Critique my playing please

Liebe zeit

Silver Member
I've been drumming again for about 15 months. I've put a lot of hours in. If someone want to know what I'm like this is the best recordings I can send them. How's my drumming? Tell me what you think.

http://soundcloud.com/thee-red-room/sets/set-title/

I realise it's a limited set genre-wise. I'm more of a groove-type drummer. I'm trying to find another band aside from the one you here in these recordings and aiming for blues/funk/alt-rock type stuff
 
The grooves for both songs were very similar. Try mixing it up a bit with your bass drum, ghost notes and open hi-hat. Also, don't be afraid of your ride and bell.

I thought your sense of timing was good, but I sometimes felt the timing was off just by a hair. You did a nice job of playing a groove through the whole song (you'd be surprised at how many drummers can't do that) so very good control in that regard.

If you want to be a groove drummer you need to make sure you're learning as many grooves as possible. Since both grooves seemed so similar, I don't know what range of grooves you have. I would start HERE and go to the groove styles section and learn every groove there as a starter.

Overall, a great job! Keep up a the good work!

EDIT: Wow. I was very general.
 
When I critique, I usually just name the parts that don't feel right to me, and kinda skip over the stuff that is working. The stuff that needs attention is where I focus. That said, The big thing that jumped out at me here is the lack of a quarter note pulse. I didn't get the feel that that you were accenting every other note of your high hat pattern. I think it would make the piece groove deeper. You have to feel the groove deeper. Even though it is a playing thing, it all starts with how you are feeling the music. The drums come off kinda bland, like you aren't particularly inspired by this song. The quarter note....a very large percentage of 4/4 music benefits from accenting the quarters (hi hat or ride, not bass drum). I don't mean this to sound boorish like it will, but you need to pay attention to, and feel the quarter note on a deeper level.
 
Thanks guys.

I think the timing off-by-a-hair and lack of 1/4 note feel may be related.

My drum teacher said the same thing about the quarter notes the last time I saw him. He recommended using the shoulder-tip method with the stick, but I must admit I'm still feeling my way into that.

Any other suggestions for developing 1/4 note feel?

Lately I've been working on mixing 4 feel and 3 feel, such as working triplet fills into 4/4 and doing exercises that go 1/4 note, 8th note, triplets, 16ths, sextuplets. I'm hoping that I'll get the common 4 feel to all these from doing this.

I do have other grooves, such as a 12/8, half time 16th note thing, half time shuffle, regular shuffle, motown and others. I just posted the best of my recordings here
 
Don't move on until you get the simple basics so they are automatic. The basics are used sooo much. It's a waste of time to move on before really getting it. Patience. Mastering one thing is many times more beneficial to you as a drummer than touching on 6 different things. If I could give you one piece of advise...Learn to focus on just one area and work it all day. One thing. Get it down. When you feel you have it down, no matter how many days it takes, then you move on work on one more new thing. In a years time you will be so much further ahead of the guys who get "bored", (read: lacks the work ethic to really knuckle down) and the guys who try and play 50 different things but improves on none of it. Improvement in one area is about the fastest you can move forward. Improvement takes focused focused effort directed at one area. I'm lucky in that I can do mind numbingly repetitive things for long periods of time. That is a required skill for focus.

One mastered aspect is much > skipping around willy nilly.

Try and feel a QNP in all 4/4 music. My suggestions have to do with feeling your music on a deeper level. Really accentuate that quarter note in your mind. How you do that is subjective.
 
Thanks Larry. I'm hearing ya.

I appreciate your posts a lot. I like your work ethic and anyone who knows the blues like you do gets my respect
 
Thanks man. This is my way of giving back to the endeavor that brings me so much joy. I like pooling the wealth for all to benefit from. I certainly only know a tiny fraction of what's out there, but I do love sharing what I've found to work.
 
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