine the ones I can do to be as consistent and loose as possible, and I work them for longer periods of time to get the endurance up. It's a very smooth way of practicing and I speculativly assume that it is better for your internal clock. I mainly assume this because it's how my teacher worked on it and how he suggests to.

[Just Drums]

QUESTION.....

Does anyone know who actually publishes this book? I'm currently buying thru another music store and my main vendors for books and videos (Alfred, Hal Leonard, etc) don't carry the book.

So where does a store/dealer like myself buy it from??

Thanks for the help!

[rockinrider]

Groove,

I just bought the book today.

Published by:
George B. Stone & Son, Inc
P.O. Box 324
Randolph, MA 02368-2437

[drflam]

I just got my copy today! :D The local music shop said it was out of print and they didn't have any, but then one of the guys found a copy they didn't even know they had, and it had been there for over 5 years... Just waiting for me to come pick it up. It was destiny!!

Hehe, anyway, the information in this thread has been very helpful, thanks to all those that contributed their routines!

[Therma lobsterdore]

Awesome book, like many in this thread it really gave my drumming a shot in the arm.

After reading bits of this thread I decided to just stick to page 1 and try to gently up the speed over time (raising by 5bpm every month or two). I usually go through page 1 twice per practice session, once for my hands and then again for my feet, doing each exercise for a minute and then moving onto the next without stopping.

I'm just wondering if I really need to do my hands and feet separately or should I just save time and do them together? I do them separately because my hands can do the exercise's faster than my feet (by about 20 BP in 8th's) but does this really matter that much?

[rhythmjunkie]

Hey guys. I bought the book in California in '01 and played through a little. But.... when I went back to lessons last year my teacher made the book part of my rep. What he has taught are the following things. Hope you guys can exercise this. It'll make you able to control the sticks like Dave Dicenso (Hopefully :) )

1. Play the exercises from slow to fast - and then back down to slow.

2. Make sure you attacks are even. ie. your left hand isn't louder than your right, vise versa

3. Ultimately it should sound like and a airplane going off. Rattattattttttttttttttttttratatata
(Slow to fast)

Hope this helps, it helped me. Oh, by the way, this book is friggin' hard!!!

[cnw60]

I'm just wondering if I really need to do my hands and feet separately or should I just save time and do them together? I do them separately because my hands can do the exercise's faster than my feet (by about 20 BP in 8th's) but does this really matter that much?

there's a definite efficiency to combining hands and feet, and there's nothing wrong with practicing that way IMO, (plus it adds the 4-way co-ordination to your practice session). BUT I also believe VERY STRONGLY in the value of slow, deliberate practice with just the hands (or just feet).

Both ways of practicing are good - so do both.

[mEm]

well one of my experiences with stick control was a small lesson from the great vinnie colaiuta an Sydney a few weeks ago and he tells me that one of the secrets to fast accurate stick control is to bounce the stick up against your palm with ur rude finger and controlling it with ur little finger and my speed and control has tripled what it was and he also said to start playing hi hat beats with your bad hand until it's as fast as ur good hand...... cya guys

[jonescrusher]

well one of my experiences with stick control was a small lesson from the great vinnie colaiuta an Sydney a few weeks ago and he tells me that one of the secrets to fast accurate stick control is to bounce the stick up against your palm with ur rude finger and controlling it with ur little finger and my speed and control has tripled what it was and he also said to start playing hi hat beats with your bad hand until it's as fast as ur good hand...... cya guys


Lessons with Vinnie?! Please, tell us more. WHat do you mean by controlling it with the little finger?

[practising drummer]

i have both books (stick control & accents and rebounds).
i focus mainly on playing the exercises in stick control slow at both piano and mezzoforte volume.
if you do it this way.. whatever grip you use, you will automatically get in the open/close feel with most of the exercises when you speed up. i dont know about the moeller stroke though.
this way i developed the technique naturally with both hands.

if you like stick control and dont have A & R, get it!
its nearly as good.
also there is an interesting chapter with the buzz roll exercises, which im a huge fan of.
when you hear that done well (like zoro does it for excample) its REALLY impressive.

ramble ramble. my 2 cents

[h3r3tic]

Hey there! :)

I just got a copy of Stick Control, and I've been wondering about something.
Since I'm a drumset player and not a snare percussionist... do I HAVE TO leran every single exercise of the book?
Well, I'm LOVING THE BOOK!! I really am and I find it so much fun!;)

But still... do I have to learn every single exercise as a drumset player?
Because I believe that some pages could be skipped...

What pages you'de suggest that should be learnt by a drumset player?
Please let me hear from you soon and thank you so much! :)

[h3r3tic]

Hey there! :)

I just got a copy of Stick Control, and I've been wondering about something.
Since I'm a drumset player and not a snare percussionist... do I HAVE TO leran every single exercise of the book?
Well, I'm LOVING THE BOOK!! I really am and I find it so much fun!;)

But still... do I have to learn every single exercise as a drumset player?
Because I believe that some pages could be skipped...

What pages you'de suggest that should be learnt by a drumset player?
Please let me hear from you soon and thank you so much! :)

[plooker68]

The pages I would suggest to learn as a drum set player would be...all of them!!!

[bart60]

Don't think of it as a chore to learn all of them, think of the great benefits you will harvest from this book. :) I also just got it, i haven't looked into it much, but it seems to be very fun and very rewarding :)

[Wavelength]

All patterns can be applied to the drum kit, and practicing anything from the book is very beneficial.

[Steady Freddy]

There are two sides to the equation. Skill building and creativity. Books like Stick Control fall onto the skill building category. It is designed to build strength, coordination, and speed, between the hands. The exercises aren't designed to be played on the drum set per se.

You can play the patterns on the drum set and by moving around the set you may come up with some things that you like, but the main goal is to develop skill.

The Chapin and Chester book take it a little further by introducing the feet into the skill building process. Work the exercises at different volumes and tempos. It's not a race to finish the book. Spend time with all the exercises.

Once you have the skills, how you apply them is totally up to you and that begins the creative process.

[foursticks]

I agree with freddy in the sense that stick control is focusing on skill and technique building, but that does not mean you can't apply it to the drum set. You are free to come up with ideas of your own on how to apply the excersises around the kit. Jim Blackley's syncopated rolls for the modern drummer actually gives you ideas on how to apply the excersises within it to the drumset. You should check it out.

[zambizzi]

I do this quite often, this book is truly great for *everything*...including applying it to the kit.

One example is; replacing "R" with your kick foot. Do a shuffle or swing pattern w/ your right hand and do "BLBL BBLL" (B = Bass) - and various other patterns in the book...EXCELLENT coordination and independence exercises!

[tomtom]

Hey there! :)

I just got a copy of Stick Control, and I've been wondering about something.
Since I'm a drumset player and not a snare percussionist... do I HAVE TO leran every single exercise of the book?
Well, I'm LOVING THE BOOK!! I really am and I find it so much fun!;)

But still... do I have to learn every single exercise as a drumset player?
Because I believe that some pages could be skipped...

What pages you'de suggest that should be learnt by a drumset player?
Please let me hear from you soon and thank you so much! :)

I read in an interview with Billy Cobham that he used to practice the first 5 pages of Stick Control.

Stone also wrote a book called "Accents & Rebounds", that´s my bible, terriffic book. Stick Control on steroids.

[h3r3tic]

The reason why I asked that if every page of Stick Control is need to be learnt is because that I read something about an excelent drummer called Mark Mondesir and he uses only 7 rudiments (I don't know which ones are)...

Does anyone know which 7 rudiments that Mark Mondesir uses on his playing?

[jazzsnob]

The reason why I asked that if every page of Stick Control is need to be learnt is because that I read something about an excelent drummer called Mark Mondesir and he uses only 7 rudiments (I don't know which ones are)...

Does anyone know which 7 rudiments that Mark Mondesir uses on his playing?

You should just read this thread over man. I've posted methods for using the first page or the first three pages that will last your for years. Just pick something and do it every day for a year and then come back and ask for another way of doing it.