Realizing the downfalls in your drumming

greenstar323

Senior Member
I recently got back into playing drums over the past year and a half after taking a 2 year hiatus from not picking up drumsticks at all. (I've been playing in total about 17 years.) I joined a band which has helped tremendously. Except I felt like every time I went to sit down at my kit to practice I just ended up playing the same crap over and over.

I broke out stick control and worked that a little bit. Although it's rather embarrassing to admit I would play the stuff in Modern Drummer and Drum! just to have something new and different to work on.

I recently watched a drumeo with Rich Redmond (who is awesome btw) and tried playing his money beats. OMG I had trouble with four on the floor! Something about hitting the bass and snare together threw me off. I have since mastered it but it made me realize a lot of downfalls in the basics of drumming. I wonder if I "lost it" a little bit when I took a break.

Today I broke out a double pedal to work on my left foot and did the first page of stick control... at 60 bpm!

I have a long way to go. Think I will pick up Gary Chaffee's techniques book and the other one with the fatback exercises. Learning new things is fun!
 
Hi Greenstar, there are a few topics that I feel all drummers should know that a lot of students tend to overlook. Have you worked on open/close hi-hat patterns much (the dance/disco beat can be a great coordination exercise, that's where you keep open hits on the upbeats and close the hi-hat on the down beats the whole measure.) Have you tried intricate patterns involving keeping quarter notes on the hi-hat or ride, either on the down OR the upbeat? You can also work on those patterns while keeping time on the left foot in between your R-hand hits. What about keeping sixteenth notes on the hat?
Have you learned a shuffle? Purdie shuffle is a good place to start, then expand to the Bonham and the Rosanne shuffle. Can you play a solid train beat, accenting the '2' and the '4' while really keeping the beats in between ghosted? Looked into polyrhythmic patterns at all?

Let me know if any of these subjects interest you and I would be happy to write out some phrases for you. I'm currently working on a book for my students so I'm sure it would come in handy for me too!

www.colin.mccowan.space
 
Hi Greenstar, there are a few topics that I feel all drummers should know that a lot of students tend to overlook. Have you worked on open/close hi-hat patterns much (the dance/disco beat can be a great coordination exercise, that's where you keep open hits on the upbeats and close the hi-hat on the down beats the whole measure.) Have you tried intricate patterns involving keeping quarter notes on the hi-hat or ride, either on the down OR the upbeat? You can also work on those patterns while keeping time on the left foot in between your R-hand hits. What about keeping sixteenth notes on the hat?
Have you learned a shuffle? Purdie shuffle is a good place to start, then expand to the Bonham and the Rosanne shuffle. Can you play a solid train beat, accenting the '2' and the '4' while really keeping the beats in between ghosted? Looked into polyrhythmic patterns at all?

Let me know if any of these subjects interest you and I would be happy to write out some phrases for you. I'm currently working on a book for my students so I'm sure it would come in handy for me too!

www.colin.mccowan.space

Very good suggestions here....It's funny because I am weirdly very good at some of these things and completely horrible at others. I am a huge Led Zeppelin fan and can play note for note tons of their songs with fast bass drum stuff. I'm ace at fool in the rain (Purdie shuffle). I can do some things with opening the hats, but if you were to say play the hi hat on 1 & 3 I struggle. If I play it on 2 and 4 it's absolutely no problem.

In the Rich Redmond drumeo he talked about how the Steve Wonder beat was basically a swung 4 on the floor and somehow that was eye opening for me. I wanted to get the Chaffee book because it seems like he goes into a lot of those exercises and it might help my 4 way coordination. I'm not much of a jazz player, but years ago I went through the Art of Bop Drumming and that was incredibly helpful in developing my 4 way coordination.

Thanks! I will try some of those ideas!
 
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