BillBachman
Gold Member
This started out as a response to another post, but I think it may be useful in starting a discussion on its own:
With my background you might think that I'd be preaching rudiments, rudiments, rudiments, but here's my take on it:
For a drumset player, it's really not about the rudiments, it's about the individual hand motions within the rudiments that you'll use on a regular basis outside of the rudiment's context. If the purpose of learning a rudiment was to then orchestrate it verbatim around the kit, I'd probably blow it off, it's too much work for too little return. While some rudiments are of course brilliant in their direct application, a high percentage of them will be futile in terms of drumset application, either too much of a stretch musically, or redundant in their hand motions.
This is where my "Top 12 Rudiments" list comes in, (both from my Stick Technique book & drumworkout.com). If you can play all 12 of those rudiments well at all tempos then your hands will be equipped with every last motion & technique that you'll need to play anything else. You really don't need the PAS 40 rudiments and tons of hybrids beyond that, just a well rounded technical tool kit. (For that matter the 40 rudiments themselves barely equip you with all of the necessary hand motions.)
That said, learning tons of rudiments can only be a good thing as they'll give you more vocabulary to speak with. The more you have to say (and/or CAN say) on one drum, the less reliant you may be on using many different voices to create the interest musically. So rudiments are good, but learning ALL of them with the idea of directly applying them to the kit is not the fast track to sounding great on the kit or most effective way to go about it in my opinion.
Thoughts?
With my background you might think that I'd be preaching rudiments, rudiments, rudiments, but here's my take on it:
For a drumset player, it's really not about the rudiments, it's about the individual hand motions within the rudiments that you'll use on a regular basis outside of the rudiment's context. If the purpose of learning a rudiment was to then orchestrate it verbatim around the kit, I'd probably blow it off, it's too much work for too little return. While some rudiments are of course brilliant in their direct application, a high percentage of them will be futile in terms of drumset application, either too much of a stretch musically, or redundant in their hand motions.
This is where my "Top 12 Rudiments" list comes in, (both from my Stick Technique book & drumworkout.com). If you can play all 12 of those rudiments well at all tempos then your hands will be equipped with every last motion & technique that you'll need to play anything else. You really don't need the PAS 40 rudiments and tons of hybrids beyond that, just a well rounded technical tool kit. (For that matter the 40 rudiments themselves barely equip you with all of the necessary hand motions.)
That said, learning tons of rudiments can only be a good thing as they'll give you more vocabulary to speak with. The more you have to say (and/or CAN say) on one drum, the less reliant you may be on using many different voices to create the interest musically. So rudiments are good, but learning ALL of them with the idea of directly applying them to the kit is not the fast track to sounding great on the kit or most effective way to go about it in my opinion.
Thoughts?