2 hit wonder
Junior Member
Oh no, not gtr.
Sustaining very fast Hi Hat singles for entire songs
- Thread starter newoldie
- Start date
I remember being this Mr rockin roll dude when this piano player contacted me for a get together on some Jerry Lee Lewis stuff and let me tell you..i was humbled like the abominable snowman without his choppers. He owned his own club and hired me for some reason. Little by little..week by week turning into months my right hand became like the 6 million dollar man. Today?...its use it or lose it.
Sonar Dave
Well-known Member
Well, it was a love/hate thing. It also pushed me. But my teacher made me learn it before Limelight, Subdivisions, and Livilla.
if our band were to try it, I'd have to play drums and sing it. Uh, nope...
Xstr8edgtnrdrmrX
Local Boob
yeah...I was learning that whole album on drums at the same time...except for Vital Signs....as a kid, I thought that song was "boring" <----what an idiot!!
yeah...and for me, I am avoiding the singing b/c I can't copy Geddy's voice. I can copy Geoff Tate, Ray Alder, Joey Belladonna....but not Geddy, in that era especially
I could do the timing of singing and playing drums or bass, but not his sound
If I could reliably hit the range, and play the drum part (and our other guys able to play their parts on it too) I'd give it a go, regardless of how close I sounded to him. In our little bar band circuit, just being able to play the song would be something, you certainly don't hear many bar bands tackling that one.
Funny thing is that I have a relatively high vocal range. Often I'll get people in the crowd telling me we ought to do some Rush, they feel my voice would be good for it. They simply don't realize exactly how high that really is....
Xstr8edgtnrdrmrX
Local Boob
yep, and there is just a certain timbre that if you don't or can't copy, it isn't the same
but yeah, my surf-punk band used to do a little Rush medley b/c our bass player likes them as do I....it wasn't even in the surf-punk vein, and people ate it up
Rock Salad
Silver Member
This works best for me too. When there is the whole band taking up my attention so I can’t focus on technique. It gives the sticks a chance to figure it out on their own while my ears are focused on dynamics and balance
For where you're at, it may be counter-productive to focus on more advanced techniques. The two-stroke Moeller-ish movement will come naturally. More advanced stuff can gradually come into play past 180 or so.
Assuming you aren't playing almost mostly from your shoulders/elbows, you should be able to get up to 170 with a bit of proper effort. If you are, focus on shifting over to mostly your wrists/fingers/hands first.
Single stroke roll practice is great, and you can keep doing that definitely, but it's better for your weak hand than your strong one, and you may be focusing more on speed than endurance.
What I advise to reach this your target is to just slow down the recordings to whatever point you are comfortable playing them. Practice along and gradually work your way up to the original song tempo (or faster) over a matter of days/weeks until you hit your target.
Don't only practice one BPM, but a range of BPMs each day. Do not get discouraged if you are less fast one day than the day before. That happens *universally* to all of us and you just need to lower the BPM for awhile and move past it. Do not try to force a BPM that you achieved on a previous day.
Try to stay loose as best as you can, but also aim to have your arm feel sore after each session, similar to the way it might feel after a good workout, but never to the point of any residual pain. You want to avoid "tension pain" as much as you possible, even if a little bit is unavoidable.
Put in as little as 20 minutes a day like this, and in not too much time you will reach your goals assuming you don't suffer from any severe physical disabilities (and even if you do, it very well may still be possible).
This is important: Don't overdo it. If you do, don't be afraid to put in a rest day or two. If you ever have a week where you feel like you've hit a wall and aren't improving at all, you need to take off.
I know you can do it! Good luck!
EDIT:
Looks like you already did, serves me right skipping posts
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Probably counter-productive if you try this before you can hit ~190 with a less advanced technique, and not easily adaptable for a hard-hitting rock context.
For that super-speed push-pull stuff, what I find is that you want to practice it in the *largest* variety of ways possible. You want to practice for endurance, for fast sprints, triplets, accent patterns, upstroke accents, french, german (I def need to work more on my German), etc. The more ways you can think of to change it up, the faster the learning process.
Funny you're bringing it up because I've been going hard into push-pull this year and Montagner is a huge influence. Actually, more like the whole impetus. Just seeing what is humanly possible helps the motivation in knowing you aren't going down a blind alley. My goal is to get somewhere close to his level by the end of next year (easier said than done!).
So far, on a really good day, I can play Neon with straight one-handed 16th notes on my strong hand at +30% tempo. That's something like 8ths @ 266. I'm trying to push that to 300 so I can play, for example, the hihat pattern on Mr. Brightside with one hand with a little room to spare. For accents and power I'm working on the Dead Disco pattern. There's a lot more to it than simply putting in the time at this point. The way it's approached matters a ton. Getting into the headspace where practice "feels good" (this helps to retain improvements) matters a ton also.
Main difference between the way I'm approaching it and the way Montager does is that I'm trying to keep my fulcrum as far back on the stick as possible, so that I can get more stick height with less movement. Very focused on the last two fingers as per Tony Williams too. Will have to see if those modifications become a roadblock later on, but so far I think they help facilitate more power.
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newoldie
Silver Member
Thanks for your tips- its good to see these written out like you did so I focus on them.For where you're at, it may be counter-productive to focus on more advanced techniques. The two-stroke Moeller-ish movement will come naturally. More advanced stuff can gradually come into play past 180 or so.
Assuming you aren't playing almost mostly from your shoulders/elbows, you should be able to get up to 170 with a bit of proper effort. If you are, focus on shifting over to mostly your wrists/fingers/hands first.
Single stroke roll practice is great, and you can keep doing that definitely, but it's better for your weak hand than your strong one, and you may be focusing more on speed than endurance.
What I advise to reach this your target is to just slow down the recordings to whatever point you are comfortable playing them. Practice along and gradually work your way up to the original song tempo (or faster) over a matter of days/weeks until you hit your target.
Don't only practice one BPM, but a range of BPMs each day. Do not get discouraged if you are less fast one day than the day before. That happens *universally* to all of us and you just need to lower the BPM for awhile and move past it. Do not try to force a BPM that you achieved on a previous day.
Try to stay loose as best as you can, but also aim to have your arm feel sore after each session, similar to the way it might feel after a good workout, but never to the point of any residual pain. You want to avoid "tension pain" as much as you possible, even if a little bit is unavoidable.
Put in as little as 20 minutes a day like this, and in not too much time you will reach your goals assuming you don't suffer from any severe physical disabilities (and even if you do, it very well may still be possible).
This is important: Don't overdo it. If you do, don't be afraid to put in a rest day or two. If you ever have a week where you feel like you've hit a wall and aren't improving at all, you need to take off.
I know you can do it! Good luck!
EDIT:
Looks like you already did, serves me right skipping posts
Push pull stroke
Platinum Member
I agree that his techniques aren’t fully transferable to heavier genres like hard rock. However, even in that heavier context, I find that practicing his techniques improves my speed. Because although the kit does require a heavier touch in hard rock, the hi-hat is probably the one exception. *shrug* just a thought
yammyfan
Senior Member
Some great tips here. I employ a few of them myself though I am by no means a fast drummer. Like, not at all.
One that that did work for me was to switch to light sticks (7A) and grip them all the way at the end (almost slipping from my grip) when playing 16th note patterns on the high-hat. It was learning the song Shine by Collective Soul that forced me to improve my technique. I had been cheating by playing quarter notes instead of 16ths, and that really bothered me. Relaxing my grip helped too.
One that that did work for me was to switch to light sticks (7A) and grip them all the way at the end (almost slipping from my grip) when playing 16th note patterns on the high-hat. It was learning the song Shine by Collective Soul that forced me to improve my technique. I had been cheating by playing quarter notes instead of 16ths, and that really bothered me. Relaxing my grip helped too.
Push pull stroke
Platinum Member
That’s a solid point about lighter sticks
2 hit wonder
Junior Member
I'll reconsider my approach next time I'm working on that..cause the sticks end up there and I make an effort to draw back into them and better control my technique.
My habit defaults to not using the smaller fingers muchnat all but feel that I should be engaging with them in play.
Have you tried the tip/shoulder technique?My wrist-finger technique is developed enough for fast single rolls and most up tempo singles--I've also watched boatloads of YT tutorials for fast Brazilian-style single strokes (which I crave and can't follow or master...) all in an attempt to sustain that speedy stream of singles on the hi hat. But I fall short and have to be practical at this point-- I don't have a personal teacher to watch my technique/help try to fine tune the super fast technique needed to sustain tempos of above 140 for an entire 3-4 minute song.
[EDIT FOR BELOW- THE SONG IS REBEL YELL AT 166 BPM-WHEW! NOT WHITE WEDDING @144 BMP, WHICH IS DOABLE]
A band I'm in is playing White Wedding/Billy Idol and follows the recording's 145 BPM range. I've tried this out practicing but can't keep it going for too long, so I've reverted to mixing in some quarters along with 2 beats of eighths so the overall pulse sounds consistent. I've watched a few live BI videos of this song and it does look like the drummer is mixing the beats like this a few moments, but mostly sustaining the eighths.
I'm aware of other solutions like "just keep practicing singles and your speed will improve", or "try the Moeller technique" but I've done all that. They work up to a point, and reached a limit, so will-power or continued practicing seems non-productive. So a mixed quarters/eighths formula will have to suffice for the time being. Hitting the hi hat on the edge for a thicker sound also seems to blend in the mixture.
But my question is for those who can't sustain a similar tempo for an entire song-- do you also mix up the eighths and singles or how do you make it work?
Don't stomp on the hats. Dance on them. Tony Williams--check out the album, Miles Smiles--who innovated that approach, played with a super fast, yet llight, foot. Check out that Zildjian Day video. Tony also used a swivel technique that helped him keep dancing on the hats. You can do it; just dont try and put the hi hat through the floor. Dance!