fedaykin13 wrote:I really appreciate all the responses so far
Unfortunately I've been unable to practice on the actual drumset, but did try the whole "air drumming"
all i can say is i'm really looking forward to the moment when the snare/hi-hat/kick epiphany happens
I feel like i'm playing a video game and i've gotten in trouble in a tough spot and resort to hitting all the buttons
one odd thing i've noticed though is in the past when i do air drumming i seem to want to use my left foot for the kick drum despite being a righty and feel i should be drumming righty.
this might come from tapping my foot to the beat when playing guitar and because my right foot is under the body of the guitar i use my left instead
does that make sense?
That makes total sense, actually. It's a good thing if you tap your left foot rather than your right.
Something you don't actually have to ever learn how to do to play rock is to use your left foot to do stuff on the hihat pedal. You can get by just letting it sit there if you want the hihat closed, and holding it up in the air or taking it off the pedal and resting it on th floor if you want the hihat open, and you can leave it at that***.
But there's also the trick of tapping your foot on the hihat pedal along with the downbeat, while playing the ride cymbal instead of the hihat, or the toms instead of the hihat, and the left leg just keeps the downbeat on the hihat. Tapping your foot along with the downbeat while playing guitar is doing exactly that. In fact, something that you might wanna mess around with (or don't) is to sit behind a drumkit and play your guitar while tapping your left foot on the hihat pedal like you might normally tap it on the floor.
If you get the hang of that, and wanna step it up a notch, try hitting the kick with your right foot, then the hihat with your left foot, then the kick, the hihat, right, left, just going back and forth. And then while you're doing that, play the Pixies song Vamos on the guitar or bass or whatever. The actual song maybe gets too fast as it goes along, but the tempo at the beginning might be just right for you. R L R L R L with the feet, E E G on the guitar or bass, and you've got yourself a great song.
Then instead of using the left foot, use the left hand, and you're playing kick snare kick snare kick snare. Then if you can hit the hihat along with each of those, so it's kick+hat, snare+hat, K+H, S+H, K+H, S+H you will be playing all three limbs.
Then, learn how to play the drums for the Pixies song "Cactus". Don't even need the hihat for that one, mostly.
foot foot both-hands (pause) on repeat. You can do it with both hands on the snare hit, or just the left hand. Both ways are good practice. There's little stuff going on with the floor tom and hihat and whatever, but ignore it for now. Worry about that later on when you're bored of doing just the kick and snare.
Then, put on the Pixies song "Gouge Away" and figure out how to play along with the riff that he plays during the bulk of the song. It's a fricken groove and a half, and it's a very basic beat. It's the "
1 2
3 4" thing that people were describing above, but you don't have to count it, you can just listen to it and do it.
K+H, H,
S+H, H, over and over and over.
You don't need a drumkit to do this, btw. Right foot on the floor, right hand on your left tit playing the hihat, left hand on your belly playing the snare. There's the flippy thing that he does right around the middle of each verse bit, and when it comes up, just keep playing the beat you were playing for the rest of the song and see if it lines up. It should. If it doesn't, don't sweat it. Just find that kick drum, which is on the 1, and jump back on as best you can.
Basically the Pixies is a great place to start. He's a great drummer, and a lot of the time he's playing very, very straightforward beats that just serve the song. Great stuff.
*** you will never play "My Black Ass" if you leave it at that, though.
