Need some advice on practice and SC...

Yopps

Yopps

Senior Member
O.K. I'll just give this a quick shot and see what happens. So I've been fairly dedictated to woking over Stick Control (pgs 5,6,7 only) for the better part of the year. There seems to be a paradox with me. I think I am pretty good playing around a KIT (good sense of time, musical, good reading, good foot control ect) but when it comes to being confined to one surface (i.e. a snare) I'm junk. My hands are complete junk, always hve been, needless to say I won't be getting into any marching bands. Now SC is supposed to be the go to book for getting hands in shape, improving control, dynamics, speed, ect, and I know that it works wonders (or heard) for others but I have seen zero improvment in speed or control after embarking on it almost a year ago. I know that things take time but I should have seen slight improvment, and I have been keeping log of my self and stuff with metronome, ect. I don't know if I'm practising it wrong or if there is just limitations in my hands to improve. Do hands just have a celling where they can't go past once it's been hit?
 
Can you describe you routine, your choice of technique and what speeds we`re talking about here?
 
Yopps said:
O.K. I'll just give this a quick shot and see what happens. So I've been fairly dedictated to woking over Stick Control (pgs 5,6,7 only) for the better part of the year. There seems to be a paradox with me. I think I am pretty good playing around a KIT (good sense of time, musical, good reading, good foot control ect) but when it comes to being confined to one surface (i.e. a snare) I'm junk. My hands are complete junk, always hve been, needless to say I won't be getting into any marching bands. Now SC is supposed to be the go to book for getting hands in shape, improving control, dynamics, speed, ect, and I know that it works wonders (or heard) for others but I have seen zero improvment in speed or control after embarking on it almost a year ago. I know that things take time but I should have seen slight improvment, and I have been keeping log of my self and stuff with metronome, ect. I don't know if I'm practising it wrong or if there is just limitations in my hands to improve. Do hands just have a celling where they can't go past once it's been hit?
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To see little to no improvement after a year might signify you might be practicing incorrectly.

Do you have an instructor that is monitoring how you practice?

Are you practicing at very slow tempos out of the book? Speed comes after balance between hands and dynamic control.

For me it has been a long slow journey out of the SC book but I have seen a high level of development in my hands and how my groove has developed as well.

Keep in mind that stick control "alone" won't make you a master chop suey kung fu expert on the snare but it plays an important role in getting there. I suggest also using Tommy Igoe's Great Hands of Lifetime DVD in addition to the SC book. Together, both resources should get your playing where you want it. Tommy's DVD gets you to start practicing a lot more rudiments that force you to practice rebound, up strokes down strokes and taps which are things you do not work on in the SC book, so my final advice is not to put all your eggs in one basket ;-)
 
Unless you have amazing chops already or a serious disorder I doubt it's a limitation in your hands. Also consider that no matter how good your internal clock, your sense of time on the kit as it actually sounds is deeply dependent on your hand control. Someone with poor hand control is going have poor timing in a number of areas chipping away at the sense of groove even the most perfect internal clock might have.

You need to get endurance and accuracy going at a variety of slow tempos. For example aiming for 50 or 100 repetitions of exercise 1 without a mistake at 40bpm, and then moving to the same in triplets and 16ths and 16th triplets and so on, focusing on staying relaxed and clean. Record it and count the first sign of a timing blip or dynamic change as one repetition after the last correct one - it's tough to be this honest with yourself. It might take quite a while to reach 50 or 100 reps at each subdivision or tempo. And even longer to get all the repetitions at all subdivisions without a break in between.

I would forget about pages 6 and 7, and most of page 5, until you can consistently and confidently improve your singles and doubles.
 
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I do it like this... Each line I do 2-3 minutes. I spend a solid hour a page. I do free/full strokes for 30 minutes then start over and do taps/medium strokes for the other 30 I'll do something like pg5, next day pg6, next day pg7 then repeat. I started on 40 bpm at 8th notes(that was 9 months ago) and I bump it up 1 bpm each week.
 
Yopps said:
I do it like this... Each line I do 2-3 minutes. I spend a solid hour a page. I do free/full strokes for 30 minutes then start over and do taps/medium strokes for the other 30 I'll do something like pg5, next day pg6, next day pg7 then repeat. I started on 40 bpm at 8th notes(that was 9 months ago) and I bump it up 1 bpm each week.
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are you practicing a good solid hour on the pad or actual snare drum? I ask because I used to do all my stick control/rudiment practice on a pad alone and while it helped me improve one thing that did not improve was my ability to pull different sounds out of the snare and be comfortable hitting it at all dynamic levels but i'm still working on it, hehehe.
 
Yopps...can you make a little vid and post on youtube of some practice out of SC?

BTW....is that really you in the pic?
 
Yopps said:
I do it like this... Each line I do 2-3 minutes. I spend a solid hour a page. I do free/full strokes for 30 minutes then start over and do taps/medium strokes for the other 30 I'll do something like pg5, next day pg6, next day pg7 then repeat. I started on 40 bpm at 8th notes(that was 9 months ago) and I bump it up 1 bpm each week.
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My god, no wonder you're frustrated! I agree with PeteN, get Great Hands and get to work! Also, Rudimental Logic (book, and DVD) by Bill Bachman is fantastic!

Stick Control is wonderful, but I think most see success with it because of their teacher, and how they work through it with them. That's what's missing from SC: a method, and a practical organization of skills. Both Great Hands and Rudimental Logic understand that the user will benefit a great deal from exercises that focus on rebound, singles, double strokes, and various combination and "check pattern" exercises, in addition to playing through a book like SC.

Dummers hold SC in high regard, probably because they used it in their lessons way back when. As a teacher, there are more efficient, thorough, and well-written materials these days.
 
Guys do you think I should just shed rudiments instead (or addition to) ?

I'm not trying to get "super speed" chops either I just want better control and speed then what I have which is terrible.
 
Yopps said:
Guys do you think I should just shed rudiments instead (or addition to) ?

I'm not trying to get "super speed" chops either I just want better control and speed then what I have which is terrible.
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I would worry about nothing but singles and doubles until at the very least they are progressing efficiently. If you spend an hour on hand technique you could do half an hour of singles and half an hour of doubles. Move through several different subdivisions in each session, starting naturally at the slowest. When these two exercises are progressing fine, more stuff can be added, but not until then.

Stick control has what, 120 exercises between the 3 pages? Waaay too much flitting around when your core hand control is not moving.
 
At least a couple of lessons with a teacher with good hands would be a good idea, to at least identify things that are holding you up. You might also look into a change of scenery, if your current materials aren't working for you. Morello's Master Studies books would be a good place to start. I've actually also had really great results from book two of Haskell Harr; it's the most turgid old school rudimental thing in the world, but I always come away from 90 minutes with it feeling incredibly toned.

Oh and this:
Each line I do 2-3 minutes. I spend a solid hour a page. I do free/full strokes for 30 minutes then start over and do taps/medium strokes for the other 30 I'll do something like pg5, next day pg6, next day pg7 then repeat. I started on 40 bpm at 8th notes(that was 9 months ago) and I bump it up 1 bpm each week.
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That's a little extreme. To me, at 40bpm all of those 8th note exercises are basically the same, and I don't see any value at all in bumping the tempo 1bpm/week. Instead I would play them at three different tempos every time you practice them- comfortably medium, uncomfortably medium-slow or slow, and slightly uncomfortably fast. But I think you need to move on to something different- I would be ready to shoot somebody after 9 months of the routine you describe.
 
toddbishop said:
That's a little extreme. To me, at 40bpm all of those 8th note exercises are basically the same, and I don't see any value at all in bumping the tempo 1bpm/week. Instead I would play them at three different tempos every time you practice them- comfortably medium, uncomfortably medium-slow or slow, and slightly uncomfortably fast. But I think you need to move on to something different- I would be ready to shoot somebody after 9 months of the routine you describe.
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+1, absolutely. After 4 weeks, you're at 44 bpm?! I would sharpen my sticks and impale myself in no time!

What to practice, other than rudiments, depends on you and your goals. I think it's wise to have good command of singles, doubles, and flams, but also consider working on some accent exercises that force you to control your varying stick heights, and practice all 4 types of stroke: free (rebound), downstroke, tap, and upstroke. These ideas are your fundamentals, so when they get easy, push the tempo!

It bears repeating what TB said about the tempo: try a variety of speeds (at least 3!) for every exercise you encounter. What your hands do to perform a task at 40 bpm is nowhere near the same thing as it is at 120. Only when you realize that "hey, at a certain speed, my stick height is too high after this one stroke, and it's keeping me from making my paradiddles get any quicker" will you be incentivized to practice those motions slowly. If you never push the tempo, you'll never find out where your weaknesses are! If you are never wrong, you cannot learn!

Lastly, and this is for your sanity AND your progress, get some VARIETY into your practice! If you're a kit player, play your favorite grooves and fills, and make up variations. Try to play the kit for 5 minutes continuously, without ever losing the beat or stopping! And for your snare work, begin learning short solos and etudes, so that you have someplace to apply your newfound chops! And by all means, jam along with music! Play along to 2 songs per day.
 
brentcn said:
+1, absolutely. After 4 weeks, you're at 44 bpm?! I would sharpen my sticks and impale myself in no time!

What to practice, other than rudiments, depends on you and your goals. I think it's wise to have good command of singles, doubles, and flams, but also consider working on some accent exercises that force you to control your varying stick heights, and practice all 4 types of stroke: free (rebound), downstroke, tap, and upstroke. These ideas are your fundamentals, so when they get easy, push the tempo!

It bears repeating what TB said about the tempo: try a variety of speeds (at least 3!) for every exercise you encounter. What your hands do to perform a task at 40 bpm is nowhere near the same thing as it is at 120. Only when you realize that "hey, at a certain speed, my stick height is too high after this one stroke, and it's keeping me from making my paradiddles get any quicker" will you be incentivized to practice those motions slowly. If you never push the tempo, you'll never find out where your weaknesses are! If you are never wrong, you cannot learn!

QUOTE]

These are all good suggestions. Here's another one that might help--temporarily set aside the single beat exercises and try practicing some of the short roll studies a little further on in the book, or the triplet exercises. When I first started working out of Stick Control I found that the short single stroke roll exercises especially were very helpful in developing my chops. It'll be a change of pace, and perhaps a tiny bit more interesting than what you've been doing.

Or you can experiment with practicing the single beat exercises in different ways. In addition to different stick heights and different tempi (as previously suggested), try swinging them (i.e, playing them as broken triplets). You can also practice them with french grip and focus on using your fingers (or a combination wrist/fingers) to make the strokes. Or play them as 8th note triplets. These are all things that I've done and found to be helpful (as well as a cure for some of the inevitable boredom that sets in from practicing a lot of Stick Control).

One last thought--I bring this up because I've made this mistake in the past: 1) if you're trying to develop your wrists, make sure you're not unknowingly using some forearm to make the strokes; if you do use the forearms (raising them up each time to make the stroke), it will significantly decrease your progress in developing the wrists (and hence it will be difficult to get faster). And 2) make sure you're throwing the stick down each time as quickly as you can (and, since you're trying to develop the free stroke, letting it bounce back up just as quickly). If you're practicing at 40 BPM, I think it can be a common error to just lob the stick down at a slower speed. For the most part, the main difference between playing the exercises at 40 and playing them at 120 is just the lapse of time between the strokes--the actual speed of the strokes themselves should be the same at both tempos.

Ed
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I agree with whoever said that you should play at a variety of tempos. Playing faster than you can forces your body to experience what it might be like to go fast, even though it might be sloppy. This in turn will make slower speeds feel more natural and improve your control. It does for me anyway.

I've gone from 16th note singles at 125bpm to 210bpm in the last 2 months, by simply putting the metronome on 100bpm and doing different subdivisions from whole notes through to 32nd notes. Then i'll put the metronome on 175 and try the same thing. Then i'll back it down to 145, then down to 60. I think playing at all different speeds with all different subdivisions of notes helps control.

I'd also try getting into rudiments and REALLY concentrating on the dynamics. IE, if you play a paradiddle you should be making sure the taps are the exact same distance from the pad/snare and sound completely even, and just the accent is loud. Then try playing them back to front, accenting only the tapped notes. This forces control. If you struggle with that then you could even break it down further, by using one hand and simply playing :

RIGHT right right RIGHT right right. This saves time in the practice routine by singling out parts that you have trouble with.

(i'm not assuming this is what you have problems with, it's just an example of what you could do :) )
 
Yopps....I'm wondering when you practice SC if you're watching TV or something and not really focusing on the pad and your sticking?

I mean no matter what anyone says here....a year of disciplined practice with SC should produce serious results "unless" you're just doing things wrong or not noticing it.

Also....too much of anything can be bad so maybe work out of SC less every day or just work out of it for an hour every other day?

That book can get old really quick especially on days where my hands feel useless and I feel like I'm not progressing but other days my hands are in serious control where the progress is obvious. Even though I have bad days I keep at it and it works itself out but you "must" have a somewhat balanced variety in your practice regimen.

Currently my SC practice for pages 5-7 involves the bass drum going in unison with every sticking note and hi-hats on quarters. I was doing it at 80bpm but the last month or so I dropped down to 60bpm. I don't go by a set tempo...if I feel i'm at too fast of a tempo to really analyze my sticking correctly or I feel sloppy then I slow it down for a while. Everyone learns differently so what works for me or jimbob may not work for you and my point is don't get too anal and experiment with different practice regimens if you feel like progress is not where it should be.
 
Definetly go for different tempos. 'm totally into the slow things, but pushing the tempo and endurance is a good thing also. That's all I use the SC book for really, but those other things I do are just variations I've organized in a different way.

Get them accents, flams and doubles rolling as well and have fun with them on the kit. That's what they'll be used for anyway, and I definetly recommend doing the exercises, once you got them fairly well down, on a snare and the whole kit. Pads are great for tons of things, I love them, but they're not drums.
 
Duckenheimer said:
I would worry about nothing but singles and doubles until at the very least they are progressing efficiently. If you spend an hour on hand technique you could do half an hour of singles and half an hour of doubles. Move through several different subdivisions in each session, starting naturally at the slowest. When these two exercises are progressing fine, more stuff can be added, but not until then.

Stick control has what, 120 exercises between the 3 pages? Waaay too much flitting around when your core hand control is not moving.
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This gets my vote. Singles and doubles and move around the kit a bit.
 
Thanks for the advice so far, it's been insightful. I'm going to try to do what you guys suggested and just stay with singles and doubles, and try to do more dynamics with the free, down, tap and up strokes. Hopefully his will produce better...
 
Yopps,
I think you haven't answered yet whether your avatar is an original pic of yourself - just curious ;-)
 
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