Bringing New Chops Into Your Playing

Witterings

Silver Member
I've learnt so many chops over the last 2 years that I've practiced and practiced and have massively increased my overall technical ability / rudiments etc but I still find I use such a small percentage when I'm actually playing and struggle to use the new fills on a daily basis..
I posted a thread a while ago "What do you think about when you're playing" part of the reason was because of this and I'm sure a lot of people have the same problem.
I sit intially and practice the fill over and over until I'm faimiliar with it and then without music will play a rhythm and incorporate it into that but just don't use it when I'm playing to music.
Does anybody have any good advice on how to start then using those fills in your actual day to day playing ??
 
i know what you mean about that. the only thing that works for me is to pick a specific spot in a song i regularly play and tell myself that i'm going to play my new fill at that spot, no matter what.
 
...

Fantastic post, Wittering.

To me chops and fills and grooves come into your playing only after you've worked them inside out, you know and understand the mechanics and the sticking, you can voice them in many different ways, and mutate them to fit most musical phrases.
In other words, they are totally internalized so you aren't thinking about it anymore.

The differnce is knowing versus understanding at the mental level and a grooved muscle memory on the physical side, I think.

That unfortunately takes time, patience, and tons of practice.

I totally vibe with your frustration. I think all of us stuggle with this issue at some level or the other.

...
 
I've learnt so many chops over the last 2 years that I've practiced and practiced and have massively increased my overall technical ability / rudiments etc but I still find I use such a small percentage when I'm actually playing and struggle to use the new fills on a daily basis..
I posted a thread a while ago "What do you think about when you're playing" part of the reason was because of this and I'm sure a lot of people have the same problem.
I sit intially and practice the fill over and over until I'm faimiliar with it and then without music will play a rhythm and incorporate it into that but just don't use it when I'm playing to music.
Does anybody have any good advice on how to start then using those fills in your actual day to day playing ??
A couple points:

One, you don't have to try to incorporate everything you've practiced into your public performances. It's still of benefit to practice that stuff, because it's going to make the stuff you actually do play that much easier for you, and it's going to make it sound that much smoother, you'll play with more finesse overall.

Two, even though you might take more of a "Rush approach" to public performances--that is, planning out basically every note you're playing and ALWAYS playing things the same way, I think it's very important when you're practicing, at least, to work on being able to think/play on the fly.

So here's what you do. At least half of the time when you're practicing by yourself along with a record (and I also think it's imperative to play along with records at home, as well as sometimes playing along with just a click and/or a drum machine, because with records, you're getting used to playing with a lot of different musicians' feels), forget about trying to match what the drummer is playing on the record. Think of it as if you're that band's drummer now, and it's your responsibility to come up with drum parts for the songs. You're going to create completely new parts, and you're going to do a lot of experimenting with that.

So let's say that you had just been learning and practicing paradiddles--I'll just use that for an easy example, and let's just focus on fills for a minute. Then you put on a record to play along with, and now your task is going to be to play regular fills with the record (in-between grooves of course--in other words, though, even if the drummer isn't playing many fills on the song, you're going to for this practice session), regular fills where you're doing things based on paradiddles, BUT, you are not allowed to repeat any fill, period. Every time you play a fill, it has to be different in some way--different drums, a different rhythm (eighths? sixteenths? triplets? quintuplets? combinations of them and more, etc.), etc. (and by the way, quintuplets with paradiddle sticking are quite a challenge at first). When you play along with the song a second time, still, no repeats. You have to make up something different every fill--you're in the experimentation-while-coming-up-with-parts stage. If I were your teacher and we were doing this at a lesson, I'd probably have you do this along with a three or four minute song for about 20 minutes straight--just keep repeating the song, so I could be sure that you're having to make up fills on the fly, that you didn't preplan what you're playing.

Especially when you first start doing this, you're going to make a LOT of mistakes. You'll screw up the sticking on the paradiddle sometimes, you'll miss drums you were trying to hit, you'll get stuck in the middle because you got yourself into a jam so to speak--maybe your arms are getting tangled up trying to do something different--or maybe you just can't think of anything different, whatever. Don't worry about any of that. Just keep doing it. Try to keep time still as well as you can and move on.

Then the next week you learn something different--maybe a triple-stroke roll or something. So now you play along with a song and keep thinking of ways, on the fly, to incorporate triple strokes, without repeating anything you'd played. If you did paradiddles the week before, do a run through of the song where you alternate--something based on triple strokes, then a paradiddle fill, etc. Also try incoporating these things into the grooves you're doing and not just the fills. If I were your teacher and we were working on this, I'd probably have you do it with all of the rudiments eventually, and before long, I might do something like, "You've got to play a groove for three bars then a fill for one. At the beginning of the third bar, I'll tell you what the fill has to be based on . . . then I'd call out things like 'Flamacue incorporating your feet', 'Drag with half of the fill on the cymbals'", etc.--just stuff to keep you thinking spontaneously, on the fly.

A lot of this experimentation isn't going to sound that great if you listen back to it, maybe. That's not the point though, at this stage. The point is learning how to think on the fly and incorporate different things that you're learning so that you can do it smoothly, without too much effort. After awhile you'll get used to it and it will start to happen naturally.

And then, even if you take the Rush approach, the skill will come in handy when you really are coming up with parts for your band's original songs.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top