pillow as practice pad debate

[Womble]

I am open to being corrected, but because of everything I've ever been taught about proper drum technique, I am really concerned when I see people suggesting to newbie drummers that they should practice on a pillow. As any pro drummer will tell you, the secret to speed is to allow those sticks to rebound off the head, with you having to do any work except control the rebound and send the stick back down. If you practise on a surface with no rebound, such as a pillow, you must surely a) train yourself to lift the stick back instead of letting it do it for you, and b) risk straining and potentially damaging your wrists from having to work far too hard. As someone who has experienced scary wrist problems from gripping the sticks too tight (but not any more, thank God!), it really alarms me when I see someone suggesting this pillow idea. At the same time, I am aware of these claims that Buddy Rich and Dennis Chambers swore/swear by it. Can anyone give me proper logical reasoning as to why it would be a good idea, instead of quoting the opinions of these two drummers?

I await replies with interest,

Womble

[finnhiggins]

A couple of points:

1) Yes, you need to work the rebound. But you will also likely play on surfaces where rebound is minimal, such as low-tuned floor toms. So while learning to play on a practice pad is a suitable simulation of pulling off your chops on a snare, a pillow is the floor-tom equivilent.

2) Interestingly, Alan Dawson (teacher of Tony Williams and many other greats) taught all of his students technique using brushes, to teach them what he felt was the proper feeling of "picking up" the stick in a relaxed way. So while the whole push-rebound thing is a very vital part of modern drumming, there are great teachers and players who have worked very specifically on lifting motions.

[centralzeke]

I don't feel playing on a pillow is the equivalent of playing on a floor tom. They're totally different. Pillows give virtually NO rebound at all, while low tuned toms give some rebound, even if a very small amount.

[somedrummer]

^^^What finn said and...

By working those muscles extermely hard, a pillow will speed up progress. You might try playing on a pillow for 15 minutes, diong your normal warmup or something, then going to the drumset and see how you feel. I can pretty much guaruntee that you will have way more control over the sticks and it will feel almost effortless to play on the drums.

I agree with what finn said about practice pads being more for snare work than for low floor toms. I have been having that problem myself, trying to do doubles on the floor tom and having it be really unclean.

So I think it is a fine idea to practice on a pillow. I dont see any medical reason not to, as long as you strech a bit and start slow before going at it too hard.

Rob

[finnhiggins]

The idea is that you build control over your strokes. If the rebound is available then you use it as much as possible, but if it is not available you can't just go "Oh, I can't play that drum with proper technique then". The movements should remain consistent. It's like cycling up a hill rather than on the flat - you get less "free movement" and have to put more effort in, but your movements should remain the same and not lose control or tense up. Go look at the video of Nat Townsley on here - his stick movements stay consistent everywhere, yet his drums are different tensions and sizes. How can that be? Because he's trained himself to compensate for reduced rebound by "picking up the stick" when he has to, but has also trained himself to use the rebound when it is there to use.

Horses for courses. Again, it's not one of these either/or situations, it's another drum situation where both is more useful than either.

[FatherTime]

Playing on the pillow might be good for you but only up to a certain point. Something to remember here is that you are trying to improve certain muscles, whether it be your fingers, complete arm or wrist they all need time to get use to the efforts being asked of them. Try too hard too fast and you will get hurt, plus yes! eventually you will come to your own body's limitations and if you try to go beyond that you will hurt yourself no matter how much you practice, hence having a "limit" for your body in the first place. Someone else may have a different limit making them faster than you on Wrist Strokes, so just go to fingers if you can, if not learn to do so. lol

[Sticktrick]

I don´t think you learn controlling the stick by using a pillow. Why? There is no rebound, so what is there actually to be controlled? I don't get that. Also afaik Buddy NEVER trained on a pillow. Check the Single Stroke thread for details on that.

[MECHT4NK]

I'd say for best result you should always use a practice pad. I think it's also possible to train yourself for situations where there is no rebound on a practice pad just by changing the technique you practice. an important difference is that it's too easy to get a consistent sound out of a pillow so you won't notice when you pull back your stick too soon.

[Anduin]

The pillow is your friend. Not all the time, obviously, but to maybe work on paradiddles while watching a movie or something, I highly recommend it.

Get up to speed with heavy sticks on a pillow, and you'll fly when you sit down behind the kit!

[DogBreath]

I notice that drums stores and websites don't sell a whole lot of practice pillows, but they do sell practice pads. Hmm, I wonder if there's a reason for that.

[ZeppelinJB]

Dogggy Breathy im following you in the forum lol. Pads are better than pillows lol haha.

[drumbum]

hmm...i've practiced on both a practice pad and on my pillow/mattress. i feel that practicing on the pillow and mattress actually helped me improve speed. another really good reason to practice on your pillow is so you can practice at night and you won't really bother anyone. i can't see anything negative about practicing on a pillow as long as you warm up right.

[finnhiggins]

I notice that drums stores and websites don't sell a whole lot of practice pillows, but they do sell practice pads. Hmm, I wonder if there's a reason for that.

That's because they wouldn't, they sell something else instead: I have one here - it's a gel pad called a "Workout pad". Feels like playing on a pillow. Actually, it's a bit harder, this thing has even less rebound than any pillow I've tried.

[finnhiggins]

I don´t think you learn controlling the stick by using a pillow. Why? There is no rebound, so what is there actually to be controlled? I don't get that. Also afaik Buddy NEVER trained on a pillow. Check the Single Stroke thread for details on that.

What is there to be controlled? The stick, of course! You should be able to play with the same stick movements as you transition between snare, toms or rolls around the crash cymbals without any tension or interference. These all have dramatically different rebound responses, so you need to learn how much energy you need to put into the "pick up" on each one. Training on a pillow helps learn one extreme, the pad helps learn the other. If you can transition between the two (put them side by side and play alternating quarter notes of singles or doubles back and forth) without tensing up or your stick path going wonky or the rebound getting killed on the pad then you're a long way towards applying some of that rebound stuff to a drum kit in reality, which really doesn't feel anything like a practice pad on at least half the surfaces.

[wildmanblue]

I personally dont like practicing on a pillow. It isnt nearly solid enough, so i practice "sticking", or being able to play stuff with out rebound, on my leg, or a moon gel practice pad. As for whether or not this is a good Idea, well it is absolutley essential for a snare, tenor, or bass drummer to develope the control they need to play cleanly with other members of the line.

It builds control by building up muscles in the arms which control the stick. That may sound redundant but what I mean is that play on a very tensioned surface (like a marching snare) the rebound can get out of control making the line dirty. You must be able to play every induvidual note exactly the same as everyone else. That just isnt possible when playing with pure rebound. Plus when playing double stroke rolls without rebound the second stroke will become more pronounced since it isnt merely a rebound stroke, this would drastically improve the sound quality of your doubles.

In regards to set, just play and practice how you feel. There shouldnt be any real strict guidelines when play set. Other than the mental aspects for keeping time and such.

[NUTHA JASON]

so hard to choose. is dom famularo right (from his vic firth lessons one can imply that pillows are a no no) or is dennis chambers right.


actually they both are. pillows for strength, pad for control. you need both. warm up on a pad. then drill on a pillow then cool down on a pad.

on a side note i have yet to find a pad or pillow that feels like a drum. even my roland td8k doesn't have the skin feeel i know and love.

ergo

practice on every surface you can.

j

[RudimentalDrummer]

Bro Womble:-

My Frank Opinion .... if possible - The best practice is on your actual drum kit eg. your Snare. I had done strokes on Pillow, Phone-Books, Pads etc ..... and even spend $$$$$$ on a set of Muffler on my entire Drum kit..... work very hard on it and still no-good according to my Drum Instructor everytime I played it (strokes/accenting on actual Drum in school) ... Why? Because I can never practice and produce the perfect stroke with consistency using all above.

Yes many will say - a double is a double stroke. Try playing just a simple 16 notes accent then ... I mean Perfect Playing where all the notes that are suppose to be Ghost must be ghost at the same tone (not any louder or any softer and your sticks have to be only 0.5 inches away from your snare) ) and Accent the part you are supposed to Accent in the same tone not lifting it too high (using Rim-Shots)....of course timing has to be perfect. When you try doing this even at a slower pace initially - the sound is magnificent. You can never achieve this using pads, pillow or whatever.

I found this out myself only last Saturday...so now...I don't bother whether my wify gets angry or my neighbour get irritated. I am doing all my 3 hours Drum Practice on the Kit itself....and I bought 4 pairs of ear-plugs for all of my family members ....kekekekeke.

For certain strokes ...yes pads have rebound and does serve it's purpose but not everything every kind of strokes especially Accenting using Rim Shots can be achieved.

[Sticktrick]

What is there to be controlled? The stick, of course! You should be able to play with the same stick movements as you transition between snare, toms or rolls around the crash cymbals without any tension or interference. These all have dramatically different rebound responses, so you need to learn how much energy you need to put into the "pick up" on each one. Training on a pillow helps learn one extreme, the pad helps learn the other. If you can transition between the two (put them side by side and play alternating quarter notes of singles or doubles back and forth) without tensing up or your stick path going wonky or the rebound getting killed on the pad then you're a long way towards applying some of that rebound stuff to a drum kit in reality, which really doesn't feel anything like a practice pad on at least half the surfaces.


OK Finn, I am with you (as always). This idea sounds good, but I´d like to add that pillows are for advanced drummers that don´t have the tendency to tense up. Please. You might hurt yourself - I did. I do strongly advice you to free yourself from any tension before you go to the pillow.

I still like to add that you should not only work on your speed and strenght but also on your sound. And this can only be done on a drum, so spend most of your time there (if you can).

Does this settle the discussion forever? I supoose no: Different people, differnet opinions.

[vince]

I notice that drums stores and websites don't sell a whole lot of practice pillows, but they do sell practice pads. Hmm, I wonder if there's a reason for that.
In the 19th century, a man called Charles Gourdin ( a drum instructor in the french army ) wrote a book : it was a method for snare drum. One entire chapter of this book describes the "practice pillow" or "le coussin d'exercice" that the tambours should use to practice. I guess in the army they could make a quite good double-stroke roll ? Check out le Rigodon d'honneur...
And, I think you can find practice pads in music stores instead of practices pillows because it's a better business to sell practice pads 30 $ than pillows that you can get freely in every room.
I made my own practice pad.

[DogBreath]

If Vic Firth or Pro Mark or Zildjian or Remo thought that practicing on a pillow was a viable option to practicing on a pad, they would manufacture and sell a high-tech practice pillow for $50 and pay a pro drummer to endorse it, and within a week every 13 year old would be using one. Your reason that they don't is that it would be too easy to use your own pillow, but then you admit that you made your own practice pad!

And if you have to go back to the 19th century for someone who advises the use of practice pillows, I think you're reaching a bit. Would you take advice from a 19th century doctor? If so, I'll round up some leeches for you. Back then there weren't practice pads, and now there are. Does Dave Weckl suggest using a pillow? Or Steve Gadd, or Akira Jimbo, or Dennis Chambers?

The fact is that in no way does a pillow simulate a drumhead. What it does do is keep your mom from throwing you out of the house for making noise. I'm not saying you shouldn't practice on a pillow. As Nutha said, practice on as many surfaces as you'd like. But mostly what that does is strengthen your muscles, not help you practice technique. If you are asking what your PRIMARY practice surface should be, the answer is a drumhead, and barring that a practice pad.

[finnhiggins]

Back then there weren't practice pads, and now there are. Does Dave Weckl suggest using a pillow? Or Steve Gadd, or Akira Jimbo, or Dennis Chambers?


Denis Chambers does...

[jangus]

Dont knock it until youve tried it.

[DogBreath]

Finn, Dennis Chambers says, "Don't practice on a drum, don't practice on a practice pad. Use a pillow."?

[jamndrummer]

Dennis Chambers says, "Don't practice on a drum, don't practice on a practice pad. Use a pillow."?

Practice on your little brothers head.

Settled

[onemat]

I know this much. If I sit on the couch at night and do singles, doubles or whatever and begin to hit it harder my arms begin to hurt after awhile. If I play the kit soon afterwards, I seem to have a lot more power and control. My doubles are weak and almost nonexistent on the pillow, but seem to improve when I move back to the kit. ...Matt

[DogBreath]

Matt, like I said, if you practice on a pillow it will improve your muscles. But not your technique. If you practice on a drum or a pad, however, it will improve your muscles and your technique.

[finnhiggins]

Matt, like I said, if you practice on a pillow it will improve your muscles. But not your technique. If you practice on a drum or a pad, however, it will improve your muscles and your technique.

I have to say DB, I think you're being a bit closed-minded on this one. I'll present this one as a structured argument with premises and conclusions...

1) A practice pad has a fairly large amount of rebound
2) A pillow has very little rebound
3) A drum kit has many surfaces, which range in rebound response from quite large amounts (snare drum, hi-hat) to relatively small amounts (crash cymbals, floor toms).
4) It is desirible to be able to apply technique in a clean and even way on any surface on the drum kit without impedement due to the absence of rebound.
5) It requires practice to be able to handle applying good technique to rebound-free surfaces.

Therefore..

6) A combination of proper study on different practice surfaces will be more beneficial to a player than just practicing on a single high-rebound surface.

I suspect of those premises you'll take the most issue with #5, so I'll justify it a bit. I'm sure you know how to do the whole drop-a-stick-and-let-it-bounce exercise, and you know how much worse it works on a floor tom than a snare drum. Therefore if you wish to play clean single strokes onto a slack floor tom you're going to need to put some degree of energy into raising the stick back to the original height before the next stroke - it is impossible to achieve this with just rebound when the rebound to bring the stick back is not available on that surface.

However, if you're playing on a snare drum or practice pad then you're going to want to *avoid* lifting the stick, instead favouring a downward push (like dribbling a basketball) to bring it back up. As an analogy here, try dribbling a basketball and then try dribbling a block of wood. Doesn't work, eh? The only way to make the rebound-free object describe the same movement is to provide extra impetus yourself by lifting it.

The idea of technique is not that you restrict yourself and say "If it doesn't bounce I can't play on it without using excessive muscle tension". The idea is that you learn to use the bounce when it is available, and to expend as little energy as possible when it's not available. You can have good technique on a surface with no rebound, there are other criteria:

1) Is the stick path smooth, with no stops or wiggles mid-stroke?
2) Are the hands and arms relaxed?
3) Is the stick comfortable inside your grip, not slipping away?
4) Are the movements the most efficient ones that can be described for this purpose?
5) Are you using any rebound that is available to your best advantage?

Practicing on a surface that isn't overly bouncy lets you work on the first four aspects when the rebound is not available. A pillow is good for this. I agree with Sticktrick's response that it's more useful for advanced players who've already got a good understanding of technique on a practice pad, but for those players it is certainly more useful than a practice pad alone OR a pillow alone.

And no, of course Dennis Chambers doesn't suggest a pillow instead of a drum kit. But he clearly does suggest it for building up your singles instead of a practice pad in a number of places. As for the drum kit, I suggest you do a quick straw-poll to find how many people here can play loud acoustic drums at any hour of the day or night for as long as they like...

[DogBreath]

You're just repeating what I said. A quick straw poll to find out how many people can play loud at all hours would show that not many can. And what did I say about that? I said that playing on a pillow "keeps you mom from getting mad." And Dennis Chambers suggests using a pillow to build up your singles? I said, "if you practice on a pillow it will improve your muscles." You say it's good to practice on many surfaces. I said, "practice on as many surfaces as you'd like."

So how does that make me closed-minded, since you seem to be supporting what I said? Womble's original statement was "I am really concerned when I see people suggesting to newbie drummers that they should practice on a pillow." I agree, which is why I said "I'm not saying you shouldn't practice on a pillow . . . If you are asking what your PRIMARY practice surface should be, the answer is a drumhead, and barring that a practice pad."

See? Not closed-minded at all. Read more carefully and don't just look for an argument.

[finnhiggins]

Read more carefully and don't just look for an argument.

Oh, come on - this is the internet! Who does that!

:)

OK, I take your point. So I guess our settling of the pillow-vs-pad issue is:

"Not good for beginners. Useful for muscle and technical development after you've got your basic strokes flowing effortlessly on a practice pad and understand core technique fundementals. Either way, getting in some time on real drums is preferable for the same exercises".

[DogBreath]

You, my friend, get a gold star for the day.

And as an aside, I just want to say that I truly enjoy reading your posts.

[finnhiggins]

You, my friend, get a gold star for the day.

And as an aside, I just want to say that I truly enjoy reading your posts.

A gold star? Awesome!

I enjoy yours too - your depth of musical knowledge is impressive!

[JohnMunsey]

I think practicing on pillows trains the hands to work harder than they have to. I understand floor toms are a lot less rebound than a snare, but a pillow is not like anything on a drumset!

Perhaps Dennis didnt want to get in a big explanation about hand technique so said "play on pillows"

Lets ask Dennis!

[NUTHA JASON]

er john, did you read the last six or so posts? they are brilliant. finn and DB nail it down pretty well.

finn, what you said about not having to deal with rebound and just concentrate on the 'above elements' of a stroke is so true. practicing on pillows gives that element of finesse (pun) and also as DB says the strength involved pays dividends later.

j

[Womble]

Ooh I've just noticed something I'd never realised before. I was about to question some people's statements about pillows having little or 'virtually no' rebound, because from my experience I would have said that pillows have absolutely no rebound whatsoever. But then I thought I'd better double check, so I've just gone round my whole house throwing sticks down as hard as I can into every pillow I could find!! And guess what? They were all different (big f*cking surprise I hear you shout, hehe). Some literally sucked the stick in, but others, yes, did have a tiny bit of rebound. So forgive me for perhaps stating the ludicrously obvious, but I guess if people are going to try this pillow idea, I'd suggest finding the right one first.

Womble

[Damon Dapper]

I'd say pads are the best way to go, if you want a pad that gives less rebound then get one with thin rubber. Gum rubber less than 1/4 inch thick will have poor rebound and is perfect for that floor-tom feel, especially with spung material sandwhiched between the rubber and the base. I design and manufacture my own costum practice pads, and my new models have a built in metronome. But, thin rubber is the way to go for less stick rebound.

Dap.

[NUTHA JASON]

a fair point. when i was a kid i learn't fast single strokes by secretly hitting my mums expensive leather lounge sofas. i would wait for her to be out and then give em a bash. the leather gave a tiny amount of return but also made a clear clicking whack sound so i was able to hear if i was playing evenly.


j


ps: mum, if you are reading this (ever) i am sorry. and that tear on the arm of the double was definitely the dog and not my sticks. love j

[MrBananaMan]

not that ive ever actually practiced on pillows, but it makes your wrists MUCH stronger having no rebound. there is definitely a plus side to have no rebound sometimes. no rebound is like strength training for your wrists. sure you will have to relearn proper technique and control with your bigger wrist muscles but it lets you do so much more.

[Anduin]

And as an aside, I just want to say that I truly enjoy reading your posts.

and then there's

I enjoy yours too - your depth of musical knowledge is impressive!

Guys, get a room!

.................

[onemat]

I think practicing on pillows trains the hands to work harder than they have to. I understand floor toms are a lot less rebound than a snare, but a pillow is not like anything on a drumset!



Hey I've got a pillow in my bass drum... Sorry, a little humor there... Matt

[Marc Lajeunesse]

I used both, I tell my students to use both, but to keep in mind that you have to avoid tension while playing on the pillow, so it's more of a muscle builder to assist in the building of technique quicker... not solely working on the pillow, but using it to assist the develpment of the muscles, whereas a pad should be on actualy playing technique.


Anyone ever meet an astronaut?

[JohnMunsey]

If Pillows can help so much in drumming, why are there None being sold in the Drum Department at music shops or by manufacturers for that sake?

I think there's a reason they sell Drum Pads and not pillows.

But, I will be open-minded and consider all that opinion on pillows being good. It's just hard since major drum educators advocate against it. And, I don't think Dennis Chambers is a drum teacher (though a freaking amazing drummer.)

[finnhiggins]

If Pillows can help so much in drumming, why are there None being sold in the Drum Department at music shops or by manufacturers for that sake?


That's a pretty spurious argument. Why? Well, if you're going to build a no-rebound practice surface for drummers, why make a pillow? A pillow is a good design for what it does, but you can't mount it on a stand reliably for a start. So if you were going to sell a low-rebound practice pad... it'd probably look like a pad... maybe with a soft gel pad instead of a hard rubber surface.... hmm.

Oh look! There's one on my desk! And I bought it in a drum shop. Fancy that. A pillow is just a cheap alternative, much like playing on your knees or the furniture. Since most people have them around it's easier to say "Practice on a pillow" than "Practice on a dedicated drum workout pad", right?

[somedrummer]

Well said earlier Finn and DB.

But for those of you who keep saying " A pillow feels nothing like a real drum", you must realize that this is not the point. The point is to build up the muscles needed so that when you do go back to a real drum, you have the necessary tactics to really blaze your singles and doubles and whatnot.

[sloppyjoe]

I'd say for best result you should always use a practice pad. I think it's also possible to train yourself for situations where there is no rebound on a practice pad just by changing the technique you practice. an important difference is that it's too easy to get a consistent sound out of a pillow so you won't notice when you pull back your stick too soon.

So if your saying you don't wan't to play with no rebound and tighen up then? Other than that I don't know how you would do that...

Anyways Did anyone watch DCI world Champoins? Yeah our pit instructer(in our high school band) is the Cadets pit instructor. Let's just note that. Other words I know him.

When I was in pit he would tell you to chop out. taking mallets and a met and play straight eigth note or whatever. He even said use a pillow if you want. Now I'm not bragging or saying cause he teaches cadets that he's jesus (even though it's really cool) but he is pretty great at what he does and no one I know pulled a muscle or anything. Now mallets, sticks, same concept. People use finger for mallets too. So theres my input.

If you don't belive me his name is Jason. I won't say his last name but yeah goto vic virth.com look for dci thingy.

[JohnMunsey]

Everyone made good points here.

I would like to know what Morello and Chapin's view on the pillow is. To me, they are like hand technique kings. And, trust me, if they say using a pillow is good, then I will start!! lol

[DogBreath]

Guys, get a room!
This place is just one big love fest.

[JohnMunsey]

Yes, we are very close!

[drumzalicious]

I am open to being corrected, but because of everything I've ever been taught about proper drum technique, I am really concerned when I see people suggesting to newbie drummers that they should practice on a pillow. As any pro drummer will tell you, the secret to speed is to allow those sticks to rebound off the head, with you having to do any work except control the rebound and send the stick back down. If you practise on a surface with no rebound, such as a pillow, you must surely a) train yourself to lift the stick back instead of letting it do it for you, and b) risk straining and potentially damaging your wrists from having to work far too hard. As someone who has experienced scary wrist problems from gripping the sticks too tight (but not any more, thank God!), it really alarms me when I see someone suggesting this pillow idea. At the same time, I am aware of these claims that Buddy Rich and Dennis Chambers swore/swear by it. Can anyone give me proper logical reasoning as to why it would be a good idea, instead of quoting the opinions of these two drummers?

I await replies with interest,

Womble
um. from what i can tell when i practiced on pillows it did not take away my technique it just built up my wrist muscles

[wildmanblue]

For anyone intersted, they make no rebound practice pads. here (http://www.rtom.com/workout.html)

[finnhiggins]

For anyone intersted, they make no rebound practice pads. here (http://www.rtom.com/workout.html)

That's the one I have. Works pretty well. I used to use a Pearl practice kit with a hard rubber pad instead of the soft Pearl pads for the snare, and with the workout pad taped over the "floor tom" pad to give a more realistic feel. That plus real hi-hats and a ride cymbal (I could get away with that much noise) got me through music school when I couldn't play drums in my rented room in a shared house...

[JohnMunsey]

I saw this guy in NYC do an awesome solo. Afterward he told me to practice on a bed mattress.

[Womble]

I think the term 'strength' can be very misleading in a drumming context. Different people intend that word to mean different things.

Personally, I don't believe the way we drummers should use the term has any similarity to the way it is used in an everyday context. For example, I have read some notable drummers use the term 'grip strength', as in, "That guy's got good hands, look at him fly around the kit, he's got good grip strength'. But that in no way means his fingers have got 'stronger' i.e more powerful. What it means is that he has trained his hands to maintain the right position, to allow the stick to move around but to control that same movement to get the stick to do what he wants to do. You should never, ever have to squeeze your thumb and index finger together. I did for many years and almost did myself some serious damage. When I play now I cannot believe how light the sticks feel in my hands, and it has been truly a pleasure to learn that drumming should be actually far easier than I ever imagined. The same principle is true in relations to wrists as well.

Drum sticks are not heavy. A particularly limp-wristed toddler could lift the biggest pair of sticks using only his wrist. Ergo, it is not about getting 'stronger'. It is about getting your muscles to respond faster. Proper technique involves training yourself to bring your wrist back up fast so you can send the stick back down. If it was about strength, we'd all sit around balancing weights on top of our hands and doing wrists reps. I could almost weep when I hear people giving out advice along the line of "If you want to improve your left hand speed, start carrying all your shopping in your left hand" !!! :( This is dangerous nonsense, and it's time to put a stop to it.

Sorry for sounding like a know-it-all, but I think I know why people feel a benefit from warming up on a pillow. If I've just done a good workout, been to the gym or something, and I then play on a pad, the sticks unsurprisingly feel lighter than they do normally. And consequently, drumming feels easier. But this is a mental effect produced by the fact I've spent an hour lifting things that are much heavier than drum sticks. It does not, in reality, make my strokes faster. It just makes them feel like less effort. I will go out on a limb and say that drumming on a pillow will not have a cumulative effect on your speed. The next day, your brain's perspective on what is heavy will have returned to normal. And instead of having spent constructive time training your muscles to learn what happens when your stick hits a drum, you've temporarily fooled your brain into think you're playing with better technique than you are by messing around with a pillow.

Now FinnHiggins' points I will accept. He correctly points out that not all surfaces have as much rebound as a snare, and so you will to have to more consciously help that stick out of, say, a floor tom. But there is no surface on a kit that has NO rebound. If people are willing to accept what I just wrote about this idea of strength, I just don't see how it can be more valuable to play on a pillow than practice on your floor tom, because you will not be training your muscles to respond to a surface you ever play on in reality.

NUTHA J, have you considered that what you feel are the positive benefits of 'strengthening' your wrists will in fact be negated by the fact you're confusing your muscle memory by playing on a non-drum-like surface? Now I'm not saying this WILL be the case, but I myself would rather not take the risk.

To close with a more general argument: in this great pantheon of drummers present at Drummerworld, Dennis Chambers is apparently the only person who advocates using a pillow. As they say, 'go figure'. And JohnMunsey, there is absolutely no mystery about what Joe Morello would think of pillows if you asked him. If he thought they were a good idea, he would have said so on his instructional video. Go to TigerBill's website, who was a student of Morello, and see if pillows ever make an appearance there.

Till next time friends,

Womble

[NUTHA JASON]

NUTHA J, have you considered that what you feel are the positive benefits of 'strengthening' your wrists will in fact be negated by the fact you're confusing your muscle memory by playing on a non-drum-like surface? Now I'm not saying this WILL be the case, but I myself would rather not take the risk.
good post.
i do disagree with the strenght argument you made though. drumsticks aren't heavy but then neither are certain barbells. light barbells used in many fast reps also build muscle. heavy or fast drumming especially for show will involve hundreds if not thosands of repetitions. perhaps then the term is fitness rather than strength.
also the aguemnet has been made that pillows allow for concentration on the first part of a stroke. seperating elements for later recombination is a proven teaching technique for everything from maths to cooking...and also therefore drumming as well. so the first part of the muscle memory - the down stroke is exercised. since this is where almost all the energy, especially if you are playing moeller style, comes from this is where any strength needs to come from. the second element, the control of the stick after the strike which takes a feather touch, well, this obviously cannot come from a pillow and must be pad and drum exercised. but the raw impetus comes from the down stroke and here the pillow is king.
furthermore we have conceeded that there are different types of pillow. the really soft ones are perhaps not so good. but firm ones, leather covered sofas and matresses provide some stick response. this is important to hear the accuracy of the shots and also to start the stick on its control element, the up stroke.
another point made is that we play on varying degrees of rebound on our kits. an enormous ride is very differnet from an 8'' tom or snare for example. while it is important to use the moeller technique and other variations of it, we cannot rely on rebound from all drums to the same degree. a good pillow will provide us with the lowest level of what we can expect from our kit.
in conclusion i advocate a mixture of surfaces. table tops, sofas, steering wheels, gum pads, hi hats, pillows, snare drums, thighs.....etc. we must have the stregth/fitness to add energy appropriately to any playing surface and have the immediate skill of adjusting the second element of the stroke as the surface responds. therein lies the best adaptive muscle memory.
i would rather not take the risk of finding that i cannot roll on a big gong drum than take the risk that pillow practice will do any harm to my strokes.
i must emphasisze that the mixture is important again. pillows and pads people.
as one further note: someone already said (might have been DB) pillows are cool because you can practice quietly with no need to set up a kit. shure beats air drumming!

j

[Funkydew]

A pillow is certainly gerat it you want to teach your hand to pull up. If on the other hand you want to take advantage of the rebound, the central tenet behind everything that Chapin, Morello, Moeller, Famularo etc.do, then it is clearly detrimental. Drummers used to play on calf skin heads on battlefields in humid conditions etc. The heads would get soggy and aqcuire a very pillow-like rebound. Therefore it made sense at that time to practice on pillows. Today, however, we always play on plastic heads with excellent, consistent rebound, and we do not ave the no-rebound handicap anymore. Therefore, why teach you wrist to pull up, when it can never be as fast as the natural, unimpeded rebound?

Using heavy sticks is also not a good idea. None of the masters recommend this, and all you will do is get tendonitis.

And finally, a disclaimer. Antonio Sanchez told me during a lesson to practice paradiddles on my bed, which I consider tantamount to pillow practice. Obviously, it worked for him, or more to the point, he is so good or gofted thtat the handicap of bed or pillow practicing has not had any noticeable effect. But the rest of us might want to stick with the logical and natural:, big, light sticks on a rebounding surface, to teach your muscles about the rebound. After that you can play on any surface and take maximum advantage of what rebound there is. FD

[jangus]

For anyone intersted, they make no rebound practice pads. here (http://www.rtom.com/workout.html)

here (http://www.kmart.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=128951&No=12&Ne=479&Nao=12&pCategoryId=479&N=999&Nty=1&categoryId=999&gpCategoryId=466) too

ttwweennttyy

[JohnMunsey]

Good points Funkydew.

Speaking of weighted sticks, Sam Ulano who wrote over 3,000 drum books swears by weighted sticks and even has a system of going down gradually by weight till you get to your regular drumstick.

He sells these sticks also.

As good as Antonio Sanchez is, maybe he's just not a hand technique guru like the other guys you mentioned.

[skippy]

my teacher has me do doubles on a pillow but if you fold the pillow in half and put it tight between your legs it gives you enough rebound...but alot of people use it to build endurance

[drumzalicious]

To close with a more general argument: in this great pantheon of drummers present at Drummerworld, Dennis Chambers is apparently the only person who advocates using a pillow.

actually john blackwell and tony royster jr. also state in thier videos that they used pillows to gain speed. also i dont know who it was but someone just posted saying that antonio sanchez said to use a pillow as well.

all i know is that at one point i practiced on a pillow for about a week strait and after that week i took a few days off and i came back to the set with some obviously faster hands.

[Funkydew]

Endurance and Speed? I will restate: your pulling up motion, which is what you train using a pillow/bed/any non-rebound surface, can NEVER be as fast as the natural rebound. But few people practice to gain the necessary relaxation needed to BENEFIT from this natiral rebound. Hence, a pillow is a crutch, a shortcut, and ultimately, a bad habit learned.

Think of this experiment: throw a rubber ball on the ground, time the rebound, the time it takes it to get back in your hand. Then go to your local beach or sandbox and repeat. You will pick up the ball this time. First experiment is like a stick rebounding freely on a drum. Second experiment is a stick on a pillow.

Nuff said, FD

[incubotic]

i agree...u should use a pillow for endurance and strength exercises..but not for technique, it's common sense, if u hit a pillow ur stick will not bounce back...so why should u practice on something with no rebound for something that has very much rebound? so i say use a pillow, but not the majority of ur practice time

[finnhiggins]

Is it just me, or are we just repeatly rehashing old ground here? We're all agreed that pillows lack rebound and that isn't ideal for learning good technique as a beginner, but there's reasonable arguments that it's a useful addition to your technique arsenal for applying those pad chops to a kit situation. This has all been covered in the thread...

[Rudy McRudster]

This may have already been said, but I'm just gonna throw it out there:

Practicing on a pillow is a great way to build speed and endurance. I don't know where you heard that you should always use your fingers, but you should use a mix of both cohesively. Even Moeller uses the wrist at times. Being able to pull back well will later help you out on a lot of different things. Think about it like this: football players lift weights all the time to get in shape. They do bench, leg press, squats, etc. But they never use those same sets of motion on the field. They use the muscle they have gained, it's the same exact thing with a pillow.

And besides, the whole place I learned the pillow from was Dennis Chambers. Practicing with phone books under your arms and on a pillow will develop ridiculous chops. It's not something you do in lieu of practice, but it's a great supplement for weight training.

[NUTHA JASON]

as an adendum to all that, i think the moeller technique is great as a training tool but beware...relying on rebound is an ideal. confusing the ideal with the real hardly ever goes unpunished. to all of you who have said that we shouldn't be pulling up on the stick remember that the reality of drumming is not pad based, or marching side-drum based. the reality is a kit with diferent angles and surfaces. the rebound i get from my rack tom is of little help if my next stroke involves hitting my crash. i will still have to lift the stick up there. and what about my floor tom to my snare. no rebound help there.
Endurance and Speed? I will restate: your pulling up motion, which is what you train using a pillow/bed/any non-rebound surface, can NEVER be as fast as the natural rebound. But few people practice to gain the necessary relaxation needed to BENEFIT from this natiral rebound. Hence, a pillow is a crutch, a shortcut, and ultimately, a bad habit learned.
said funkydew.
i disagree. the speed and energy of the down stroke is fast. the stick does not accelerate during rebound. scientifically the return energy cannot be more than the initial energy, and since energy is lost in the production of sound and movement of the drum/cymbal as a whole, the law of energy conservation means that in actual fact the stick will be coming off the head with less kinetic energy than when it arrived ... ergo: slower. since your arm was the initiator of the down ward speed there is no reason to believe that it cannot match that speed going up, albeit that it now has to put in less energy due to the rebound it can actually make the already moving stick go faster. but only if it needs to. this brings me to my second point...

no one has mentioned dynamics here. even if i was just rolling and free styling on my snare the rebound from grace notes will be insufficient for the next stroke if i want the next stroke to be an accent. the stick from the grace might jump and inch up but for a good rim shot i might need the bead of the stick to raise ten inches or 90 degrees to the head's surface. that will involve pulling up and doing so at extraordinary speed. try playing something like this little exercise relying on rebound and you will find it impossible (play the accents as loudly and the graces very lightly...play the whole as fast as you can)



R L R . L R L . R L L . R R L . L R L . R L R . L R R . L L R

played all as triplets.

from this little exercise it becomes clear that energy is need in up strokes that cannot come from previous down stokes and therefor we do need to get strength from softy surface practice for just such a rudiment. what is more in playing the above exercise i noticed there is no rebound from a full rimshot.



j

[dum_drummer]

...................... on the stick remember that the reality of drumming is not pad based, or marching side drum based. .........

j

just thought id say that marching side drum can be the reality of drumming
if you have seen jim kilpatrick or other good pipe band drummers you would know wat i mean, it is absolutely amazing!!!!!

i started out drumming as a pipe band side drummer for 4 years before i started playing kit and it really helped improve my playing.

so just remember that marching side drumming can be just as good as kit drumming

[NUTHA JASON]

obviously. but that is not the point of this debate. moeller was designed for marchers. it is applicable to drumset but in my opinion, and i use the technique a lot, it is not the holy grail of drumset technique. even on a single snare drum my arguement still stands. play the exercise using religious moeller and you will find that you battle to not pull up for the accents.
j

[DrumNut]

Most of the drumming greats talk and use the Moeller technique or a modified version.

[Womble]

'Evening J,

Yes, to go from a tap stroke to a full stroke you clearly need to lift the stick without the benefit of any rebound (well, as you say there might be an inch or so, but its contribution is negligible). But since you admit that in that situation you get no helpful rebound off the snare anyway, why practise it on a pillow?!

You say we can get 'strength' from practising these lifts off a soft surface. Again I don't understand the use of strength here, because you'd just written that this movement requires 'pulling up...at extraordinary speed', not 'with extraordinary power'. Do you think Governor Schwarzenegger can snap his wrists towards his shoulder faster than us because he has done weight training on his biceps? I should have picked this point up after your post 2 days ago when you wrote that light barbells will also build muscle. Sure they will, but I think the muscle fibres that increase speed and those that increase power (i.e. lifting more weight) are 2 different things. Because drum sticks are not heavy, I don't think that second type of muscle fibre is of any concern to us.

Additionally, throwing the stick down and getting it to come back to where it started is only half the story. The other, and I have to say the one I find much more challenging, is to throw the stick down and to catch the rebound 1 inch from the drum, ready to play a tap/grace note. You cannot learn this from a pillow, in fact the pillow makes it extremely easy to do this. So how's about this suggestion - play a loud downward stroke, catch the rebound low, play a tap, lift stick up, and repeat. This way you teach yourself both strokes: keeping the stick down AND lifting it back up. R r R r R r L l L l L l and so on. Surely this gives twice the benefit practising endless loud strokes on a pillow will do?

I'm surprised you don't feel you benefit from rebound while moving from your floor tom to your snare. Personally, if I have to make that movement, I swipe at my floor tom with a slight motion from right to left, which certainly does give me rebound and sends the stick on its way to my snare. It's the same motion Gadd uses all the time when he does that lick of his which moves from tom to snare and back again; it's a side-to-side thing. Obviously it helps here if both drums are at the same height. Of course, maybe you have MASSIVE 'I'm a Rock-God' floor toms that just suck your stick in :)

Womble

[finnhiggins]

Of course, maybe you have MASSIVE 'I'm a Rock-God' floor toms that just suck your stick in :)


Well, he is a rock god after all...

[NUTHA JASON]

ta finn.

this is a good debate. but i think we are swinging around the same orbits a bit. ie....

strength power fitness these are idle semantics. all translate into ability. lets not talk about words but rather about meaning.

Yes, to go from a tap stroke to a full stroke you clearly need to lift the stick without the benefit of any rebound (well, as you say there might be an inch or so, but its contribution is negligible). But since you admit that in that situation you get no helpful rebound off the snare anyway, why practise it on a pillow?!

i don't get this at all. surely since a pillow has little or no rebound shurely it will strengthen your upstroke making you ready for such occasions as tap strokes followed by full strokes.

but the orbit we circle the most is that i am advocating a mixture of practice surfaces. for me it would be something like this (very gross estimate but)

real drums at practice: 10%
real drums at gigs: 20%
roland drums practice: 60%
practicing on my steering wheel in traffic: 3%
hands on knees practice: 4%
pillow practice: 3%
...of my total drumming time.

so you see pillow form a small part of everything i do.

So how's about this suggestion - play a loud downward stroke, catch the rebound low, play a tap, lift stick up, and repeat. This way you teach yourself both strokes: keeping the stick down AND lifting it back up. R r R r R r L l L l L l and so on. Surely this gives twice the benefit practising endless loud strokes on a pillow will do?


i do do that exercise. but the difficulty of rebound reliance as such comes if you swap the accents around and play: r R r R l L l L etc.

j

[Womble]

I'm not so sure the strength power fitness debate is about idle semantics, but my biological knowledge isn't great and I admit I can't really back up what I wrote about muscle fibres :) If I can be arsed I might do some research.

But yeah I agree about the going in circles bit. And to be honest my brain is beginning to hurt from all this visualisation of technique! Maybe I'll just go and play drums now lol.

Anyhow, job done I think because my real intention with this thread was to get drummers who are just starting out to appreciate pillow practice might do them some harm if they don't know what they're doing.

Cheers for all input guys, it's been interesting.

Womble

p.s. J, since I'm in London, I'd love to pop along to one of your gigs sometime.

[NUTHA JASON]

cool. check out our website for gigs: www.swarm.tv (http://www.swarm.tv/)

hmm womble...does that mean you live in wimbledon?

and i think as far as beginners are concerned, pillow practice can be a bad idea. unless its the only way you can practice due to volume or gear or time constraints. nothing beats practicing on a real drumset.
j

[Funkydew]

Now that the debate is officially over, I still can't refrain from tying up a few loose ends and correcting some misunderstandings. I want to start out by saying that I have the deepest respect for everyone here, and first and last, and I bleive we in the drumming community should keep up the spirited discussions. I wish the pillow proponents the best of luck, but most people will hopefully take Gladstone's, Morello's etc's word for the fundamental soundness of the rebound technique, or Free Stroke.

However, when someone presents a "scientific" argument without scientific data, I feel compelled to comment. So forgive my stirring up this old soup again:

. the speed and energy of the down stroke is fast. the stick does not accelerate during rebound. scientifically the return energy cannot be more than the initial energy, and since energy is lost in the production of sound and movement of the drum/cymbal as a whole, the law of energy conservation means that in actual fact the stick will be coming off the head with less kinetic energy than when it arrived ... ergo: slower. since your arm was the initiator of the down ward speed there is no reason to believe that it cannot match that speed going up, albeit that it now has to put in less energy due to the rebound it can actually make the already moving stick go faster. but only if it needs to. this brings me to my second point...j

The "scientific" argument given here is so muddled that it is hard to know where to begin. The free stroke starts with the stick being thrown down. The result is that the stick flies back into the hand. Jason says that energy is being consumed producing sound etc...so what? Do you know how much? The result is still the same: the stick has ample energy to get back into the hand without me doing any additional work. I am sure you know this, so why confuse the argument with energy cnsiderations that have no effect on the end result? I repeat: you will never be able to pull up as fast as the rebound off of a thrown accent. And the rebound is unlearnable on a pillow.

Next up, the situation is mentioned where you either start from a tap and want to play a full stroke, Moeller stroke, or hit a high cymbal; or you come from a surface that doesn't have much rebound, like a floor tom. Here, it is true, you will have to spend energy, but the notion that you might as well practice that on a pillow, since you will have to pull up anyway, is still flawed. You do get quite a bit of energy from the tap, and you will be well served to learn to use it. The up stroke will be more fluid if you think "down" on the tap, let the stick rebound, and catch it right there and continue the up stroke.

The Moeller stroke doesn't really have so much bearing on rebound in and of itself. That being said: if you know the free stroke, your Moeller will be much better, trust me.

Okay, back to Jason's post:
.
from this little exercise it becomes clear that energy is need in up strokes that cannot come from previous down stokes and therefor we do need to get strength from softy surface practice for just such a rudiment. what is more in playing the above exercise i noticed there is no rebound from a full rimshot.

No, no, no. You do not need "strength" to play an up stroke. Sticks are not very heavy, and even if there is no reound to use from a previous stroke, why practice this situation on a different surface than everything else? It just does not make sense. The hard part is not playing an upstroke, the hard part is harnessing rebound enerrgy to play with less effort. This will also give more endurance, since you are using nature's own, free force to your advantage.

To recap: if you learn the free stroke well, you will learn to look for rebound anywhere you find it. When you know that, you can easily supplement the available rebound with pullouts or Moeller strokes to catch those hard to reach cymbals an fly off of dead floor toms. I remember looking at my hands in disbelief after my first free stroke (after having played drums for 20 years). If a person witnesses this feeling, I doubt he or she will ever want to play on a pillow. With that I rest my case, and wish a happy drumming Sunday to all.
Cheers, FD

[Womble]

FunkyDew, I agree with all that you say, though I think that's because I've already said most of it!! Lol, no offence intended mate. I think J's right about us going round in circles now...I don't think we're ever going to argue these pillow die-hards into submission anyway.

J, something I've just noticed from your penultimate post: I can't see the difference between playing R r R r R r R r, and playing r R r R r R r R. You're just starting in a different place!

And yes, I do indeed live in Wimbledon, very near the common. Really imaginative name, eh? Hehe. And if anyone here is ever playing Counter-Strike Source and spots a guy called Womble Warrior, that's me.

Womble

[centralzeke]

The argument that people use just as much energy pulling up as going down.. I would say is a little misleading. When you throw the stick down loosely, you have gravity on your side and after the inital push your hand simply follows the stick down. When pulling up, after hitting something with virtually no rebound, you're DRAGGING the stick up against gravity which uses different muscles and certainly more energy and tension.

Believe me, if you want awesome singles and doubles, you can get them by just working on a practice pad. And if you're dedicated - and of course practicing properly and not tensing up - it won't take forever. Anyways, after learning to take advantage of all the rebound you can, even low tuned floor toms you naturally make use of whatever rebound they give. Once you get rebound singes/doubles down proficiently from a snare drum or practice pad, and then learn to play them on the toms, they'll be more solid and your rebounding will improve even more. I'm going to say no on pillow practicing. It might work well for some people who have incredible hand technique (and if that's the case you don't really need pillows to advance) but I would advise most people not to practice on pillows because it runs a risk of retraining your technique for the worse. Nothing on the drumset is like a pillow.... yes, rimshots absorb the rebound, but who plays continuous rimshots on every song? So I agree that by practicing on a pillow, you are confusing your muscle memory.

I have experienced injury drumming and I wouldn't want anyone else to... they were the worst 2 years of my entire life!! And I know this debate is basically over, just wanted to put in my two cents.

[NUTHA JASON]

J, something I've just noticed from your penultimate post: I can't see the difference between playing R r R r R r R r, and playing r R r R r R r R. You're just starting in a different place!
it makes a difference because the accent gives more kinetic energy and so if it is before the ghost note it is easy to play but if it follows a grace then energy will be needed to bring the stick up for a hard shot.

[NUTHA JASON]

The "scientific" argument given here is so muddled that it is hard to know where to begin. The free stroke starts with the stick being thrown down. The result is that the stick flies back into the hand. Jason says that energy is being consumed producing sound etc...so what? Do you know how much? The result is still the same: the stick has ample energy to get back into the hand without me doing any additional work. I am sure you know this, so why confuse the argument with energy cnsiderations that have no effect on the end result? I repeat: you will never be able to pull up as fast as the rebound off of a thrown accent. And the rebound is unlearnable on a pillow.



my science qualifications help me here. its a linear kinetic equation with consideration paid to the law of e conservation.



e of down = e up plus e of sound + e of vibration + e of heat.

or

e of up = e of down minus e of sound etc.

therefore

e of up will be less than e of down. therefore the speed will be less than the down.

the variable will be the efficiency of the rebound surface.

think of a ball.

[NUTHA JASON]

if dropped it never rises to the same height. a quality rubber ball rises quite high though, a tennis ball less so and a squash ball much less. a snare behaves like a rubber ball while a large floor tom like a squash ball. a pillow then is like a bean bag. no bounce at all.

finesse in drums comes from, among other things, being able to adapt to the variable surface with little or no decernable reduction in the speed and dynamics of the figure being played. by practicing on all points of the scale from very high rebound to very low rebound enables the mind and strength needed. muscle memory comes into it from those exercises we practice the most and, like most of you i advocate playing a real drumset. pillow practice is the base level of all rebound and so has a place if not in all repertoires and at all levels of drum proficiency.



whether what i've said here has ''no effect on the end result'' will really depend on the reader. i could really quote the science journals and even present harder equations etc but why bother.



round and round we go...

j
scuse the triple post but it wouldn't go through as one for some (probably scientific) reason.

[Womble]

it makes a difference because the accent gives more kinetic energy and so if it is before the ghost note it is easy to play but if it follows a grace then energy will be needed to bring the stick up for a hard shot.

Yeah man, I know. What I meant was the only difference between starting R r and r R is that one initial stroke. After that they're exactly the same exercise...but don't feel you have to respond to this, it's really not important!

Womble

[aahznightsky]

Yeah man, I know. What I meant was the only difference between starting R r and r R is that one initial stroke. After that they're exactly the same exercise...but don't feel you have to respond to this, it's really not important!

Womble


those were the words I was looking for! After the inital stroke, its exactly the same.

[finnhiggins]

To recap: if you learn the free stroke well, you will learn to look for rebound anywhere you find it. When you know that, you can easily supplement the available rebound with pullouts or Moeller strokes to catch those hard to reach cymbals an fly off of dead floor toms. I remember looking at my hands in disbelief after my first free stroke (after having played drums for 20 years). If a person witnesses this feeling, I doubt he or she will ever want to play on a pillow. With that I rest my case, and wish a happy drumming Sunday to all.
Cheers, FD

You can doubt all you like, but I'm quite capable of playing with rebound. I'd be pretty ashamed if I couldn't considering the thousands I've spent on lessons over the years! Now, you actually described the reason - stated many times here already - for practicing on a pillow in your own post - my emphasis.

Yes, if the rebound is there you use it. Yes, if it's not then you need to supplement it. The pillow is for training the muscles to know how to respond to the availability or lack of it in the rebound department. If a surface bounces, your hands need to just follow along to keep up - there's no way the stick can lift your hand up again, the rebound isn't that strong (although it will help).

But as you said, sticks aren't that heavy. So if you execute that same, trained hand movement with a little bit more lifting energy imparted to the stick (and that's only a tiny fraction, remember) you can get the same movement on a surface with no rebound. To practice this, try alternating your singles between a practice pad and a pillow without losing the clean movements you develop from playing free strokes on a pad. That way you can play "free strokes" on surfaces with a lot of rebound or only a very small amount. Better than just being able to play them on snare, no? I suspect you know this from your post, and that we're really just arguing over semantics. Have you tried the pillow + pad setup when you practice? Give it a go for an hour, see how it works for you.

[RudimentalDrummer]

I was taught the Pull-Out Technique by my Instructor ....like Nutha mentioned which did give me better control on my hands.....but doing the Double Rr,Ll

& doing the Rlr, lrL (Triple) & 16th Notes eg Rlrl, rLrl accenting on Rim-Shots exists a difference in the last 3 fingers controlling rebound ... ????? but nevertheless this is very tough for me. I had been practicing for a month now still NG (No Good to perfection) ..Hmm.mmm

I then ask him....Which Techniques is Better huh ! eg. Gladstone..Moeller whatever...His answer to me.....Whichever works best for you - there is no right and wrong - as long as it sound nice..eeeeeee....but just apply the individual technique correctly that's all and play it well.

[Funkydew]

I was taught the Pull-Out Technique by my Instructor ....like Nutha mentioned which did give me better control on my hands.....but doing the Double Rr,Ll

& doing the Rlr, lrL (Triple) & 16th Notes eg Rlrl, rLrl accenting on Rim-Shots exists a difference in the last 3 fingers controlling rebound ... ????? but nevertheless this is very tough for me. I had been practicing for a month now still NG (No Good to perfection) ..Hmm.mmm

I then ask him....Which Techniques is Better huh ! eg. Gladstone..Moeller whatever...His answer to me.....Whichever works best for you - there is no right and wrong - as long as it sound nice..eeeeeee....but just apply the individual technique correctly that's all and play it well.
Not sure if you are asking about pullouts or commenting, but if you are asking a question, start a new thread. I think we are all done with this pillow-talk by now :-)

Cheers, FD

[RudimentalDrummer]

Not sure if you are asking about pullouts or commenting, but if you are asking a question, start a new thread. I think we are all done with this pillow-talk by now :-)

Cheers, FD

Both..... on Nutha's Pullout/Accent using Rim-Shot... eg Triplet Accenting plus the 16th Notes Accenting - It's not as easy as it seems and he is right ....in that you can never do this kind of practice with the pillow....not that you cannot get the accent....just far from perfection no matter how.

[nhzoso]

my science qualifications help me here. its a linear kinetic equation with consideration paid to the law of e conservation.



e of down = e up plus e of sound + e of vibration + e of heat.

or

e of up = e of down minus e of sound etc.

therefore

e of up will be less than e of down. therefore the speed will be less than the down.

the variable will be the efficiency of the rebound surface.

think of a ball.

UMMMM Yeah, I was told there would be no math.

[Martal]

Now,ive seen that practicing on pillows is a popular way to improve your wrist strength.While it is indeed great for that,its also teaches your muscles to make up-strokes,which according to the Gladstone method is bad.

Hows your opinion on practicing on pillows/some other area with no rebound?Good?Bad?
Discuss.

[Mediocrefunkybeat]

The search button has all the discussion you could want.

[Chip]

MFB, I think your name should have been Mediocre-usethesearchbutton-funkybeat.
Bit long though.

This is is no way offensive, just making sure. Having a bit of fun.
Really though, we need a system that has a page that says "Have you searched?" before posting new threads. Bit too much work for the mods. Poor sods.

[Mediocrefunkybeat]

MFB, I think your name should have been Mediocre-usethesearchbutton-funkybeat.
Bit long though.

This is is no way offensive, just making sure. Having a bit of fun.
Really though, we need a system that has a page that says "Have you searched?" before posting new threads. Bit too much work for the mods. Poor sods.



Doesn't quite have the same ring does it? I'm just sick of redundant threads. You do have a good point though. Is there any way we could do this? Even some kind of javascript pop up would do it.

[Kulikov]

In the pillow you improve the force of your fulcrum and dolls, that in the pad works the fingers.
I practise in a pillow 90% of the training, and i recomend it because i consider is the best, you increase a lot of strenght and managing with the sticks. Practising in a pillow rulz.

Buddy Rich practice always in a pillow, if it towards Buddy it's good!
I hope that it serves my answer you.


Sorry, my inglish is veeeery bad =( .

[Casper "DrPowerStroke" Paludan]

IMHO, and that of Joe Morello and Dom Famularo, pillows= very bad.

But, as MFB so correctly said, there is enough said in previous, searchable discussions already. DPS

[jamsjr44]

IMHO, and that of Joe Morello and Dom Famularo, pillows= very bad.

But, as MFB so correctly said, there is enough said in previous, searchable discussions already. DPS

I don't always take every professional opinion as law. I praticed on pillows for the longest time and I have heard other professionals suggest the technique as well. It gave me good speed and power. It's not so much the surface your practicing on but also how you practice your technique, if they are suggesting that practicing on pillows will cause wrist issues. It's a proven fact that if you play drums no matter what you practice on, most of us will develop some type of arthritis or wrist issue down the line.

[Raymond Bloom]

well, i switched to trad grip as my main grip at december, when I started I used pillows to gain some stenght because I had to wake up these muscles in my left hand that I haven't been using much somehow! I don't see anything bad if you are practicing on the pad also or if you just know what Gladstone technique is about and how to play that way. I never had a problem after practicing on the pillows that I somehow forced my upstroke, tho it didn't really increased my technique, it just gained some muscle strenght and endurance.

[konaboy]

Seems to work for Dennis Chambers and I think it's safe to say he's a fairly accomplished and killer drummer.

[Wile E. Coyote]

I think it's just good to do it sometimes. But I'd recommend to practise 99% of your time the same way as you're going to play, that means, with the same bounce as you're going to have on your snare.
On a pillow you can work strenght, power and speed, but not control!!!

[RobertLee]

If you do enough research in the "right areas" you can find almost any answer you want. I think it all comes down to ..... THERE IS NO PERFECT TRAINING ROUTINE. If you find one that works for you and progresses your playing.... rock on.Some tech.s work for some and not others, just figure out what grip, style and other factors you are putting into your practice time.

[darkcherryfade]

Ah, this discussion again. If I remember correctly, the people against pillow practicing decided they were right and considered the last discussion overwith. I still disagree with them.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Ah, this discussion again. If I remember correctly, the people against pillow practicing decided they were right and considered the last discussion overwith. I still disagree with them.
Ok! Do you want to see the same thing again?

I'M RIGHT. THIS DISCUSSION IS OVER
LOL

[jazzsnob]

Alright guys, this is the motherload right here. I want to start this by saying I think this should be a friendly debate, I think that some things work for some people and some don't, but I want to make a case for the underdog.

I do not think playing on pillows is a good idea.
My personal problem with the idea of playing on pillows is that many new players hear about it and believe it's an easy way to sound like dennis chambers, then they go about it the wrong way and they hurt themselves, or have mediocre technique at best.

If you like it, fine, but I'd appreciate anyone who is seriously interested in good drum technique read what I have to say/found out through talking to some great drummers.

Let’s start with the interactive fun!

Try this experiment: Take your lowest floor tom, and a drumstick. Put the floor tom next to your snare, and put a pillow on top of your snare. Hold your stick just by the very end of the butt of it, so it's pointing straight down, and drop it from about a foot high onto your floor tom. Now do the exact same thing onto a pillow. I assure you that there will be a different reaction. I tried this on an 18 inch tom tuned the lowest it'll go while stile having a fully flat surface. If you think practicing on pillows will help your playing a floor tom after that test, fine. I'm not going to tell you what to do, because it's your choice.

I've talked to numerous educators about this, including Chuck Brown, Rick Considine, Larry Finn, and Jimmy Sage. I also know Mike Mangini's opinion, because one of my friends studies with him at Berklee.
Here’s basically what I understood from discussing with them.

Chuck Brown-He absolutely hates the concept. He agrees that it grows muscle faster and that a student may get good results for a few years, but says that they will all undoubtedly hit a wall with their singles, especially, and will not be able to progress any faster. He believes that every drum surface has rebound and that harnessing rebound is of the most importance.

Rick Considine-He’s a Berklee teacher who is astounded how many people think that playing on pillows will turn them into buddy rich or dennis chambers. He says that almost every student he sees who has spent more than 5 years practicing technique on pillows has at least a few major technique problems they need to correct. He also said that practice high strokes on a pad with rebound will build muscle just as fast but will also train rebound.

Larry Finn-Larry is another Berklee teacher, and he is a technical monster. He was in college drum corps when he was 13 and they called him “Mozart.” He agrees that pillows can help your high volume playing slightly, but no better than a high-rebound pad. He thinks that if you use pillows as a practice strategy, they should be a VERY small percent of your technique work, and mainly for just singles.

Jimmy Sage-Jimmy is my drum teacher, and in the past five years he has always suggested against using pillows and guaranteed me that if I focused and used the correct techniques that I wouldn’t need to worry about rebound on toms or anything, because as you get better with rebound, you learn to take advantage of it, even on floor toms. I believe that I can play a very acceptable double stroke roll on an extremely low tuned floor tom and every once in a while I check to see and I’ve improved my technique even though I haven’t focused on low rebound surfaces.

Mike Mangini-My friend Beau has taken a year and a half of lessons from mike, and Mike has always suggested a realfeel pad or remo pad to practice hand technique. One point he makes that I left out of the previous people's theories(because each of them said, so it would have been redundant) is that when you are playing on a pad with rebound, you can actually HEAR WHAT YOU ARE DOING. A pillow changes shape every stroke you make, how are you going to check your own accuracy? A pad with rebound allows you to see every time you mess up and commit it to muscle memory, improving accuracy over time.

So there you have it, my opus against practice on a pillow. These are just opinions I’ve heard from some serious technicians. I know you guys have some opinions, let's hear em!!!

[DrummerBen1]

I have some really nice pillows on my couch.

[jazzsnob]

But do you have an opinion?

[theduke86]

I've heard all the arguments for and against, and I do agree that pillows are NOT for beginners with mediocre technique. I think they're a terrific builder as far as power goes- not speed so much but power does come quickly. There are many people that get great power without a pillow- it's not the only way, but it does work quicker for most people. This is from my own experience, I know my double strokes went through the roof power wise after I start practicing with a pillow. Great to train your wrists, too. I use a lot of fingers on a pad. That's a good thing, but wrists must be developed too. I think it helps. I'm sticking with it for drummers who already have some technical facility.

[jazzsnob]

Here's another idea to look at-If you want to work on speed, and your playing an excercise at 160 on a pillow, does that mean that you could play the excercise as well as vinnie coliauta could on a pad? I'm guessing not, so get on the damn pad and do the excercise CORRECTLY! Playing on pillows seems very sloppy to me.

Does anyone have a rebuttal to the sloppiness theory?

[DrummerBen1]

But do you have an opinion?

Well, I guess I do.
I think that you should practice on BOTH.
(more pad for me personally)

What's next?
Whether we should play on pots or pans? lol ;)

[jazzsnob]

I guess I just figure it's an important debate because there's a lot of hearsay and misinformation about the topic, we have some people with great technique on these forums and I think it would be interesting to see what some of them have to say.

[theduke86]

My old teacher knew Vinnie very well.
Vinnie has done the pillow thing, too.
And yeah, pillow practice CAN be sloppy. If you try extra hard, you can can make it just as even. It handicaps you, time wise, definition wise, muscle wise... Good for some.

[finnhiggins]

The whole pillow-vs-no-pillow debate has been done to death, there's a huge thread on the subject if you want to search for it.

The eventual conclusion, if I recall, was basically as TheDuke outlined - not a suitable all-purpose surface, not suited for people developing their technique, very good for training proper ability to move technique between surfaces with different levels of rebound.

Being able to play everything "properly" on a pad doesn't relate at all to being able to play the same material on a floor tom. If you can play your material properly (read: with good technique and accuracy) on both a pillow AND a pad then you stand a better chance at applying it around a drumkit. After all, if you want to talk about surfaces that move to different positions as you play them, try a loose 16-18" floor tom. They're coming back at your sticks in all manner of different forms between strokes, so having some adaptability in your hands certainly can't hurt.

[jazzsnob]

I agree. I know there has already been a thread on this, but I thought it may be interesting to update it a little bit, and questions about it in the mike mangini practice thread made it seem like a worthwhile question. Even if it's been done to death, so have the debates on open vs. closed hands playing, traditional vs. matched, big kits vs. small kits, moeller vs. gladstone and all sorts of other questions. It's still an important question, escpecially for beginners, and I bet you that a young player on these forums doesn't look up the archived pillows/no pillows debate thread before making their decision on a practice method.

[JWM]

I used to play on pillows a lot when I was younger.

But now I just try to practice on the tools I intend to use-- i.e. a drumset.

[Cephalic]

I just tried this "pillow" technique a little bit ago.
I hated it, and it just wasn't for me I guess. I like hearing what I'm playing. As you were saying with what Mangini said, I couldn't tell if I was perfectly accurate. What I like with a practice pad and metranome is that you know you're dead on when you don't hear the metranome because your playing exact. I couldn't tell that with a pillow.

The only time playing on a pillow would benefit me personally is at 2:00 am in the morning when everyone else is asleep (yes, I've woken up my mother playing on my Remo practice pad).

[jazzsnob]

Sorry if my first post seemed kind of neurotic guys, but I sometimes get pretty verbose in my writing and I was on a roll. I hope that we come up with some new insights in this thread and blah blah blha. Anyway, carry on.

[Raymond Bloom]

Because a lot of confusion I decided to ask this question to Jojo Mayer and here is what he says:

Here's my 10 cents on this one:

Personally, I never practiced on pillows. Intuitively it felt not right. It's too much strain on your body to build facilities that way...we are musicians...not athletes.

Pillow practice will train your muscles against resistance and change the balance of the muscles towards slow twitching muscles as opposed to fast twitching muscles...you will build power, yes... Speed ,no. You were right about this (marathon/sprinter)

[edit, the thing I sayed was: ''maybe training muscle mass if wanting to get speed and endurance is not the best way, think of marathon runners and sprinters compaerd to wieght lifters'']

I guess the bottom line is that by practicing on pillows you will obtain a style of playing "throug" the drums as opposed to "out" of the drums. When you practice on pillows you will sound like playing on pillows behind the drumset too!

Dennis, Blackwell or Donati: dry staccato sound. Listen to Omar Hakim, Steve Smith, Morello or Weckl: open singing sound...
All these players have great control, speed and power.....so I guess go for the sound!

I will elaborate on this and much more on my upcoming instructional video too.

Peace,
Jojo

Personaly I don't like to practice on pillows, too. I've tried it for a month a bit every day and the only results I had was a bent right wrist for 4 days...

[beatsMcGee]

you need to develope the coordination that and movement that comes with rebound plain and simple... pillows training really is going to produce minimal results compared to a pad..

[dizkneelande]

Because a lot of confusion I decided to ask this question to Jojo Mayer and here is what he says:

Personaly I don't like to practice on pillows, too. I've tried it for a month a bit every day and the only results I had was a bent right wrist for 4 days...


i like the way jojo puts it. kinda like when a marching percussionist gets on a set and says "watch this" and then blah blah blah. =) hahaha go tenors!

[mdrndrumr]

I was told today that practicing on a pillow will strengthen my wrists, fingers, and forearms so that i'm able to play on any kind of surface very well, including surfaces with very little/no rebound, and surfaces with a lot of rebound such as a very tight snare.

I practiced tonight for a little over an hour on a pillow and I felt quite worked out. What concerns me is I don't want my wrists to become the primary use for rolls, etc when I play actual drums because the main and basically only muscle you can use on a pillow is your wrists. Will this happen if I continue playing on a pillow and become the permanent way I play on actual drums?

I understand that you need to utilize your fingers and "dribble" the stick so to speak, when performing the double stroke roll, or anything involving double strokes.

Other than practicing on a pillow, I just work on my left hand(weak hand) fingers by dribbling the stick with my fingers for a long period of time, from slow to fast.

ANY ADVICE/EXPERIENCES YOU'VE HAD WITH PILLOW PRACTICING OR FINGER TECHNIQUES, ETC WOULD REALLY BE APPRECIATED!!!

THANK YOU!

[djp132]

http://www.drummerworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18680&highlight=pillow

Lots of good info there, should answer most of your questions. Try giving the search button a try up top.

Hope it helps.
Derrick

[Womble]

Here ya go - let the argument being again with fresh perspectives!

[Auger]

I used to use pillow practice years ago, but then moved exclusively to pads and drums and changed my approach to the instrument. My technique and speed has come much farther as a result. I'm not saying there's absolutely nothing to be gained from practice on a pillow, but I think Rick has a really good point over in the tennis ball thread -If you want to get better at doing something ...then spend time doing that thing.

More fundamentally, I think shifting away from pillows came with the realization that practicing on pillows to improve speed is more of an athletic/muscle based approach to playing. In recent years, I've shifted to a technique-oriented perspective; spending my time and energy developing how I move my body instead of concentrating on how much force I have available to move it with. So, instead of getting faster by developing the muscles that you use to move the sticks, I develop speed by finding the best way to move my body and the sticks ...and I have increased my speed and power (as well as dexterity and comfort at very quiet volumes) by shifting my focus like this.

One problem I see with the muscle based / practicing on pillows approach is that, as you get older, if you're depending on your strength to play with power and speed, you will eventually start to slow down. Have a look at those Joe Morello vids Bernhard recently put up ...I doubt he's 'muscling through' that stuff he does on the practice pad at 80 years old. When you get older, your body may begin to decline, but you will never forget your technique as long as you keep playing.

As for the dennis chambers example, there's also this to consider: Dennis has said he doesn't practice much these days (at least around the time he made that video with tony royster). Well, back when he was doing the pillow thing, how much time a day do you think he was practicing? I'd guess probably around 8hrs at least. He probably spent lots and lots of that time on the drumset. So, If you have that kind of time to practice, and you're already spending most of it on the drums, and you're approach is more of an athletic one (I'm not going to say this approach is wrong -I don't mean to imply my approach is the only way) then, yeah, it's probably OK to spend time on a pillow because you're spending plenty of time on the set. But if, like most of us, you don't have that kind of time, I wouldn't bother. You're taking away from time you'd otherwise be using for drumset, which is much more beneficial.

[Womble]

Yes, I must say the whole "Dennis/Buddy practised on pillows therefore it's good enough for me" statement is a non-argument. How do you know whether the practice they did on pillows had any positive effect whatsoever? These guys practised for hours and hours on the drums, and we know that's a great way to improve, as evidenced by all the guys who have only ever practised on the drums and are fantastic players. Now, if Buddy's and Dennis's skills were way in advance of anyone else, maybe we'd have reason to believe that their pillow practice had given them the edge (Buddy fanatics please refrain from stating the obvious).

[murphinelli]

Although this stuff has been covered ad-nauseum, thoroughly, and excellently....let's continue it...

I practice on pads, pillows, rugs, steering wheels, heads, floors, walls, jeans, drumsets... for all the reasons given above and more...

Interesting about advice that pros give regarding pillows...How many of them really practice for any length of time on a pillow?....

Did Buddy ever really practice on a pillow? I doubt it. Did he really practice at all?...

Buddy gave this little article (http://www.bopworks.net/ads/buddyRichColumn.jpg)when he was 25....mostly directed at the youngsters...he may have tryed it for a week or two, but I seriously doubt Grand Master Buddy would be caught dead playing on a pillow....lol...

[vadrum]

man, there must be a ton of guys out there shedding 24-7 to keep hearing the argument that youre losing time at the instrument. seriously, if youre spending that much time at the drums, you should have your head examined.

it couldnt possibly hurt to use these training methods in addition to the normal route of practice. and i agree that playing on a pillow is a purely muscle based logic applied to playing the instrument. however, that is part of what we deal w/ as drummers and having an exercise that focuses on that one aspect of playing is not going to be bad as long as you round it out w/ playing at the drums themselves.

personally, i think my neighbors would be pissed at me for busting out rudiments on the drums at 12 midnight, so in that instance i might go to the pillow (just so i dont irk my gf either).