Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Wednesday night

(1) Repeated Day 9 of Better Doubles in 10 Days.  Intent tonight was accuracy over speed, so began at 75% and dropped to 65% as the doubles became more complicated.  Hey, it's Intermediate, I'm still in Beginner level Method, so no one can expect full speed ahead, not yet.  I'm getting a look at what's still to come without the pressure of having to succeed now.  

(2) Beginner Pad Warmup:  I've worked through this a few dozen times by now, probably more, so left it on 100% speed.  I wouldn't give myself a 100% score, but it wasn't much less than that.  Over the weeks (maybe even months) I've learned how to do it, and am able to add speed to the requirement for accuracy.

(3) Repeated "Hi-Hat Openings."  The first couple of times through, I sat back, listened to Bruce Becker, and took notes.  Then last night, I typed the notes on the PDF copy and printed it off this morning.  Since I now have a music stand and a nifty bright LED light for it, I set aside the practice pad and practiced at the e-kit.  

Not sure even Mike Barnes would approach it this way, and I hesitate to vary from his teaching method, but I've learned from 18 months of fiddling with drums and a little more than a year of Drumeo lessons that this is what works for me.  Start out with the specific positions for each limb on each beat, and after becoming familiar with that, then let muscle memory begin to work its way in.


(4) And just for fun, watched Sharon Ransom's 10 Easy Fills for the Beginner.

--------------------------------
Things I Think I Know, #5:  With all the aforementioned experience, I'm starting to come to some of my own conclusions, even if the technique doesn't match the instruction onscreen.  One of them is playing doubles in a modified German grip without turning the hand under.  

#6 is that I've never heard anyone talk about speeding up the hands by choking up (or is it choking down?) on the stick.  Full swing and gripping at the end of the stick like a slugger swinging for the fences will produce the most power.  But, I'm reasoning, if you don't require power, add control by letting the hand inch toward the middle of the stick into the drummer's equivalent of Felix Millan's batting stance.  



No comments:

Post a Comment

The latest direction

The most recent section of the Intermediate part of legacy Method has some standard beats and fills for different types of songs.  The last ...