Bill's site

KamaK

Platinum Member
So I'm one year into this entire drumming thing, and overall I've been pretty satisfied with a combination of private lessons, youtube, and my own noodling. My private instructor rocks balls and I'm always flabbergasted when I see him play.

One facet that I've been struggling with is my hands/technique. It's not that my teacher isn't doing his job. Quite frankly, I think it's because I'm a shitty listener and less than stellar at being a student. Everything he's told me to do I've heard numerous times from other sources, and was simply failing to 'get it'.

In order to get things into better shape, I joined Bill's site a few days ago. Overall, it's been a major kick in the ass. Within the first day, I had identified a couple major issues and am well on my way to fixing them. I find the workouts that I've tried to be useful and his encouraging banter and straightforward demeanor genuinely helpful.

Has anyone else here used BillB's site, and if so, what were your thoughts?
 
Bill Bachman's Drum Workout.com is the best source for hand technique.
 
Indeed. I don't really understand the rules for linking commercial (and potentially competing) sites.
 
Good to hear.
Just curious. When you join somebody's site like that, you sign up online, and then move over to Skype sessions for lessons?
Payment just by paypal?
 
I subscribed to Bill Bachman's site last summer when he had a free 2 week trial and went through his lessons as much as possible, downloading what lessons I could in PDFs.
To this day I have continued to use many of those lessons for warming up singles, paradiddles, etc. and they are extremely effective.

What separates Bill is not only his technical expertise and experience, but his superior ability to teach.
There are many "lessons" online but most drummers can't teach to save their lives, doling out information and blabbing on forever or showcasing their chops.
Bill is the best at going step by step without over-complicating, but walking you through the lesson carefully while keeping your attention intact.

I also find Bill's lessons for free on Vic Firth's channel and a few other YouTube searches and always watch them. I read his posts carefully as they make so much common sense and simply many confused approaches.

The best I've found. I'll probably re-subscribe soon.
 
Good to hear.
Just curious. When you join somebody's site like that, you sign up online, and then move over to Skype sessions for lessons?
Payment just by paypal?

My feeling is that he's doing Paypal so that he doesn't have to pay for a merchant account. He just eats Paypal's 3% rather than 1500/5 of 500/15 or whatever a merchant account costs these days. The down side of paypal is that there's latency in the charging gateway, which means that you might not get access immediately. In my case, I had access in 4 hours.

Membership gives you access to the pre-recorded lessons, which are the same format as his free stuff, just full featured. I believe the Skype stuff is separate.

Overall, if you're a beginner and don't have your grip/stroke/technique together (Like ME!), I would recommend giving it a shot. Worst case is you blow $20. So far (4 days), it's been well worth the $20. I'll ping this thread again when my subscription is going to expire in a month.
 
Thanks for the kind words guys!

My lessons over skype are totally separate from drumworkout.com.

I use paypal because it's simple, works and most people are really familiar with it.

I definitely wouldn't say that drumworkout is just for beginners. There are actually a few pros with names you may know who subscribe. 99% of people's struggles (even very advanced players) go right back to some basic fundamental problem. The whole idea of the Extreme Hands Makeover in particular is to rebuild your hand technique from the ground up. (Most people are already tripped up on step 1, that's where the improvement starts.) Defining fundamentals is the key to opening doors for "harder" stuff, and these fundamentals require maintenance for life.

As for the free stuff I have out via Vic Firth's & Modern Drummer's youtube channels, those are just little freebies--about 2% compared to what's on the site. And I agree, $20 is not much at all to invest. :)
 
Just wanted to post a little update.

I'm a few weeks in and have been focusing on the Extreme Hands Makeover. The first week was a major leap for me. Specifically, my weak hand began to match, and in some cases exceed my strong one. The first dozen steps completely relaxed my American grip and has given me a fairly convincing french grip.

I'm now working on putting things back together. Simple things like hand patterns have become a little wonky now that I have all this newfound agility. It's all a simple matter of repetition and practice, but I need to put in the time. The other thing I need to work on is the transfer from the practice pad to the kit. It's interesting that I'm Mr. Nimblefingers when in front of a pad but grow ape hands when facing the kit.

I like the pricing structure. I can join for a month, unsubscribe for a month while I get my shit together, and resubscribe if/when I finally do. I like that the lessons teach you how to teach yourself, which is fairly important for distance learning.


Good stuff.
 
Just wanted to post a last update since this was cross linked in another thread.

I've just un-subbed at the end of my second month so I can focus on kit-related playing. It's been a night and day difference since when I began.

Thanx Bill. I'll be back after I clear some kit-related hurdles.
 
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