Post Your Greatest Weakness ?

How many of you drummers play double bass ?

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    102
After all these years I CAN NOT play Swingtown by Steve Miller using a single pedal!!!! Just can't.....
 
The main problem right now is my brush playing. I'm still working on it though! Hopefully I can improve it soon. I found this article, but I was wondering if you guys had any other tips?
 
Playing a constant four-on-the-floor bass drum pattern for the duration of a song above a tempo of about 120bpm.

I was recording drum tracks recently and two tunes I laid down required this type of uninterrupted pattern. One was Men At Work's Overkill and the other Stealer's Wheel's Stuck In The Middle. For some reason, I have some technical hole in my bass pedal technique that makes the quarter note pattern difficult. It's hard for me to get comfortable so it's not as precise and in-the-pocket as it needs to be.

At a slower tempo? No problem. Change the pattern up at some point? Then it's okay. But to keep that exact same thing rolling for 3 or 4 minutes straight, it just doesn't feel right. My foot feels like it's going to slip on the pedal and I start to get really self-conscious about that foot, thinking way too much about it. And it will never feel good once you get to the point where you're thinking that much about it.

Different shoes, adjusting pedal tension... I'm sure if I work at it I'll find a way to get a mechanical thing going that makes it easy and second-nature to play. But as of today, I suck at it.
 
NOTHING! haha. kidding. I would have to say rudiments. What I mean by that is I am a much better drum set player than snare drum player.
 
I just posted two jazz solos of mine in a thread I started about SOLOING with conviction (here).

I have an audition in two weeks - can anyone offer any suggestions...?

Thanks in advance...!
 
Last edited:
stillgroovin said:
After all these years I CAN NOT play Swingtown by Steve Miller using a single pedal!!!! Just can't.....
Click to expand...
I'd never heard that track - your post made my check it out! Nice tune.... That said, I don't see anything difficult on the bass drum assuming you have some kind of sweep/slide technique on the bass drum happening. If you don't there will be a ton of tunes that are impossible to play! What was the issue you had with this phrase exactly?... just curious!
 
Anything and everything to do with the Hi Hat, I'm beyond terrible with it.

Actually went to a party a few weeks ago and sure enough there was a Drum Kit, and as usual (with every other drum set I've ever come across at a college party) it was only a single kick and had awful cymbals.

I played a few beats, impressed a few girls (pretty sad tbh, I played the simplest stuff... Like stuff I could have taught someone who's never picked up a pair of drum sticks in probably like 20 minutes) but was more so just disappointed with myself that I couldn't work said Hi Hat.

Starting to regret going right into Double Kicks rather than mastering the Hi Hat first :(


On a side note, Non Drummers are seriously impressed by the simplest beats.. Playing paradiddles around the kit makes them think you're the best drummer ever, it's ridiculous.
 
"Go Easy" !!!...There's nothing wrong with Paradiddles, they are the root of drumming...have you ever played them like this ?
http://www.youtube.com/user/leemangano22#p/a/u/0/PSrQrnOR4mU

Wopsey said:
Anything and everything to do with the Hi Hat, I'm beyond terrible with it.

Actually went to a party a few weeks ago and sure enough there was a Drum Kit, and as usual (with every other drum set I've ever come across at a college party) it was only a single kick and had awful cymbals.

I played a few beats, impressed a few girls (pretty sad tbh, I played the simplest stuff... Like stuff I could have taught someone who's never picked up a pair of drum sticks in probably like 20 minutes) but was more so just disappointed with myself that I couldn't work said Hi Hat.

Starting to regret going right into Double Kicks rather than mastering the Hi Hat first :(


On a side note, Non Drummers are seriously impressed by the simplest beats.. Playing paradiddles around the kit makes them think you're the best drummer ever, it's ridiculous.
Click to expand...
 
self indulgent freestyle drum solo
many weaknesses too many to mention
check out the drum sound from my small
studio.
 

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richkenyon said:
I'd never heard that track - your post made my check it out! Nice tune.... That said, I don't see anything difficult on the bass drum assuming you have some kind of sweep/slide technique on the bass drum happening. If you don't there will be a ton of tunes that are impossible to play! What was the issue you had with this phrase exactly?... just curious!
Click to expand...

I am happy to report that now I have mastered this lick!!!!! problem is the song is old and no one even remembers it. GREAT Im a Dinosaur.....
 
Oddly enough I suck at something as simple as single stroke rolls.

I keep time well enough, I can wrap my head around polyrhythms without a hassle and I'm quite decent at accenting notes, ghost notes and all those other little things you do to add variation to a beat, but ask me to blast at high tempos or do Brann Dailor style fills... well that's a complete hassle.
 
My left foot. (Not the movie). Just awful, but progressing albeit slowly. Also, I need a drummer dictionary, it seems. I dont know 80 per cent of the verbage. Example: This thread, in the beginning, a guy had an issue with ghost notes on swing beats. I just learned what ghost note meant about a year ago. I know what they are, just didn't know what they were called. And, swing beat...what is that?

Other terms I dont know:
Backbeat
polyrythym
shuffle beat
theres more, I just cant think of them....
 
To sum up a polyrhythm simply, it's two (or more) seperate rhythms happening at the same time.

The best example off the top of my head is Meshuggah - Bleed.

The hands are in 4/4 time, the kick is doing something completely different (but still having its own rhythm, not just playing randomly)
 
Thanks Frost. I knew that those events happened, just not sure of the definition.

Oh, and a new weakness. I suck at endings. You know when the song is over, but you do the cymbal swells while the guitarist holds a long note? Well, I don't know what kind of roll to do to end it all. I do the same lame thing. Just go down 4 toms and hit the crash. But I've seen other drummers do cool stuff at the end. I need to educate myself, I guess.
 
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