Hey all, was anyone here lucky enough to get one-on-one tuition with Alan Dawson? The book by John Ramsay has helped me to focus my practice time enormously - but I've been working through it religiously for over a year and wondered if there are any more ideas/philosophies that Alan might have taught people which can be worked on alongside the material in the book.
If anyone's based in London and available to give me one or two private lessons please PM. Otherwise, if you don't mind sharing with the masses, I'm sure there are many people on here who are hugely inspired by Dawson who'd love to hear more from what he had to say.
Thanks, Caz.
It's really cool that John Riley chimed in. You can take pretty much anything he says to the bank.
So here's my next long post.
I was fortunate enough to study with Alan for 10 months, from 1982-83. Now, I wasn't really prepared for the intensity of the experience but many of his teachings have stuck with me to this day. The most important things were
time management and balancing
technique with
musicianship. He would quickly gauge your skill level and give you challenging but appropriate material. If you did your homework, the following lesson would be a breeze. If you didn't, it was excruciatingly painful. It's not that he would yell, but his demeanor would change and you'd feel physically ill. Like crawling away into a hole to die. But there'd be a glimmer of hope that you could make it up for the next lesson. Each lesson was a new start because he never carried over any ill will. There are scores of drummers out there who are more advanced and studied with him longer. Still, I believe he wanted to make sure his message got through to
all of his students. And his approach certainly helped me as I studied with other challenging teachers.
Some things he told me:
"
First impressions are lasting." When I glossed over the Ted Reed part of my first lesson. He normally wouldn't spoon feed you. You got a lesson with rudiments, Stick Control, reading and a song form exercise. When he saw my frustration with the Ted Reed section he suggested that I practice some of the earlier, repetitive exercises in the book if I were truly stuck. But was meant as the reading portion of the lesson.
"
This is a performance." When I stopped playing after making a mistake and restarted. He wanted you to play through a lesson as if you were on stage. If you make a mistake, take a mental note of it and work on it later, but not at
that time.
"
Why not put one or two hours of this material first and then do your thing?" After I told him I fool around on the set and then work on my lessons.
"
Monk was weird, but he had perfect time" Another time, after I said I wanted to do my own approach to drums. The implication was 'learn form and the nuts and bolts of music first,
then do your own thing'. He had played with Monk in NY and was open to any type of approach, so long as it was rooted in good mechanics and was musical.
"
I see what you're doing- you're 'leaning on the beat'." Leaning on the beat might be a paraphrase but that's essentially what he said; basically I was chasing the metronome with one of his Stick Control warmups. He had this loud Franz metronome that was plugged in. My timing was unsteady and I'd rush and drag in between beats but always tried to end on the beat.
"
The pad is a supplement, not a substitute for the drum."
I spent an unbalanced amount of time on technique, so he tried to steer me in a more musical direction. For what it's worth, now days in Pipe Band, I always sing the melody while practicing. Now it's second nature. But in front of him, it was quite awkward. If I could only go back in time...
At any rate, here are some technique things I remember.
He would give 3 rudiments to practice for the next lesson. You had to play them as a traditional breakdown, from slow-to fast to slow. I never had a problem with getting my hands around any of them, but I had a tendency to rush. When it came to paradiddle rudiments with flams, drags and 4 stroke ruffs attached, I would occasionally ram through them. So he played a paradiddle up to speed followed by a flam paradiddle, then a drag paradiddle then a 4 stroke ruff paradiddlediddle
on my leg! He wanted you to feel the full note value and even though embellishments didn't add to the note value, there had to be a certain spacing between them.
Double stroke roll breakdown. Most people play them starting out slow and loud. As they pick up speed it gets quieter until it purrs along at top speed. As the tempo winds down, the volume tends to pick up. Alan had you practice it the opposite: Start out slow and quiet. At your top speed it's fff. then you bring it back down to ppp.
Drags (or 3 stroke ruffs). Using traditional grip, with the left hand, you would drag your forefinger on top of the stick to get two, quick double grace notes. In the right hand, you'd pull back with your fingers the same way. In traditional rudimental breakdowns, drag grace notes would start out space far apart and get closer as the tempo increased. Alan had you play them quick and close together next to the main note. That spacing was constant regardless of the tempo.
Whether it was Stick Control or rudiments, it was never just hands. You always had to keep time on the bass drum (or floor) and with the hi-hat on 2 & 4.
Timing was non-negotiable to him. As was song form.