4 Way Coordination Application

[Casper "DrPowerStroke" Paludan]

Guys and dolls, please check out my new video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X8AFTeFJ5M). It's about how to orchestrate and use material from 4 Way Coordination. Please feel fre to comment.
Thanks for watching,
Casper

[toddy]

Great inspiration! I must buy that book.

[Casper "DrPowerStroke" Paludan]

Great inspiration! I must buy that book.

Thanks a lot! Yes, 4 Way Coordination (http://www.amazon.com/4-Way-Coordination-Development-Complete-Independence/dp/0769233708/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258404435&sr=8-1#noop) is a true classic, and I will make some more videos about how to further develop ideas from the material. It is so open ended, you can really use it for anything.

Thanks again for watching!

Casper

[Hedon]

sounds great and really inspiring

[Casper "DrPowerStroke" Paludan]

sounds great and really inspiring

Thanks so much for that hedon...and YOU inspire me back!!
Casper

[kettles]

That's really cool man, I've got the book but haven't tried applying it musically yet. I photocopied two of the early pages and carry it in my wallet for when I'm bored at work ;)

Got a question - Would you ever pull out a pre-learned lick like that when playing with a band, or would you practice so many of those exercises so you can improvise something fresh on the spot?

If it's the second answer, how much/long would it take to learn to improvise using all four limbs?

[goblinz]

the higher tempos application of it sounded very cool. great playing by the way

[Casper "DrPowerStroke" Paludan]

the higher tempos application of it sounded very cool. great playing by the way

Thanks so much, it really is awesome that you like it!! I will definitely make some more vids like this, there are so many fun things to explore....AND I love making videos :-)
Casper

[Casper "DrPowerStroke" Paludan]

That's really cool man, I've got the book but haven't tried applying it musically yet. I photocopied two of the early pages and carry it in my wallet for when I'm bored at work ;)

Got a question - Would you ever pull out a pre-learned lick like that when playing with a band, or would you practice so many of those exercises so you can improvise something fresh on the spot?

If it's the second answer, how much/long would it take to learn to improvise using all four limbs?

Thanks so much for watching, and thanks for the words, Kettles. I really appreciate it!

To your first question: as much as possible, I never rely on planned licks. My philosophy is, whatever comes out comes out. It may well be something I've played before, or it may not, but if I find myself having to think about it, even for an instant, I won't play it because at that moment, I am not present.

This particular type of material I practice with an eye towards two specific parts of my playing, namely

1) being able to play a melody that I hear, on the kit, and
2) playing it with relaxation and ease (grace sounds a little pompous...same thing)

I practice 4 Way coordination so that when I solo, or groove, I can play what I hear. To my mind, it makes sense to practice the material in this way (you could also do it many other ways, for sure, but, one thing at a time). Like this, I know it's melodic, I know the movements involved are never awkward, I know they are economical.

When I then am at the session, I think there is a good chance this, or similar ideas will come out. I say will because I have only been studying this book for about a year, and in my experience it takes longer for the subconscious to want to express new ideas. Furthermore, I can never really know how well a particular arrangement sits with my brain, I just have to wait and see. All I know is that it's fun to play, and it sounds and feels good. That is pretty much all you can go by.

An important part of why I think 4WC works well for this, is that the technical aspect is not so challenging. Like I say in the video, it is just single strokes. So I think there is a high impact factor on my musical brain when I play something that simple, as opposed to, say, a very complicated polyrhythmic figure that I almost certainly will never use. And I am not knocking polyrhythms, of course, just saying that when something this simple can sound this good, I want to spend time perfecting it...

You could call this exploratory practice: feeding the brain new patterns, and see if it takes. On the other hand, and I mention this just for balance, I practice things I know I will use all the time. I spend hours every week playing just the ride, or the ride with simple comping patterns. This is my bread and butter, and part of the reason these 4 bar figures sound good to you is that the four bars in between sound good.

To your second question: Complete freedom is a life long pursuit, and I used to get really irritated when older people would tell me that, but it really is true: you have all life for that. But you don't need that to play music!! If you look at how the authors present this material, without voicing suggestions of any kind, it is pretty obvious they intend for you to apply it musically, and the "4 Way coordination" will happen as a byproduct.

What a long tirade, I hope this makes sense to you :-). Thanks for your great questions!!!

Casper

[JPW]

I would like to add that coordination is quite fun to practice in terms of practice since it developes exponentially where for example speed development slows down the faster you get. The problem is that the 4-way coordination challenge never ends. The "rhythmic space" (all the possible combinations of ostinatos for every 4 limbs) is so huge that not even 1000 lifetimes would cover it up. But that's also the reason why we have different kinds of drummers. =)

What I mean is that it first starts really slow, the diagonal and cross-diagonal (hand-leg pairs) coordination is the first real challenge, but then it gets faster and faster. But you never really get to play everything. Even if you played 24/7 and changed the pattern every second. =P

I have the theory that we should set the goal where we can kind of comfortably play coordination stuff (even live) that we haven't necessarily practiced before. That CAN be achieved in a life time and then it only depends on the musical situation and your taste in music what you are sort of playing or practicing. And one should also remember that in a mathematical sense we never are perfect. But we can be enough perfect that audience or even other drummers can't hear the mistakes. =)

[Casper "DrPowerStroke" Paludan]

...I have the theory that we should set the goal where we can kind of comfortably play coordination stuff (even live) that we haven't necessarily practiced before...

What specific goals would you set, though? "kind of comfortably", and "stuff you haven't necessarily practiced", those are not real goals. You can't measure your progress in any way. And that goes back to what I was saying before: you can never say what will happen live, unless you are calculating everything, and you might as well be in your basement. The only measure of the actual music, is how well your peers like playing with you, and how big a smile you have on your face afterwards.

Since dexterity has no inherent musical value, it is up to us to add musical context to it. And I believe this can be done by striving to practice playing musically. I think that will have a much better chance of "coming out".

And again, I am not disagreeing with you. I practice "pure independence" also, but that is more like stretching for sports: it is a preparation to playing musically.

Casper

[TTNW]

Since dexterity has no inherent musical value, it is up to us to add musical context to it. And I believe this can be done by striving to practice playing musically. I think that will have a much better chance of "coming out".

I totally agree with this philosophy. I find so much of rudimentary drumming and exercises to be non musical. Great training though for having a larger vocabulary and using it to be musical.

I enjoyed the video. I think I need to pick up the 4WC book.

Thanks.

[JPW]

What specific goals would you set, though? "kind of comfortably", and "stuff you haven't necessarily practiced", those are not real goals. You can't measure your progress in any way. And that goes back to what I was saying before: you can never say what will happen live, unless you are calculating everything, and you might as well be in your basement. The only measure of the actual music, is how well your peers like playing with you, and how big a smile you have on your face afterwards.

Since dexterity has no inherent musical value, it is up to us to add musical context to it. And I believe this can be done by striving to practice playing musically. I think that will have a much better chance of "coming out".

And again, I am not disagreeing with you. I practice "pure independence" also, but that is more like stretching for sports: it is a preparation to playing musically.

Casper

Ah yes, I didn't mean it to be a sort of daily goal for your practice. Sort of life time goal and it's kind of subjective also. Maybe all I'm saying is that we should only play live things that we are comfortable with and 4-way coordination excercises sort of makes the comfort zone larger. I have some sort of map for myself where I'm going next in this huge rhythmic space or in other words what ostinatos in what order I'm going to practice next. But as I said I will never ever get to practice them all.

This is how I see it: if I practice hand technique I always know what I'm getting. If I practice single strokes I can make my simple single stroke fills faster or it can help some simple beats. But with 4-way coordination it isn't always clear and I can surprise myself more often. "Oh I didn't know I could do a pattern in 7 over this 5/8 groove" for example. Sometimes I spot them only in recordings afterwards. And I would think as I progress through all these coordination excercises the amount of things "I don't even know I can do" only grow larger too.

[JPW]

Oh and I totally agree with the musicality part. I have always said that there's music and there's juggling, make sure you don't pracitce juggling if you want to play music. But then again I have gained huge amounts of expressiveness and creativity through these sort of (ambi)dexterity excercises. They sort of melt barriers in your brain and interesting things are then allowed to happen. Same thing with hand technique too, but as I said I think it's more logical phenomenon as you clearly get what you practice.

[BigSteve]

Casper, Thanks for posting that. I have 4 way coordination and haven't looked at it in that way. I'm definately going to try that. I also love the fact that you stress making it a musical application.

[Casper "DrPowerStroke" Paludan]

Casper, Thanks for posting that. I have 4 way coordination and haven't looked at it in that way. I'm definately going to try that. I also love the fact that you stress making it a musical application.

thanks so much, BigSteve, totally appreciated! It's interesting that this book actually lends itself very much to musical interpretation. I think the authors had real music on their mind when they wrote the thing...

Thanks again,
Casper

[sciomako]

Hi Casper,

I have a question. Would it make sense to practice 4-way Coordination in straight time instead of swing time if I play primarily pop rock?

[Casper "DrPowerStroke" Paludan]

Hi Casper,

I have a question. Would it make sense to practice 4-way Coordination in straight time instead of swing time if I play primarily pop rock?

Sure! It was written with jazz in mind but a lot of the independence material of course will be the same regardless of style. And the more "jazz oriented" material would be good to adapt to a different playing situation. Using material like this in an unexpected and personal way will make it more original, which is great! So go ahead and rock out!
Casper