Consistent timing.

It seems I use this forum for asking peoples opinions on things more than anything else. I can't help it, there are just so many knowledgeable people here

So, practicing with a metronome has definitely helped with things like generally staying in time and not rushing fills etc, but what it isn't helping me with is getting my timing of strokes tighter. Things like getting your bass drum timing really tight and making all the strokes of your fills even and smooth. I'm just not happy with the cleanness of my playing in general.

Is there anything you guys can recommend to improve this or did it just come to you over time?

Thanks.

this is something i happen to be working on right now. there's a couple things i've been doing to work on bass drum timing. one thing i do is set my metronome to click every sixteenth note. that's a lot of clicks but when i play my grooves to that i can tell when the bass drum hits are not falling right on the clicks.

another thing i've been doing more recently is using a drum machine app i downloaded for my phone called "idrum". i program complete grooves into that and play along to them to see how exactly i can match them. that works pretty well because i can definitely hear when i'm not exactly matching the drum machine.

Not being happy with your cleanliness is a much bigger step than you'd think, probably as important if not more than actually getting the thing fixed. You see, if you don't know what's wrong, how are you supposed to adress it in the first place?
Take it slow, and make sure your strokes are all coming in nicely. Also, focus on the big picture; how is the fill sounding as a whole? How is it feeling? If you conveyed what you had in mind, further analysis isn't all that relevant. Being so focused about each stroke, the techniques or specific stickings sometimes makes you forget about that macro that's what really matters.


Fox.

Fox622003 said:

Not being happy with your cleanliness is a much bigger step than you'd think, probably as important if not more than actually getting the thing fixed. You see, if you don't know what's wrong, how are you supposed to adress it in the first place?
Take it slow, and make sure your strokes are all coming in nicely. Also, focus on the big picture; how is the fill sounding as a whole? How is it feeling? If you conveyed what you had in mind, further analysis isn't all that relevant. Being so focused about each stroke, the techniques or specific stickings sometimes makes you forget about that macro that's what really matters.


Fox.

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I'm still not sure how to improve my playing as a whole. Should I be slowing down and making sure EVERYTHING I do is smooth. Does that mean I can't play anything fast and need to spend a long time working up to speed properly? I'm not sure how it works.

That helps to a point, slowing it down will definitely even things out. Do your fills feel like they groove internally or are you treating them as something outside the rest of your bars?

chaymus said:

That helps to a point, slowing it down will definitely even things out. Do your fills feel like they groove internally or are you treating them as something outside the rest of your bars?

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I'm not sure, I probably treat them as something different. I'm sure they don't groove as well as they could. I try to keep the beat going in my head either by tapping my hi hat food or accenting the notes that are on the beat, or just imagining it in my head. But it's difficult

Record yourself and listen back very carefully to check it out. Along with that, practice every groove no matter how simple and play it long enough to study each individual hand and then cross check the hands and feet. The more you do this to line everything up perfectly, the more it will become habit for you to play totally totally locked in within yourself.

good luck, Bill

Fox622003 said:

Not being happy with your cleanliness is a much bigger step than you'd think, probably as important if not more than actually getting the thing fixed. You see, if you don't know what's wrong, how are you supposed to adress it in the first place?
Take it slow, and make sure your strokes are all coming in nicely. Also, focus on the big picture; how is the fill sounding as a whole? How is it feeling? If you conveyed what you had in mind, further analysis isn't all that relevant. Being so focused about each stroke, the techniques or specific stickings sometimes makes you forget about that macro that's what really matters.


Fox.

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+1 Cleanliness doesn't matter nearly as much as it seems. As long as the pulse is consistent, and the song is respected, then it doesn't matter. I take my students through some fills and dirty 'em up, then clean them up, and it all sounds good as long as its played musically - played with phrasing in mind.

But as far as getting things really clean, what has helped me the most is polyrhythms. A cross 3 pulse over the groove will do WONDERS for making everything snap to the grid. If I don't program in drum machine beats (which is a dnager, honestly.. while you want to be consistent, you don't WANT to sound like a drum machine. At least, I don't! IMO there is a lot of complexity in what we play, and plugging it into a drum machine reduces that complexity, actually dumbing down the music.

I will program in the pattern I'm working on if I can't hear the pattern as a whole in my head yet. Otherwise I'll program in a quarter note pulse, half note pulse, whole note pule, quarter trip pulse - adjusted to suit. I'll usually down everything down low but the half note + whole not pulse, but that depends on the groove in question.

ludakot said:

I'm not sure, I probably treat them as something different. I'm sure they don't groove as well as they could. I try to keep the beat going in my head either by tapping my hi hat food or accenting the notes that are on the beat, or just imagining it in my head. But it's difficult

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If you aren't sure, then that's what your doing. When you have it grooving internally, you'll know it.

If it helps at all, there is another way to go about doing it that is easy. You're going about things the hard way - same as I did for a long time. Its hard to describe - which is one reason you don't hear about this that much, but if you "feel for" the groove, rather than "think about" then it will be there. The more you try to grab it, the faster it disappears.

Groove is a conversation, not a lecture.

If you check out my blog I wrote a suggestion for loosening up grip. However, I mostly use this for another reason.... I use it all the time to find my way back to music when my head is in the wrong spot. I learned it by asking "What do you do on a bad day" at clinics. Its one of the two most common answers I would get from the pros.

What it can do is allow you to let go of the parts of your mind that are over thinking things, and let the music come out naturally.

ludakot said:

I'm still not sure how to improve my playing as a whole. Should I be slowing down and making sure EVERYTHING I do is smooth. Does that mean I can't play anything fast and need to spend a long time working up to speed properly? I'm not sure how it works.

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Yes. The first stage in fixing a problem is recognising it's there. Don't be afraid to break everything down (like you'd take an engine apart to work on it) to a basic level to work on a single aspect (and a very, very important one) at a slow pace. You won't suddenly forget how to play at performance tempi.

You've established that you aren't satisfied with the smoothness of your playing, particularly the evenness of your stroke heights/lengths. So, slow down and work on it. You need to work slowly so that the thinking part of your brain can analyse and process the motions you're making in real time. As Bill said, focus on one limb at a time and really get inside what you're doing. You don't work on an engine running at full speed unless you're suicidal.

Work on maintaining a constant stick height/volume and being able to switch between two (or more) levels with ease. You will have to go slow at first, but eventually you'll develop the control to do it more quickly. The more you do this in practice, the more it will creep into your performance.

An added benefit is that your time may also improve from working slowly, for two reasons:

1) if two strokes begin from the same height and travel toward the drum and back to their starting position at the same rate of speed, they should take the same amount of time. Taking the time to really get control of your strokes will pay off for controlling the space between notes in your grooves.
2) working slowly will help you feel/hear the space between notes in various subdivisions which is where the real nuances of time are. Moreover, if you can feel steady quarters at 50 BPM, you can feel steady half notes at 100, or steady whole notes at 200. So working slowly is also working on your "big picture" time at higher tempos.

Take it easy. Get friendly with 60 BPM or lower. There's a whole universe down there that many drummers never explore.

Sorry for the late reply, been drumming like a mad man! I've really had a lot of inspiration lately.


Thanks for all the help, back to drumming.

ludakot said:

I'm still not sure how to improve my playing as a whole.

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BillBachman said:

Record yourself and listen back very carefully to check it out.

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Seriously, do what Bill says. It addresses the WHOLE. Also do what everybody else says for sure, but recording/listening is a MUST. If you are serious about improving, you will do what you have to, to record yourself. You will learn so much about what you don't like about your playing on just one listen, that the next time you get on the set....that's when the real improvements start happening. You don't have the brainpower to play the drums and analyze them at the same time yet. This is a goal. When you listen back to recordings, you have all your brainpower to realize where you are tripping up, as opposed to when you're playing, you're using all your brainpower to play. You need to develop a special area of the brain that is the "all seeing eye"...separate and independent from the brainpower you use to control your limbs. Recording and listening back is the first step in developing this extra "tool"

After getting a teacher, it's the 2nd best thing you can do to improve yourself, for real.

For cleaner fills, play them to a click really slowly over and over so that your muscles memorise the movement. Then, gradually knock up the tempo, after alot of practice, they should be sounding clean and precise.

I agree with the idea of recording yourself to. This can help you evaluate yourself after you play, and really think about what your doing wrong and how to improve.

Apart from that, just keep practicing!