I was kind of dreading it, maybe too many years of enforced practice as a youth. I tend to play an instrument 80% at rehearsal, the rest writing or recording. I've managed to gradually evolve as a guitarist with zero work ethic.

But I gotta say after a week of heady work shit, sitting behind a snare drum with ear plugs in for half an hour feels downright meditative. I'm not going to make an annoying Instagram video preaching it but at the end my wrists and fingers were producing rolls that don't sound like my Ringo self. I'm sure it will require repetition for that to stick.

losthighway wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 7:34 am I tend to play an instrument 80% at rehearsal, the rest writing or recording. I've managed to gradually evolve as a guitarist with zero work ethic.

Same here. Fortunately, even if you're not really trying, you play an instrument for several hours a day you get better.

As far as drums and rudiments, I think this is along the lines of what Garth was saying.... for me the real benefit of learning/practicing them is more about getting the fine muscle control/memory than being able to use a pataflafla* in a fill.


*I don't actually know what that is. Pick any exotic rudiment.

Gonna just post this real quick, again.



Aluminum beard rock, sad flannel music, light roast w/scarf 'lectronica, black flag tattoo knucklerock, goth girlfriend music, etc: practicing rudiments quietly in your room isn't going to change your parts that much, but they're definitely going to open up possibilities that didn't exist before. Most people practice rudiments by softly tapping on a practice pad or a snare. If you practice at show volume, though, and move them around the kit:



It's about STICK CONTROL. Rudiments help you develop precision at speed. Opening up neural pathways is how you get better. If you're playing the parts from 'Harvest,' yeah, there's not gonna be a ton of things that rudiments are going to give you. But there are definitely going to be times where you have to play a triplet over four thing on the hi-hat and it's gonna be nice when you can just jump the turnstile.

Also, as I move fully into my midlife crisis 2nd kick drum phase, I'm doing rudiments on kick drums. I have a warmup that I do on the practice pad while a metronome ticks away in my headphones:

RL RL RL RL RR LL RR LL RLRR LRLL %

50 bpm
60 bpm
70 bpm
%
140 bpm
160 bpm
etc

Now I'm doing this for up to an hour a day on my kick drum practice pads. Look for me in late 2023 to be the most annoying cunty drummer on the planet.

There's no reason NOT to do rudiments, unless you're at risk of losing your job or your wife's thinking about leaving you.

I don't have much to add, other than to echo what others here who also started young have said. I started when I was 10 too, and my parents were good enough that I was granted private lessons, just like brother on trumpet and sister on her ballet. My drum teacher had two kits in his basement and a raging stereo with speakers everywhere. And a lone snare drum in a concert stand. His method was to teach performance by showing you first, then you'd play along with him, then finally he'd spin some Basie and you had to play the chart with him. Well...I stood at that snare drum for 3 years playing rudiments and street beats and shit before I ever got to sit behind them Slingerlands I had to look at every week. The first buncha months was just posture at the drum and stick handling. I didn't find the actual rudiments translated to too much to rock performance, but stick handling and posture is everything and my teacher beat that into your skull so deeply that it's never left me 48 years later. Like MSE, I can still whip a single, double, triple ratamacue series slow to fast to slow without even thinking. Took me over a year to figure out how to get the "slowing down" part of a long roll (2 stroke) correct, but getting that right is a huge step forward.

What exercise(s) will get me closer to the holy grail fill at 1:17. Seems way too defined to be a roll..

Christ. He just throws that in casually, NBD.

Sounds like just a really fast single stroke roll, no?

MoreSpaceEcho wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 9:55 am Sounds like just a really fast single stroke roll, no?

Could very well be, but the placement of it has me wondering if it leads (or at least starts in) with the left hand. Which is something I'd like to improve as well.

sounds like a very open long roll (2 stroke) broken up by some single stick business before the roll continues on the floor. As I mentioned, that's one to work on, the open long roll. It's easy to control LL-RR when it's slow, and it's easy to control that as a buzz roll. Controlling that pattern at a moderate speed and keeping every 4 strokes even in attack and in tempo at all times takes a bit of practice. At least it did for me.

djimbe wrote: Fri Feb 03, 2023 10:51 am Controlling that pattern at a moderate speed and keeping every 4 strokes even in attack and in tempo at all times takes a bit of practice. At least it did for me.

I think I know what you mean. I have decent speed there, but the left hits sound weaker (and less consistent) than the right. I wonder if this would have come more naturally had I learned to play open or mixed grip. (would be really hard to learn now)

I carefully follow two awesome drummers who switch between traditional and matched grip: Glenn Kotche and John Wurster.

With Kotche it's pretty obvious why he goes traditional grip, he's playing with more finesse/dynamic, and his left hand is sneaking around the kit a little more. He goes matched for all of the rock block bashers.

Wurster is pretty much always in a rock block. When I watched him with Bob Mould it seemed like every couple songs he would change his grip and he was pummeling with trad and matched alike. I keep wanting to find an interview where he explains those choices.