The "Captain Obvious" thread.

CCdrummer

Senior Member
I have been practicing my double kick mostly using a practice pad under my computer desk as of late.

I have not been paying really as much attention as I should to steadiness, time, (not using a click) etc etc.

Sat down behind my ekit the other day and immediately tried to jump in and play some double kick grooves at speeds that I THOUGHT were now attainable, turned on the click and away I went.

It was a train wreck, and the funny thing is, I kept at it for quite awhile before I applied the advice that I read on this forum probably 100 times. That is, use a click, focus on evenines, steadiness, groove, play it slow and keep it slow until you are comfortable enough to progress without losing all of the above. By the end of my 2 hour session things were starting to come around.

Strange that in spite of knowing what to do, I insisted on trying to do it wrong. Guess I just lost my patience. Ever have moments like these?
 
Interesting post because it seems to me that there are two parts of the brain at work here. One is that while you're sitting at your desk working at your feet (while also doing other things), you're burning in the neural pathways that get you where your understanding the patterns and physical execution (though, also a way to establish bad habits). The other is when you actually sit down to play those figures, you have to make them work in context. But it's a good combination.

Sometimes it's hard to be creative and let mind and limbs wander and stumble into things when your only focusing on perfect time and all that. But to then follow that more idle practice with time spent dialing in the execution and technique is a great route to development and improvement.
 
Yes I have. There's also a slight variant in which you need to hear the same thing from different people before it sinks in. For example your teacher tells you to take it slow and you're like "yeah yeah i understand" but it's not till you go see a Peter Erskine clinic and you hear him saying the same exact thing that you go "oh of course, that's what my teacher has been saying all this time, it makes sense now!" or maybe that one is just me?
 
countless times....trying to jump in and twitch away rather than focusing on controlled movements. It happens all the time.
 
Strange that in spite of knowing what to do, I insisted on trying to do it wrong. Guess I just lost my patience. Ever have moments like these?

Sure, yes, it has happen to me, more in the sense of wanting to "cut corners" as a matter of speaking, you know... you want to do that fill or that lick or whatever... but without actually taking the time to learn it as you should do, going straight into playing the fill or lick at full speed... and it doesn't happen, lol.

It will depend upon the character and view of the drummer upon his/her drumming approach to learn new things, but I think it happen to the best of us, trying to cheat and bluff our way through or we've been over-estimating our skills... then we realise that there's no short cut or we've been over-optimistic of ourselves, if we really want it, we'll have to learn it... patience and following Mr Captain Obvious proven methods remains the most effective way to progress.
 
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