STICK CONTROL (George L Stone) Your experiences and suggestions

Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

Yea I love this book! In my opinion it's the most essential book for someone to have if they are serious about drumming. I've been working on this book for quite some time now, took a little break (unwillingly) from it because of school (The amount of reading I have to do is amazing haha). I just began starting it up again, and I decided to start from the beginning even though I was well into it. It's just a great book.
 
Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

jazzsnob said:
So how exactly are you using stick control?

Exactly the way you described, using the freestroke.
 
Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

Hey gang, just checking in for a post- this thread's right up my alley right now.
At school, I'm studying with the best cat in town for technique- a guy name of Dave Laing who's got chops coming out you know where, and the musicality and creativity to go along with it, so we're going to cover Stick Control this semester, Master Studies the next.
Now, while the method that JazzSnob posted is pretty much tearing at my soul and destroying my heart with the intensity of it all, this way isn't half bad either. This is posted verbatim from printout he gave me.
David C. Laing's Recipe for Success In All That You Have Ever Wanted to Accomplish (ie. how to really play the s-- out of a set of drums)
Ingredients: George L. Stone's Stick Control, three months, a stopwatch, an iron will and a rock hard disposition!
Directions: Take the Stone book, open to the first playing page, play each example in the following fashion:
- Turn metronome to 60, play in eighth notes the first example. Start stopwatch. When you reach 80 seconds, double time to 120 in eighth notes. This should result in you playing said example twenty times as so described in introduction of book.
-This should take you 48 minutes a page. Do three pages at a time, spend a week on each unit of three pages.
- Keep it quiet, from the p to mezzo dynamic range- control is accomplished by soft playing... make sure everything is consistent and perfect. You are not allowed to make mistakes, under fear of eternal torment from the ghosts of Buddy Rich, Billy Gladstone and Mr. Stone for sloppiness.
- Keep this up for 6-8 weeks. You shall see the results. You shall see.
There you go- a nice new routine for some of you all who are frightened by JazzSnob's level of commitment (by the way you should get recording with some jaaaazzzz stuff man. I bet you're killin that stuff!)
My teacher is obviously a little idiosyncratic, weird and eccentric... but man, am I ever learning things...
 
Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

theduke86 said:
Take the Stone book, open to the first playing page, play each example in the following fashion:
- Turn metronome to 60, play in eighth notes the first example. Start stopwatch. When you reach 80 seconds, double time to 120 in eighth notes. This should result in you playing said example twenty times as so described in introduction of book.
-This should take you 48 minutes a page. Do three pages at a time, spend a week on each unit of three pages.
- Keep it quiet, from the p to mezzo dynamic range- control is accomplished by soft playing... make sure everything is consistent and perfect. You are not allowed to make mistakes, under fear of eternal torment from the ghosts of Buddy Rich, Billy Gladstone and Mr. Stone for sloppiness.
- Keep this up for 6-8 weeks. You shall see the results. You shall see.
There you go- a nice new routine for some of you all who are frightened by JazzSnob's level of commitment ...

Thanks Duke....
You must have read my mind about Jazzsnob's method cause there is NO WAY I have the time, patience, nor mental capacitiy to stick with his program :p

I will try this out for a while (until I get bored) cause I do feel my technique is holding my back from playing at the level and control I want to be at....
 
Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

Hey Duke--
Well, believe it or not I'm not even doing my posted routine right now. I'm doing some work specifically on my left hand because I'm trying to get my traditional grip ergonomically perfect. So I'm not ready for my own method yet. I originally got up to 144 or something but when I start again I'll probably have to take it down a notch. I spent some time screwing around with the method you posted and it's pretty awesome I must say. It works the muscles in a very different way. And believe it or not Duke, I have no jazz groups to play with. I've been going to some jam sessions in the city, but I'm only working with rock bands and a fusion band right now. Can find any great piano players or horn players. And I'm really not down with a guitar/bass/drums jazz group. I just hate that instrumentation.
 
Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

theduke86 said:
Hey gang, just checking in for a post- this thread's right up my alley right now.
At school, I'm studying with the best cat in town for technique- a guy name of Dave Laing who's got chops coming out you know where, and the musicality and creativity to go along with it, so we're going to cover Stick Control this semester, Master Studies the next.
Now, while the method that JazzSnob posted is pretty much tearing at my soul and destroying my heart with the intensity of it all, this way isn't half bad either. This is posted verbatim from printout he gave me.
David C. Laing's Recipe for Success In All That You Have Ever Wanted to Accomplish (ie. how to really play the s-- out of a set of drums)
Ingredients: George L. Stone's Stick Control, three months, a stopwatch, an iron will and a rock hard disposition!
Directions: Take the Stone book, open to the first playing page, play each example in the following fashion:
- Turn metronome to 60, play in eighth notes the first example. Start stopwatch. When you reach 80 seconds, double time to 120 in eighth notes. This should result in you playing said example twenty times as so described in introduction of book.
-This should take you 48 minutes a page. Do three pages at a time, spend a week on each unit of three pages.
- Keep it quiet, from the p to mezzo dynamic range- control is accomplished by soft playing... make sure everything is consistent and perfect. You are not allowed to make mistakes, under fear of eternal torment from the ghosts of Buddy Rich, Billy Gladstone and Mr. Stone for sloppiness.
- Keep this up for 6-8 weeks. You shall see the results. You shall see.
There you go- a nice new routine for some of you all who are frightened by JazzSnob's level of commitment (by the way you should get recording with some jaaaazzzz stuff man. I bet you're killin that stuff!)
My teacher is obviously a little idiosyncratic, weird and eccentric... but man, am I ever learning things...
Thank you so much. I have a couple of questions for you if you do not mind.

Question 1, how long are practicing each line? 80 seconds at 60 then 40 seconds at 120?

Question 2, do you practice 3 pages each night for a total of 144 minutes? Or, one page each day?

I have been doing jazz snobs routine. It is already making a difference. But, I just don't see being able to do this for 2 to 3 straight years.
 
Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

mikei said:
Question 1, how long are practicing each line? 80 seconds at 60 then 40 seconds at 120?

Question 2, do you practice 3 pages each night for a total of 144 minutes? Or, one page each day?


He Mikei

I had the same interrogations when I've read Duke's routine as well.

But I've done the maths, and I came to the same conclusions as yours.

80 seconds at 60 (played in eight notes) leads exactly to 20 repetitions.

Obviously, when you doubletime to 120, your 20 repetitions take 40 seconds, hence 2 minutes per exercise, and 48 minutes per page.

That sounds very slow tempos for page 5-6-7 to me, but as you progress to the book, it must become very challenging.

For pages 5-6-7, what I like to do myself is set the metronoome to 90, played cut-time as written, 30 seconds for each exercise (12 minutes par page). Also leads to about 20 repetitions of each.
 
Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

JazzSnob- Glad you liked it, sounds like you got it figured out man.
Mike- 80 at regular time, 40 at double time. It works out to 20.... which is the way George wanted you to play it. I usually practice two or three pages at a time, but you can do any amount you want, really. Because I'm studying with this teacher for two years, he runs all of his students through stick control for six weeks, then he gets to whatever you want to do for the rest of the time you study with him- he just wants to make sure you have control of the basics. However, I have been informed that using this method, you can do as many pages at a time as you want... it's a matter of mastering the specific pages, so I do the routine 5 or 6 times, say a week on one page. You can do other pages at the same time, or do one at a time and use six months to go through the book. It's flexible to what you want. If you want to spend 24 minutes a day working on technique, do half a page, 48 minutes, do a full page. I'm doing 48 minutes three times a day, so it works out to like 144 minutes or something, but do whatever you want.
 
Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

It is funny,

I want to do your program, at 60 at 8ths (120 per minute) I am fine, but when I double the tempo, my left hand form is not perfect. Especially during the triples and quadruples.

I know that 120 with 8ths is easy for most, and again, I can do it, but my form on my left had starts to show. Should I start at 50 and then double? Or, do it at 60, double and eventually my form will get better on my left hand.

Now, I am doing 100 at 8ths, so it isn't much slower than the 120, but enough to be noticable.

What is your advice.
 
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Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

jazzsnob said:
This is an awesome thread, and I hope it gets stickied. I'll add the way I learned.

This is by no means the only way to do stick control, but this is a proven way to get some serious technique together. It requires A LOT of patience, and I don’t suggest starting it if you aren’t going to finish it. It’s EXTREMELY difficult sometimes. And also, the method takes about 3-5 years to complete. And you only practice the first page of the book.

THE JIMMY SAGE/CHUCK BROWN/BILLY GLADSTONE METHOD FOR STICK CONTROL.
Set your metronome to an 8th note of about 100. Most drummers should be able to do anything on the first page at that tempo after a few minutes of messing around. Now spend an entire week working(I’m sorry, I don’t have my book with me, so I don’t have exact numbers) on the . Just singles, doubles, and the first paradiddle exercise. Only those two , extremely slow. The doubles and paradiddles should sound EXACTLY like singles. It’s good to go over this method with a teacher, or to record yourself doing it on a snare drum to make sure everything is perfect. Then, one week later, you practice single, doubles, and the next exercise, inverted paradiddles(RLLRLRRL). If it takes you two weeks to get it perfect, fine. Give youself time on these excercises.

Another difficult part of the exercise is that every minute or so you should raise your stick to at least a 12-16 inch height and play at that height for 8 measures. Then you bring in back down. You must do this perfectly in time and make sure all the strokes are still uniform in dynamic and tonal quality and all that jibba jabba. This will give you “good pain” after a while, your muscles WILL get sore, but they will never give you terrible pain.

Remember, just like G.L. Stone said, stay relaxed 100% of the time, even when you go up. You should be putting at least 30 minutes a day into these excercises.


So you spend 2 months, going through excercises 5-24 or something at tempo 100. Done now? Great! Now you do it all over again at 104! and 108! and 112! and 116! and so on!. Never go up more then one click on a metronome when starting the page over.




The reason this exercise method is so difficult is because you have to be so patient. A lot of younger drummers especially want to start faster, speed up the next day, blah blah blah. If you do that you WILL NOT IMPROVE AS QUICKLY. This exercise really seriously does require patience. It apparently takes an entire year to get from 200 to 208.


The reasons this exercise is GREAT are numerous. First of all, you are always working on singles and doubles. Singles and doubles are what most of drumming is made of. Second of all, spending a couple weeks on only one combination of 8 notes makes you completely intimate with the pattern, and you will be able to interchange it in time with any feel you want. I guarantee you that by the time you finish this exercise(in 2112 or so) you will have some SERIOUS technique. One of my drum teacher’s older students is on 176 or something(he's been doing for 3 1/2 years) and has some crazy technical abilities.

Good technique means you can learn parts faster.

Yay for good technique!


p.s. do these excercises on a practice pad with LOTS of rebound. Don't worry, you won't need a pillow to "feel the burn" once you get to about 138 or so.


Post of the year, am going to start using it. Btw When you said bring it back down what stick height are you using?
Oh and whose your teacher?
Stick Control never gets old.
Chris
 
Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

meandhimcallitus said:
Post of the year, am going to start using it. Btw When you said bring it back down what stick height are you using?
Oh and whose your teacher?
Stick Control never gets old.
Chris

When you go down, you just go as low as you can while still fully utilizing rebound, about 2 inches I guess.

My drum teacher is Jimmy Sage. He does a ton of studio work in the Bay Area, and his main gig is with Lee Rocker(of Stray Cats fame). He also plays with an awesome fusion group called Heavy Rubber. Check out http://www.leerocker.com to hear some amazing grooves. He's also an incredible technician. He teaches the Gladstone technique exclusively, and even though he respects the Moeller method, he doesn't use it at all. If you're ever in the Bay Area, seek him out. Trust me. He can teach you anything you want.
 
Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

HERES A GOOD BASIC KIT DRILL .... USING STICKING COMBINATIONS ...
Play pages 5,6,7 of Stick Control and play for example all RH strokes on Ride or Hi Hat and LH strokes on snare. Try 1 and 3 or 4 on the floor with KIk to start and vary your dynamics with the hand patterns. Hi Hat can play 2 and 4 or 4 on the floor with Rh hand on Ride cymbal. Some sound quite funky such as line 5 which is the PARADIDDLE.. ah yes rudimental stickings are a lot of fun_ky. Play each line as 2 bars of 8ths in 4/4 time instead of Cut time.



Another kit based drill is to play each stroke with a swung shuffled feel as 8th note triplets with the above method still using pages 5,6,7.

Take line 1 as an example on page 5.
The single sticking thats written

R.. L.. R.. L..
>.. >.. >.. >..
R 7 r L 7 l R 7 r L 7 l
1 7 let 2 7 let3 7 let 4 7 let .................... counted thusly so each line would become 4 bars of common time

MAKE SURE TO ACCENT THE DOWNBEATS.


Play from first line page 5 thru page 6 to last line page 7 non stop reading down the pages playing each line 1X .
Start at a medium slow tempo say around 80 bpm and really swing hard to develop a strong shuffled lope.
It will take 1 page which is now 96 bars long at 4 bars a line played at 80 bpm just under 5 minutes per page approx. So all three pages around 15 minutes give or take.
After you can execute everthing cleanly bump up the tempo another 10 bpm and do it all again.

Blues and Jazz..
Swing feels,texas shuffles,doubles and lots of interdependance benifits.


Hope you enjoy ........





Ciao for now,
 
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Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

Hmm, wouldn't it be a good idea to practice both jazzsnob's and theduke's methods? It seems jazzsnob's method includes more muscle development in addition to control, while theduke's routine focuses more on control. It seems it would be a good idea to play through both of these routines, maybe during different times of the day. They both seem like excellent ways to develop control.
 
Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

Gil_drummer said:
Hmm, wouldn't it be a good idea to practice both jazzsnob's and theduke's methods? It seems jazzsnob's method includes more muscle development in addition to control, while theduke's routine focuses more on control. It seems it would be a good idea to play through both of these routines, maybe during different times of the day. They both seem like excellent ways to develop control.


Hey man, if you have the time, go for it.
 
Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

mikei said:
It is funny,

I want to do your program, at 60 at 8ths (120 per minute) I am fine, but when I double the tempo, my left hand form is not perfect. Especially during the triples and quadruples.

I know that 120 with 8ths is easy for most, and again, I can do it, but my form on my left had starts to show. Should I start at 50 and then double? Or, do it at 60, double and eventually my form will get better on my left hand.

Now, I am doing 100 at 8ths, so it isn't much slower than the 120, but enough to be noticable.

What is your advice.
Don't worry, you'll get it. Pay lots of attention to that left hand, and if it's really bothering you, slow it down. The idea is that you are supposed to practice each page five to seven times, so it really soaks in. Just keep working, and the control will come. It always does, just keep working it.
 
Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

There were definitely some great posts here for Stick Control.. with the hands of course. I know many people suggest using the book's exercises for the feet as well. Though the book was designed for the hands, applying the same concepts to the feet has been a suggestion from many drummers. Does anyone have a particular routine they go through for stick..err foot control ?
 
Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

Just a quick question for people working through the book,
do you think a drummer with not alot of experience could work through the book?
by not alot of experience, i mean i haven't even learnt a song yet (i'm at the bottom end of the drumming spectrum).

I ask because i was looking through these pages, and although i could decipher some of what you were saying, it all still seems daunting and confusing.
 
Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

yes. and welcome to the hobby. my advice would be to, for now, ignore most of the book. as a new drummer you should only really be concentrating on the first 8 exercises. try to get comfortable with each one and then work on a schedule of playing each of the 8 for at least a minute or two everyday (15 minutes in total) at a stready easy tempo.

you are making a great start in your drumming. i wish i knew about GLS when i first started. i would strongly suggest also studying the dvds by tommy igoe (getting started and groove essentials) at this stage in conjunction with the first 8 exercises. don't rush as well. if you take four months just on those 8 exercises you will be doing well. then add two or four at a time but i wouldn't even go onto the next page until after a year of very regular work. so 15 minutes on GLS and 15 on the igoe stuff ...at the least...everyday. really concentrate on keeping all the beats even and at the same volume (initially). a year of this will set you up for life.

j
 
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Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

I had Stick Control a couple years ago but it got stolen from me(AAUURG!!!) but some of the ideas on here have inspired me to reorder the book and make it part of my practice......One thing someone turned me onto was to play some of the paradidle invertions(I can't remember what #) with a samba kick/hi-hat ostinato under them. Great for independance!
 
Re: STICK CONTROL (george L stone) your experiences and suggestions

HardcoreLogo said:
I had Stick Control a couple years ago but it got stolen from me(AAUURG!!!) but some of the ideas on here have inspired me to reorder the book and make it part of my practice......One thing someone turned me onto was to play some of the paradidle invertions(I can't remember what #) with a samba kick/hi-hat ostinato under them. Great for independance!
How did it get stolen? What is the world coming to when a man's most precious book gets stolen!
 
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