Hey guys, sorry things have been quiet around here as of late. Just wanted drop a quick note and link to Matt Raynor’s awesome blog DrumSimple:
Matt and I share a common background of drum corps and indoor drumline, and we even marched with / marched under / taught with / taught some of the same people. I highly recommend reading his posts for a great explanation of the theory behind teaching and leading effective rehearsals.
Posted in Community, Professionalism
Tagged drum corps, drumsimple, indoor drumline, marching percussion, matt raynor
The idea to “never practice struggle” was first presented to me by Total Immersion swimming coach Terry Laughlin. I would like to take this idea out of the water and onto the drum (or pad) with today’s lesson.
Challenge: Revisit Murray Gusseck’s “MasterClick” article from the Vic Firth Exchange. The goal today will be to begin playing either:
Once the tempo increases to the point where you cannot maintain the quality and consistency of the rudiment, remove one diddle. In the book report you will play a diddle on ‘1’ to make it a diddle choo-choo,
and in the flam drag you will switch to flam accents.
Moving along in tempo, once you can no longer maintain this rudiment, remove the remaining diddle or flam to make either a choo-choo,
or straight triplets.
Lastly, at a certain point you will remove the flam in the choo-choo and begin playing paradiddles.
Still with me? The idea is to never practice struggle. Begin with a challenging rudiment at a slow tempo, then as the tempo increases switch to a more manageable rudiment at the appropriate time. When? That depends on your experience level and chops.
Post experiences to comments!
Posted in Flams, Mindfulness, Paradiddles
Tagged book reports, choo-choo, Flam Drags, masterclick, Murray Gusseck, Vic Firth
Today, yet another innovative approach to teaching yourself how to play music with sticks: change your perception. Here’s what I mean.
Step 1: Pick a pattern, grid, exercise, or musical excerpt to play. Something you are somewhat familiar with and can play fairly well already.
Step 2: Play the part with your eyes closed. Listen to the sound you are producing. Is it in time? Are the rhythms consistent? Is your sound quality appropriate? Also take a moment to notice how you feel. Where are your hands, forearms, shoulders, etc.? How relaxed is your face? All while eyes are closed.
Step 3: With eyes open, set up a camera to record yourself playing the part. Once you get a good recording, go back and watch it on mute. How do you look? Confident, aggressive, joyous? Surviving or thriving? Notice any and all movements you do. Is it necessary to move your left elbow when your left hand plays accents? Is your right shoulder higher than your left? Are you standing upright?
Step 4: Now go back and listen to the recording of yourself playing the part but without looking at the screen. How do you sound? Is every single note in time? Without knowing the sticking, could you tell a difference in sound hand-to-hand? Is your range of dynamic expression appropriate? Be your own worst critic.
Step 5: Put it all back together. Record yourself playing the part once more, but this time take into account all that you have noted throughout this process. Once you get a good take, go back and watch the finished product, both with audio and video together. How does it look and sound?
Thanks for reading today. If you’ve gotten this far, post a link to your video in the comments.
Warm-up: Spend some time reminding yourself how to play The Triplet Grid. “My Moon My Man” by Feist can supply a good tempo if desired.
Skill work: Today we are going to try a new kind of grid, specifically where you keep the accent constant and shift the rudiment. Here it is, in classic 4-2-1 format, keeping a single accent on the first partial while moving the diddle from the first to second to third partial:
Spend 15 minutes working on this isolated diddle grid with a metronome, from 80 bpm up to 180 bpm.
Challenge: This one grid should open up a whole new plethora of possibilities: simply substitute a different rudiment, change the accent to a different partial, go backwards, etc. Here are some more options to stimulate your experimentation:
Happy gridding! Please share with friends and family as well. Anyone on Rudimental Hands auditioning for a drum corps or indoor drumline this season? Post to comments!
In the marching percussion idiom there are a lot of factors that influence how a drumline sounds when they play their instruments. Simplifying things a bit, you can boil it down to:
Exhibit A: The Cavaliers 2011 Drumline playing through their Pre-show and Opener in their Finals Lot warm-up
Their technique can be described as loose and relaxed while maintaining stroke intensity into the drum. But notice, however, that their technique can be as such specifically because their written music allows for space in between the notes, granting the players the opportunity to move fluidly and with grace.
Similarly, their tuning scheme sounds immaculate: you can hear very clear tonal and timbre ranges each for the snares, tenors, and basses. However, without the clarity being achieved at such a high level, the tuning would perhaps sound muddled and inarticulate.
What’s the catch? These are both two-way streets. Music influences technique; technique influences music. Clarity influences tuning; tuning influences clarity. In order for a drumline to look the part while playing with stellar technique, the arranged music better allow for that to happen. In order for a drumline to sound amazing and achieve other-worldly levels of clarity, the tuning scheme must be consistent and appropriate.
Exhibit B: Daniel Allen’s award-winning snare solo at PASIC in 2008
To describe why this solo was so successful, consider the following quote from the seminal psychology study “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance” done by Dr. K. Anders Ericsson in 1991:
In the performance of music, children and adolescents are judged principally on their technical proficiency. Expert adult performers, however, are judged on their interpretation and ability to express emotions through music (Sloboda, 1991). The inability of many child prodigies in music to succeed as adult musicians (Bamberger, 1986; Barlow, 1952) is often attributed to difficulties making this transition—possibly resulting from inappropriate training and instruction during the early and middle phases of music training. To become outstanding musicians at the international level, individuals have to contribute unique interpretations of music (Roth, 1982).
So there you have it. Daniel was able to become an outstanding musician at the international level (i.e., win PASIC) not only because he was technically proficient, but also because he was able to express emotions through music and contribute unique interpretations.
Technique, music, tuning, and clarity. They are interrelated, and both as a performer and an educator, one must firmly acknowledge the role of each in “the acquisition of expert performance.”
I will leave you with Exhibit C: Ido Portal’s video “Self Dominance,” demonstrating unique contributions to a different field, that of human movement and capoeira.
Are you drumming like Ido is moving? Thanks for reading today.
Posted in Community, Mindfulness, Professionalism
Tagged anders ericsson, cavaliers, clarity, daniel allen, deliberate practice, ido portal, music, technique, tuning
Today’s challenge is to learn and play Murray Gusseck’s “Basic Strokes” as played by the Santa Clara Vanguard drumline in 2004. You can watch the drumline play the exercise here:
And here:
As you can tell, the exercise is quite long and involved. As such, I have uploaded the 9-page pdf file here. Spend some quality time playing these patterns with a metronome (80 bpm seems like a good place to start), and after having worked out the ending, try playing with the videos a couple times. Have fun!
Post tempo, experiences, and Vanguard hype to comments.
Posted in Excerpts, Single Strokes
Tagged Basic Strokes, Murray Gusseck, SCV, Vanguard, video
Filmed this last week and uploaded it this morning. Turned the met off for recording, so this was probably in the 152 bpm range. Enjoy!
A little aside today to post a couple pictures from a 1940’s notice found in the Charlottesville High School band room:
Anyway, thought that was hilarious. Back to building “military precision” and “snap and rhythm” tomorrow!
Hey there strangers! Due to the recommendation of two students at George Mason, I will be getting back into the habit of updating Rudimental Hands. In addition, I will be laying the groundwork for a new book on rudimental grids. Having done some field work with Spirit and Mason, I sincerely believe playing basic grid patterns is one of the best ways to improve your playing.
So before we return to any regularly-scheduled programming, please feel free to comment with anything you would like to see in the near future. More work on flams? More drumset grooves? Videos of me playing? Comment away.
Happy drumming!
Posted in Maintenance
Skill work: Today we will play flam accents with both the hands and feet. This can be quite unfamiliar for many players, so spend a good deal of time figuring out the coordination involved. As always, strive for flam consistency and even rhythms.
I am interested in how Rudimental Hands readers are doing with the drumset posts, so please post your experiences to comments. Thanks!
Rudimental Hands 