long lasting practicing discoveries.

[Dedworx]

i thought it would be cool to share things we have discovered in practice that we will continue to use through out our playing years. like exercises or routines or concepts that are used for a certain purpose and now have become "go to" type ideas when trying to tidy up a certain part of our playing.

mine would be reading syncopation's 8 pages of reading as a linear pattern.
- reading the snare line as 8th notes with the bass drum, keeping quarter notes on the cymbal hand and playing the spaces with the snare hand.

- i used it first as a co ordination thing but now i've found its been really useful with precision and placement of my notes with both hands and feet. i use it a couple of times a week just to keep everything flowing and have found going from it to either a rehearsal or playing to tracks that everything feels crisper.

i play it straight and swung and usually randomly go up and down the bpm scale from as slow as 40 up to about 220- 8th notes trying to cover a wide range of tempos over a month or month(s).

i'm looking forward to hearing others thoughts on what remains helpful to their playing.

[zzdrummer]

mine would be reading syncopation's 8 pages of reading as a linear pattern.
- reading the snare line as 8th notes with the bass drum, keeping quarter notes on the cymbal hand and playing the spaces with the snare hand.




The spaces as in 8th notes or triplets?

[d.h.drumming]

When I was on college I was working on 5 stroke rolls, playing them on the hats, and I just couldn't get them to work. My teacher told me to put half as much energy into each stroke, and it magically came together. So I guess the the moral of this would be to relax and listen to how loud you're playing, as you often wont realize that you're playing FF and not at a natural dynamic level.

[Dedworx]

the spaces played as 8th notes, not triplets- so it sounds like a constant roll between your snare hand and right foot. and when you read it swung, its a shuffle feel between the hands and feet.

[bjparadiddle]

Sing the tune in your head as you play. Begin and resolve your fills from varying points in the bar line. Get away from always starting and resolving fills on the "1." Play with records.
Don't freak when a bass player or pianist plays "against," or fights, your groove. Talk to him or her. Get his opinion. He'll try to blame you, of course. That's okay. Let him have his say. Then, calmly suggest:, "I'm not interested in who's right; I want to get this thing grooving. Here's what we'll do: You let me lead on the next set. Relax into my groove. If the time rushes or drags, then I'll play to your feel until I get it. If it swings or grooves, then jump on."

I've done this. It works every time (except when the player's time is pathetic, which thankfully isn't often). Yes, it takes courage to face the fear (the fear being: my time sucks!) But every time I've done that, I've "healed" the rhythm section--because the problem wasn't the time; it was the players' fighting each other with their varying concepts of where the time happened to be. Trust was the problem. Learning to play with cats with different feels is a big part of growing into a mature musician.