Whats Your Latest Practice ?

Last night for me as well. Currently, I'm acquainting myself with a new Pearl snare, so my "real" practice regimen has been somewhat diverted this week by tinkering with heads and tunings. In a sense, I've been listening more than practicing. This stage shall soon pass, and I'm looking forward to its exit. I see gear as nothing but a means to an end, not as an end in itself. It's useful only as a tool. Once I'm acclimated to my new tool, my focus can return to drumming.
 
FWIW I'm finding out that any rudiments with a double-stick, e.g., paradiddle or paradiddle-diddle, has helped immensely with any other sticking pattern that as it speeds up, requires the 'double tap' to be initiated by the bounce or rebound, in a controlled manner of course. Even then playing them as 1/16th note triplets.

For instance that practce made achieving this triplet rudiment at speed ... fairly easy! 'Rrl Lrr Llr Rll'. More focused practice with the off or weak hand is recommended too! Another tip I read somewhere, that has worked amazingy well for me (just gettng back into building my chops) is practicing for purpose with heavier 5B sticks and then using say 5As when playing for fun!

FWIW from my loooooong years as a percussionist, I've seen way too many kit drummers not understanding (or truly appreciating?) the difference between practice and playing.
 
I practiced Stick Control also this morning page 26, the short rolls, 8 stoke rolls open and closed.

About 15 minutes, very good book to develop my hands, wrists and motivation.

Really A+

I am happy to see 3, 4 persons talking about Stick Control this morning, instead of reading arguments that it's not musical and I should practice another book instead.
 
I have to admit..that book (all drum books really) scares me a bit. I own it, but have not started it.
I just have to bite the bullet and get better! I can't do double stokes to save my life!
I play a lot, but the difference between practice and play is huge.
 
What is the difference do you think?
To me ... practice is focused work on and improving your hands, chops, sticking,rudiments, timing, etc. , whereas playing is improving your groove and/or musicability, i.e., are you forcing your favorite fills into a spot or are you relaxed, almost playing subconsciously and truly LISTENING, then playing a fill that superbly FITS the music, even if 'simple'?

Let me equate it this way, as I also shoot archery; a diferent kind of 'shot', but a shot none the less, LOL! In its simplest form I can break the archery shot cycle down into 5 or more elements, such as Setup - Draw - Focus/Aim - Release - and Follow-Through. I'm also quite confident you could think of any other sport or activitity to break down the sequence in a similar manner. Any would require basics for a good stance, hold or form, execution and/or follow-through.

Practice is working on any 1 or 2 of those elements to improve that specific part you're working on.

To me this is the epitome of 'synergy', where the results then becomes much greater than the sum of the individual parts just put together. Yes, you need both forms. But from my competitive archery days, if I learned 1 thing, that was to practice with a purpose, just don't fling arrows .... or in our case, just don't throw your sticks around 'when allegedly practicing'...

My $0.02, your mileage may vary :) .
 
I am on a vacation of sorts, so I can't make much noise in the hotel, but I did work out of the Gaddiments book with brushes on a on the brush surface of my pad. I am finding the exercises in the book are a great source for the study of control and doing them with brushes, requires even more control.
 
Working from Gadds new rudiment book. Helping with the flams and general dexterity. Always working on uptempo bebop.
Been working with Gadd's book as well. It's quickly becoming an instant classic for me personally. I've been working on using my fingers more, instead of all wrist like I used to play in the past 35 years, and those exercises played straight and swung are real gems to get the control of finger strokes down.
 
After watching Arjun's unbelievable freaking singles (the dude isn't human) I've been working on those and just playing to drumless tracks. I still warm up with rudiments though but I move all around the kit with hands and feet when I do. I do single, double, triple stroke rolls, paradiddle permutations, and then stuff like ratamacues, blushdas, hertas, drags, and other things that come to mind. Lately it's been a lot of drumless tracks though-latin, funk, and jazz. And I still like to try and cover Nate Smith's Fearless flyers stuff-Simon F-15 (cross-sticking) and Aces of Aces (great groove) are great warm up songs I can play to them from memory in my head (they are all short songs)-also Signed, Sealed and Delivered he tears up the kick on that song so really test agility.
 
1. Train beat. I've finally had a breakthrough with this #$%^ beat. It has been plaguing me for a couple years now. It clicked the other day.

2. Disco hybrid thing. You play the disco beat with your left hand hats and snare (H HSH H HSH), and a three note ride pattern with your right. Or quarter notes. Just a different pattern. Make sure on each hit of the hats you open them. Kick follows the hats. Have fun.
 
Last edited:
Pushing independence by inserting one or two bass drum (or hi-hat) beats ”at random” while playing hand to hand triplets. Also doubling/diddling some of the hand triplets. I’m doing this in a jazz solo or comping context while keeping 2&4 time on the hi-hat. It feels like learning a language rather than a beat but I’m not sure that I will ever use the language. It’s almost like adding complexity just to raise the bar on what feels complex.
 
I ran a three hour drumline rehearsal after doing 8 hours of lessons...as I do every Mon, Tues and Weds in the summer, so I got A LOT of playing in today!! Rudiments, drum set, marimba, Stone Stick Control...
 
FWIW from my loooooong years as a percussionist, I've seen way too many kit drummers not understanding (or truly appreciating?) the difference between practice and playing.

I've been guilty. But a lot of times what you practice on the kit sounds like "playing" because it involves practicing limb independence, not just sticking on a snare over a bass drum ostinato.
And of course, you have to literally practice playing the kit.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top