Rudiments in daily practice or something else?

JJKK

Member
I established a daily practice routine, but I'm not using rudiments most of the time. My hand technique is limited to single and double stroke rolls at the moment.

I'm focusing on bass drum control for both feet and building up my hand technique and endurance for blast beat practice and playing death metal and similar stuff eventually. I can play slower beats (hardcore and slower heavy stuff) and speed up to 150-160 bpm for a few minutes, sometimes over 200 bpm if you count short blasts and double bass parts. I always use a click when practicing.

I'm ten months into regular daily practice (I think) and I'm fairly green in learning sheet music and such things. I can read sheets enough to understand what I should do with it (bought the Roddy book on blast beats).

I'm self taught if you don't count the youtube stuff you can find online.

So, I see the Stick Control book mentioned many times here and elsewhere. What does it teach a beginner to do? Is it purely a book on rudiments and hand technique and would I benefit from it?
 
Stick Control is intially a collection of sticking exercises and some other things.

It starts with singles:

RLRL
LRLR

Doubles:

RRLL

LLRR

Pardiddles:

RLRR LRLL

LRRL RLLR

RRLR LLRL

RLRL LRLR

It the continues with combos of these and more and then different subdivisions.

Originally intenden to be just played in one dynamic to help your "stick control" hence the name. Stone as another book called Accents and Rebounds that's dort of the next level and the Joe Morello wrote Master Studies I and II as a continuation of that.

People use this book in many ways, though. Just like Syncopation or any reading page it can be interpreted in a myriad of way both for hands, feet, combination of both and groove application. For some insight, do a youtube search on "Matt Patella Stick Control."


Is it the end all be all. No. It's a book with an original intended purpose that has been used in other ways. I certanly don't give my young students a copy of Stick Control today, but my knowledge of how it can be used is certainly a factor in how I teach.

When someone says I do 5 mins or 15 mins or whatever of Stick Control every day. What does that even mean? You build a routine based on your needs, thus constantly evolving.


The old advice of just working on it one page every day 1 minute pr. exercise is a good idea just to have a rountine for our hands. It doesn't hurt your double bass either. You can do that until you can think of some better to do. It's a start and will certainly give you some training. Won't teach you shit about music, though.
 
To clarify
Stick Control is not "Technique" Its simply collection of sticking patterns and their permutations.

a) You can practice stick control with the wrong technique to develop wrong technique and bad habits.

b) You can practice stick control with the correct technique and you'll develop a good technique and good habits.

Learn technique and the mechanics of muscle movement first.
Then apply it to stick control to build phrases and have fun.

Tip: my teacher studied with George Stone, they used to work only on the first page of stick control.
___________________
www.maxvalentini.com/
 
To clarify
Stick Control is not "Technique" Its simply collection of sticking patterns and their permutations.

a) You can practice stick control with the wrong technique to develop wrong technique and bad habits.

b) You can practice stick control with the correct technique and you'll develop a good technique and good habits.

Learn technique and the mechanics of muscle movement first.
Then apply it to stick control to build phrases and have fun.

Tip: my teacher studied with George Stone, they used to work only on the first page of stick control.
___________________
www.maxvalentini.com/

It’s great that you are studying with a student of Stone. There aren’t many of his students left, with Joe Morello and Vic Firth’s passing.

Barry James studied with Stone. Barry is living in Florida now. Would you mind sharing your teacher’s name?

Thanks,

Jeff
 
To clarify
Stick Control is not "Technique" Its simply collection of sticking patterns and their permutations.

a) You can practice stick control with the wrong technique to develop wrong technique and bad habits.

b) You can practice stick control with the correct technique and you'll develop a good technique and good habits.

Learn technique and the mechanics of muscle movement first.
Then apply it to stick control to build phrases and have fun.

Well hopefully I'm sticking correctly at the moment. I watched the video link posted and I've been unknowingly practicing "stick control" in the manner that I know my left hand is much weaker at the moment (control, power) so I have practiced it for a few weeks now.
 
It’s great that you are studying with a student of Stone. There aren’t many of his students left, with Joe Morello and Vic Firth’s passing.

Barry James studied with Stone. Barry is living in Florida now. Would you mind sharing your teacher’s name?

Howdy Jeff
Name is Chuck Brown.
He is still with us but retired now.

The way we worked on technique is one hand a time.

I’ve created a more advanced and faster version of that technique. For those who are interested, an instructional dvd should be available in few weeks.
Here is the intro.
https://youtu.be/08EsTcOEs8o

Thanks
——————————-

www.maxvalentini.com
 
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If you ever want to have good fills and be able to do solos, you have to work on rudiments.

Stick control is a good book, but if your new and don't have a good teacher it is useless. It's HOW you use that book that makes the difference, and you need someone to show you.

As per last post get a teacher.

I put a lot of time in on rudiments on the pad to a metronome and it increases hand speed, power, coordination, timing etc.

You can do anything on the hands on the feet. Short bursts at max speed are not as good as going for longer periods at slightly slower speeds. Set a click, and focus on clean solid hits.
 
A few years ago I broke rudiments into "family" groups, and began working through each rudiment in the family them the following way:

A - one drum/cymbal
B - split hands on different drums/cymbals
C - move around kit after 2-4 measures
D - move around kit after 1 measure

First day a LH lead, next day a RH lead. Then on to B, etc., for a total of 8 days per rudi. I play these with a metronome as qtrs, trips, 8ths, 16ths, as well as work them slow - fast - slow. From there you can move to the next rudiment or do the cycle again if you haven't mastered it.

Vic Firth has a great rudiment app. The "families" are as follows:

Single Stroke - SS, SS4, SS7
Doubles - DS, DS5-17
Paradiddles - Para plus variations
Buzz - Buzz roll, Buzz5-17
Flams - flam plus variations
Drags - drag plus variations

I also added Unisons (both hands at same time) in SS, DS, and Buzz.

This is quite a process, but over time with focus and patience it gives you a lot of work on each variation, starting with both hands, to absorb.
 
How come you don't give them the book?

Because it totally kills the vibe dude. :)

It really doesn't work. Ok. I've been in situations where it did, but that was a totally different and very naturally self motivated group of students. They would just do anything I said and tought everything was cool. Not my reality the last 7 years. They took care of the playing part themselves and so on...


A grown up or a student who likes that sort of thing I'll advice to get it themselves, but for the average young student it's the wrong approach.

I make my own material that I organize in a folder with 5-6 main chapters. The first part of that folder is different warm-ups for the hands. One of those is the first column of Stick Control, but the others are completely different.

I'm in a new job and not quite sure how I'll construct it this time, but I'm starting to have a pretty good idea.


The main stuff is:
Reading.
Working with stuff for the school band
Playing together both in bands and drum groups.
Basic styles and song structure.
 
Well, first of all, I think you should learn how to read along your rudiments. You don't have to know them all immediately, mostly work a lot on your technique. The book you mention I think we all went through at least once in our drumming carrer, it did wonders for me. It learned me to read, to count and rudiments. In my opinion, it's a book for all levels. Especially when you get more advanced, you start making your own exercises and that book is normally the best base you can have.


Actually, I should even pull it up again and do some variants...

Work on getting your technique good, and the rest will follow. Daily practice can do wonders if you do it smart (aka. give your brain a break and give it time to process information, recall information, etc. just like when you study). Keep in mind not everything is rudiments.. well, we play with rudiments, but I mean to say, there are so many other things to study and learn. One thing at the time, but don't forget them.



I practice a couple of rudiments daily as warmup or timing exercise. At the end, rudiments can be something as infinite as numbers. You have just 0 to 9, but combinations are endless. Let's say it in the programming way. 0 or 1.


If you need a couple of videos guiding you, maybe check out my channel... I started as self taught too, so I know the feeling of being lost sometimes..

I hope it helps!
 
My hand technique is limited to single and double stroke rolls at the moment...

...So, I see the Stick Control book mentioned many times here and elsewhere. What does it teach a beginner to do? Is it purely a book on rudiments and hand technique and would I benefit from it?

"Technique" is HOW you play something, in this context I think you mean "vocabulary." More and/or better technique definitely begets more vocab which begets better music with more vocab & expression. I'd definitely advise you to learn more rudiments as they'll result in changes in your playing far beyond just the vocabulary. (Maybe check out my "12 Gateway Rudiments" in my book Stick Technique or on drumworkout.com--those 12 contain all of the techniques/key hand motions required to play anything & everything else.)

The book Stick Control is generally used as a reference for sticking patterns. They're great for your hands with everything played as free strokes and quite often people invent applications to the kit based off of them. It's not a technique book though and it doesn't teach you how to play. It's a useful tool in its own way though.
 
Stick Control is cheap and it's nice to have a copy.

Bill's book is also good to have.

Most of my technique work is based on Wilcoxon's All American Drummer these days. It's a rudimental solo/etude book. I use it in many ways, though. I don't just play through the pieces. I keep anoverview and use it both as pure technical work and as a way to build phrases and vocabulary. It relates to how we use SC and reading pages, but it's also a bit different. Maybe start off with something like the NARD book first?

The beauty of etudes and regular pieces is that they represent someone else's musical or technical vision. You can't fall back on mindless repetition. You have to be present and if you find somewhere you stumble you just found something that needs work and you can create an exercise(s) around it.

Some study on how to correctly execute various rudiments will save you a lot of pain and frustration, though.
 
"Technique" is HOW you play something, in this context I think you mean "vocabulary." More and/or better technique definitely begets more vocab which begets better music with more vocab & expression. I'd definitely advise you to learn more rudiments as they'll result in changes in your playing far beyond just the vocabulary. (Maybe check out my "12 Gateway Rudiments" in my book Stick Technique or on drumworkout.com--those 12 contain all of the techniques/key hand motions required to play anything & everything else.)

The book Stick Control is generally used as a reference for sticking patterns. They're great for your hands with everything played as free strokes and quite often people invent applications to the kit based off of them. It's not a technique book though and it doesn't teach you how to play. It's a useful tool in its own way though.

I started with paradiddle-diddle (how do you type it?) since it seemed to incorporate doubles and singles and some difficulty. Now I practice hand speed with slow tempo doing 8s, 4s and 2s in sequence leading with my left (weaker side). Can't afford a teacher in person at the moment so I'm doing what I can.

How does one practice the rudiments most effectively?
 
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