Where does one even start with progressive metal?

cantstoplt021

Senior Member
Recently a new genre of music has unexpectedly entered my life, progressive metal. Rather quickly it's become one of my favorite styles of music to listen to and is insanely inspiring as a drummer. The drummers in this style are all very good, but I have no idea where to start with the music. Are there books out there that address this style? I'm not a fan of most metal in general, but this stuff I love. Examples of bands that I like are: Plini, Intervals, TesseracT, Animals as Leaders (just insanity).
 
Metal is pretty formulaic, and well documented enough that you can probably pick up most of the things people play through just through youtube videos and whatever books/videos are out. These mathy bands don't seem too far removed from that. I would just be learning your Metal vocabulary and really working on your odd meters-- counting, reading rhythms, playing accented singles. You'll probably have to use non-Metal books for that, and then use your knowledge to figure out what the guys in the bands are doing. Try Even In The Odds, Odd Meter Calisthenics, Odd Time Reading Text, Patterns vol. 1., and/or Odd Time Stickings.
 
It's tough to say what you should work on without knowing where your at.

I wouldn't tell you to work on your odd time or independence if your a new drummer struggling with a simple beat.

Treat all music the same. Listen to it as much as you can. Try and pick out what the drums are doing. Try and play along to some of the easier stuff. find the stuff that is most difficult and work on it.

I would first make sure you had good independence in all 4 limbs before starting.

and do you have a double pedal?
 
Counting and feel.

Instead of diving in at the deep and with AAL which is mental, go back to the roots of prog. Gabriel Genesis, Bruford era Yes, King Crimson, ELP, Rush.

For odd time signatures and feel I'd go something that isn't rock/metal or progressive. Time Out by Dave Brubeck.
 
The most important thing to do is master your basics. So, for example, if you can't hold a 1 minute single stroke roll at 150bpm with your hands and feet, then this is something you'll need to work on.

Get yourself a good Double Bass Drumming book - I recommend The Encyclopedia of Double Bass Drumming and/or Virgil Donati's Double Bass Freedom. I have both. The Encyclopedia is what I used when I was first learning double bass and it was a tremendous help but Virgil's book (which didn't exist back then) should be just as useful to beginners.

A lot of prog utilises odd-time signatures as guys have stated. The best thing you can do to become accustomed to playing these is simply to expose yourself to the music and try to count it. Eventually it becomes instinctive to play in signatures such as 7/4, 7/8 and even 19/16 is not as hard as it sounds.

Don't try to emulate exactly what guys like Matt Garska are doing straight off the bat. Remember what I said about mastering the basics? You need to understand the patterns and concepts that these guys are applying. They're not necessarily thinking in terms of individual notes, more likely they're thinking in groupings of notes, or phrases. You may hear a linear pattern which sounds like a blur of notes, but to them it's just a grouping of for example RLrrllBB.

For these sorts of linear patterns I can highly recommend getting Sticking Patterns by Gary Chaffee - and have a look on Youtube for ideas on linear patterns to see how they can be applied.

The first prog song I ever learned was Pyramids on Mars by on the Virg. I only had about 3 years experience at the time and the main groove has a kick drum polyrhythm played in a 7/4 feel. It was hard work to listen to it and learn it at the time but it was the gateway for me and totally changed everything. Sometimes it's good to just throw yourself in the deep end.


But definitely start trying to play along with some easier prog songs, e.g., Overture 1928 by Dream Theater. Never stop counting while you're listening and learning, especially in periods of silence or pauses that may throw off your count.

Lastly, the main thing to remember with guys in these bands is that they spend a LOT of time playing and experimenting. Don't be daunted by however many years of experience they have compared to yourself - consider their experience a gift for you to learn from! Don't be one of those guys who watches a great solo and says "Gee I want to quit drumming now!" Get out the pencil and manuscript paper and write down some ideas in odd-time signatures. Get yourself a copy of MuseScore and learn how to use it to notate ideas. Try to start transcribing music as that will help you listen to music more easily and learn faster.
 
Troy Wright on Youtube is a very, very good source for this genre(just search "troy wright drums"). Not only does he have high quality drum covers of these bands, but he also offers full transcriptions of the material. Some of these are ultra advanced and technical, but they are accurately transcribed. It will give you months of practice material for sure. He is an absolute beast, check him out.
 
Coming from someone with 7400+ posts on this forum?

If you're not interested maybe you should keep out of it.
 
...

In this day & age of google, youtube, vimeo etc, you ask... sigh..

Maybe he's looking for someone to point him in the direction of some good YouTube/Vimeo videos to start with. If you just go searching for that stuff on YouTube, with no direction, you sometimes have to wade through all kinds of bs just to find something halfway decent. It's like going into a huge shopping mall, and asking if there's a directory somewhere, and the mall employee says "*sigh*, there are stores all over this place, just go find the store you want".

I don't understand the point of deliberately clicking into someone's thread just to tell them why they shouldn't have posted it. Not everything is for everybody. If you don't like it, move on. No reason to make someone feel bad for trying to gain knowledge, however they choose to do so.
 
I think we need more of a back story.

Does he listen to and know this music? that is number 1... If you want to learn a genera surround yourself in it.. know the patterns, flow, feel, tempos, etc.

what is his drumming skill. Is he just starting asking to play prog metal? is the guy a competent drummer trying to venture into a new style?

I'm not sure if he needs drum lessons or links to videos to hear the popular tunes.
 
I think we need more of a back story.

Does he listen to and know this music? that is number 1... If you want to learn a genera surround yourself in it.. know the patterns, flow, feel, tempos, etc.

what is his drumming skill. Is he just starting asking to play prog metal? is the guy a competent drummer trying to venture into a new style?

I'm not sure if he needs drum lessons or links to videos to hear the popular tunes.

Yeah, more info would be helpful
 
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