Reality Check

Duracell

Senior Member
Yesterday I got a great reality check. I had bought Tommy Igoe's groove essentials and I was ready for some serious practice. Groove 1 slow was easy enough. Then I tried my hand at groove 1 fast (150-155 bpm). After playing for 10 seconds I realized I was lagging behind and couldn't keep up with the pace.

I raise my eyebrow. I think to myself..nah this can't be happening. It's the second groove in the book! So I try it again and again and again. Every time I fall face down on the floor.

I did a quick check with my old buddy the metronome and it turns out that I can't actually play 8ths on the hi-hat faster than 140 bpm. At first I felt pretty crappy about myself. But then I realized I just needed to practice those single strokes again.

Did anyone else here have a moment were they were rudely confronted with their own lack of skill? How did you deal with it?
 
Did anyone else here have a moment were they were rudely confronted with their own lack of skill?

Not rudely confronted but I'm well aware of my limitations as a self-taught drummer with pretty ordinary motor skills and a lack of desire to play dull patterns on a practice pad to sort out the faults in my grip and stroke.


How did you deal with it?

I'm in a chillout band that plays a lot of slow tunes :)
 
I had exactly that experience. And it was with Groove Essentials too. I found that I always struggle right before I get it. My hands seem to speed up and I get in the pocket. I think it is like running or bicycling. You can't hang with the big dogs on day one, but everyday I come back to the kit after getting dropped, I am closer to being able to hang. Actually I am glad you described that, thought I was the only one.



Yesterday I got a great reality check. I had bought Tommy Igoe's groove essentials and I was ready for some serious practice. Groove 1 slow was easy enough. Then I tried my hand at groove 1 fast (150-155 bpm). After playing for 10 seconds I realized I was lagging behind and couldn't keep up with the pace.

I raise my eyebrow. I think to myself..nah this can't be happening. It's the second groove in the book! So I try it again and again and again. Every time I fall face down on the floor.

I did a quick check with my old buddy the metronome and it turns out that I can't actually play 8ths on the hi-hat faster than 140 bpm. At first I felt pretty crappy about myself. But then I realized I just needed to practice those single strokes again.

Did anyone else here have a moment were they were rudely confronted with their own lack of skill? How did you deal with it?
 
Don't worry too much about it.

I had a similar humbling experience from GE. I don't remember the number but it was one of the first fast two-handed sixteenth grooves. If I recall, it was around 140bpm or so too. To keep that up...along with the correct foot pattern was quite a challenge. It really comes down to working on each aspect that is giving you trouble. You've already determined that you need to work on your singles (who doesn't?). That's a good place to start.

What I did to get everything up to tempo was just practice it to a metronome and increased the tempo when I felt comfortable. I also used other play alongs (or actual songs) that were a pretty quick tempo. Eventually you will reach your tempo goal and rock that 'Groove 1 fast'.

Good luck.
 
i'm a big player of tommy igoe grooves but there are a few in the first book i still can't play and it was a shock to my system when i first tried. they're too fast! for example, i can't play the samba "medium" groove the way tommy igoe plays it. he plays eighth notes on the hats, but the tempo is something like 230 bpm, which is faster than i can play eighth notes for more that a few bars. i have to "dumb down" that groove and leave out some notes. then there's the "fast" samba, which is ludicrous fast at about 270 bpm. i have managed to play it using my dumbed down technique, but i can't play it cleanly.
 
8ths at... 270bpm!?

Man...and I'm having problems at half that speed....

Relax- most people start mixing the rhythm up well below even the 230bpm below. I don't think I play 8ths on a samba over ~200, and then not for the entire tune. The fast 8ths are a little bit of a feel-killer to me- they just sound hyperactive above a certain tempo.

Re: your OP- 140 is about the cutoff for most people's way of playing moderate tempos, with the big muscle groups. You probably need to modify your technique a bit- usually this means using more wrist, stopping playing "into" the instrument, and playing lower (<8").
 
i'm a big player of tommy igoe grooves but there are a few in the first book i still can't play and it was a shock to my system when i first tried. they're too fast! for example, i can't play the samba "medium" groove the way tommy igoe plays it. he plays eighth notes on the hats, but the tempo is something like 230 bpm, which is faster than i can play eighth notes for more that a few bars. i have to "dumb down" that groove and leave out some notes. then there's the "fast" samba, which is ludicrous fast at about 270 bpm. i have managed to play it using my dumbed down technique, but i can't play it cleanly.

Actually, I think the hardest groove is 14 fast. It's something like 210bpm eights on the hihat with only one rest every two bars. To play it relaxed and cleanly is really hard. Medium samba is something like 220bpm but it has the accent pattern on the hi-hat so you can use moeller for that and it's marginally easier. Fast samba is actually easier than medium samba because of the right hand pattern it has.

Those are also the grooves I have struggled the most with. But there are also some variations that give me trouble like the 32th notes spread between different limbs on one of the hip-hop grooves.

Hmm, I have had a break from GE for some weeks now, maybe I should check if I had made some progress again. =)
 
Actually, I think the hardest groove is 14 fast. It's something like 210bpm eights on the hihat with only one rest every two bars. To play it relaxed and cleanly is really hard. Medium samba is something like 220bpm but it has the accent pattern on the hi-hat so you can use moeller for that and it's marginally easier. Fast samba is actually easier than medium samba because of the right hand pattern it has.

yeah, i can't play groove 14 either.

the only way i can play medium samba is to cheat and leave out notes. i use the same ride pattern tommy igoe suggests for the fast samba and it sound pretty good, actually. the fast samba is more like a "survival" groove for me. at 270 bpm i can barely play the bass drum doubles that fast, and the ride pattern is really pushing the speed limit of what i can play. i'm getting better at it though. maybe someday i'll be able to nail it.
 
This book sounds frightening! Should i buy it? i am still a novice at drumming.

Not at all. Everyone here is talking about the difficult/fast ones, there are plenty of easy/moderate/slow ones. I'm new too and love the GE books/CDs. For most grooves there's a slow (80-110 bpm) and a fast (140+) version.
 
Not at all. Everyone here is talking about the difficult/fast ones, there are plenty of easy/moderate/slow ones. I'm new too and love the GE books/CDs. For most grooves there's a slow (80-110 bpm) and a fast (140+) version.

Ok cool because i have heard a lot of hype about this im glad its not some super advanced book that i need to wait for.
 
The uptempo Jazz grooves kick my Butt,the fast R and B one handed 16th's too.I love the world beat section.But there is plenty on it within the grasp of a new player,and it is well filmed in that you can break stuff down with slow motion if you are struggling with some thing.
 
@Fuo and Migaluch

Groove essentials (1.0) is totally worth it. The nice thing about the book is that it presents grooves of various skill levels. You can always come back to the ones you can't play later. Another nice thing (possibly the nicest thing) is that the focus is not at all at speed or insane figures. It's all about the groove. A mentality I can really get into.

The reason that groove 1 (fast) is such a reality check for me is because the actual pattern is easy. Actually it's just about the easiest pattern you can do with 3 limbs. So when I saw the notes I felt like I would breeze through it. Then the speed nailed me.

Oh and I'm a beginner as well 11 months playing now.

You can check out samples from groove essentials 1.0 and 2.0 on the website (http://www.drummerworld.com/drummers/Tommy_Igoe.html).
 
This book sounds frightening! Should i buy it? i am still a novice at drumming.

Absolutely. It is a great beginners book. Good for intermediates too. Don't know if it works for superheroes but I suspect it does. He has a great teaching style IMHO.
 
Absolutely. It is a great beginners book. Good for intermediates too. Don't know if it works for superheroes but I suspect it does. He has a great teaching style IMHO.

I agree. It's actually amazing for all skill levels because by the time you get to the world section (mambo/songo etc...) those grooves are much much harder coordination wise, than say the rock grooves. So advanced players will be able to dig into those grooves and variations. That's why he saved them for the end of the book, I guess.

GE 2.0 is ONLY for intermediate to advanced, it's a lot more challenging than 1.0. The songs in 2.0 are really inspiring to play fills and solos.
 
Did anyone else here have a moment were they were rudely confronted with their own lack of skill? How did you deal with it?
Obsessive/compulsive woodshedding. I would just do it as slow as I needed to so that I was playing it "right", and do it over, and over, and over, and over, etc. and gradually try to speed it up--until I could comfortably do it beyond the tempo I needed to play it at. Takes a lot of patience and probably more in the way of O/C tendencies, maybe irrational persistence, etc. You have to be not willing to admit defeat while getting kind of annoyed that you temporarily can't do something. So you'll keep working at it until you kick its butt.
 
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Obsessive/compulsive woodshedding. I would just do it as slow as I could so that I was playing it "right", and do it over, and over, and over, and over, etc. and gradually try to speed it up--until I could comfortably do it beyond the tempo I needed to play it at. Takes a lot of patience and probably more in the way of O/C tendencies, maybe irrational persistence, etc. You have to be not willing to admit defeat while getting kind of annoyed that you temporarily can't do something. So you'll keep working at it until you kick its butt.
I'm young, talented, motivated, ultra focussed, obsessional, single, a ton of money, all the time I ever need,-------- whoaarrh, I just woke up!

Seriously, get it right, oh, & did I mention get it right? Then speed up slowly. Brew is spot on the money with that. BTW, once you've got it up to speed, do something even more difficult, play it ultra slow, like 30bpm or less.
 
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