Need help with practicing Stone's Stick Control

S

sciomako

Silver Member
I just got my copy of Stick Control and started working on page 1 with a metronome. I realized I had the habit of accenting the downbeats. Without doing it, I would lose count the number of bars and start speeding up or slowing down, even at slow speed (e.g. quarter note = 60 bpm). I think I'm supposed to keep the sticking even. So, that's bad.

Is it just a matter of practice and perseverance? Or is there something I can do?
 
well you've noticed your mistake so you're already half way there (don't know if that means anything at all in english :D )
accenting the downbeat is not a bad thing if you're doing so on purpose, here it looks like you're doing it out of a habit, so you should try & accent different strokes or no stroke at all and keep it even.

To try & play even strokes you can record (audio only, video is not needed) your session and listen to it afterwards. If you can guess which stroke it is from the accents you're playing then it's not even enough ...

some say pratice makes perfect :)
keep it up it's a great book to work on!
 
sciomako said:
I just got my copy of Stick Control and started working on page 1 with a metronome. I realized I had the habit of accenting the downbeats. Without doing it, I would lose count the number of bars and start speeding up or slowing down, even at slow speed (e.g. quarter note = 60 bpm). I think I'm supposed to keep the sticking even. So, that's bad.

Is it just a matter of practice and perseverance? Or is there something I can do?
Click to expand...

Hi sciomako!!
I work this way:
I set my metronome to accent the first beat, you could practice this way:
The metro is accenting, so you could concentrate in count like this:

1 2 3 4 | 2 2 3 4 | 3 2 3 4 | 4 2 3 4 | 5 2 3 4 .... to 20 2 3 4...

its a good excercise, if it makes you crazy, only concentrate in beat one, the metro is accentig for you, so focus on keep the strokes even and count the first beat 1,2,3 ,4 ... 20

A good thing to do is to play each ex and play them watching a clock... so if you are at 60bpm 20 times each bar is 4 quarters = 4 seconds, 20 bars = 80 quarters, 80 quarters = 80 seconds, thats 1:20 minute, so, you can focus in the technique and play each ex. for 1:20 minute or so...

hope this works...
 
Keeping the sticks at the same height (maybe 8 inches each off the pad/drum/pillow) might help. You might also watch your hands to insure they are either matched in appearance and elevation (if you play matched) or, if not, at least at the same level off the drum. This will also help you control the height attained by the sticks flyback. Watch out for the lop... good luck... concentrate...
 
Actually, I don't think this is gong to be a big problem. Accenting the downbeat can be a good way to keep the sticking and timing clean. With time, you will not need this crutch anymore.
 
Deltadrummer said:
Actually, I don't think this is gong to be a big problem. Accenting the downbeat can be a good way to keep the sticking and timing clean. With time, you will not need this crutch anymore.
Click to expand...

Thanks. That's reassuring.

I'm wondering what if I "cheat": I still do the wrist whip thing (the "Moeller"?) but keep the sticks at the same height all the time?
Somehow the wrist whipping gives me more consistent timekeeping...
 
I would keep my Moeller out of my Stone.
 
Thanks everyone. I've made some progress. Deltadrummer is right. It is indeed a crutch. After enough practice, I can now do exercise no 1 with even sticking. I also found tapping my foot for each beat and counting each bar help.

Great. Now I'm onto exercise no 2, the left-leading single roll, and I need the accent crutch again. Back to square one. Ha ha.

Thanks again.
 
It sounds to me like you have not really explored your hand technique properly. you should learn the free stroke, and if you have already, learn it again. Playing accents in stick Control is okay, but it is not what is intended. So if you want to follow the author's intention, you shouldn't accent at all in this book.

Don't beat yourself up, either. Just take some time learning the free stroke out of for example, Dom Famularo's "It's your Move". It's an excellent text, and one of the only ones amenable to self study, although a teacher is of course always the best.

I have spent years studying these techniques with Dom, and that is what it sounds to me like is next for you.

Casper
 
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