The problem with play-alongs, pads, and alphabet paradiddles

Okay, I haven't had a rant in a while and since I'm cooped up like everyone else, I might as well let fly!

I, like everyone else, am not performing live these days. One way I try to keep my musician instincts in place is to play along with recordings. Now, I think it's important to make distinctions between drum covers, loops, play alongs, and playing to recordings

Let's start with drum covers. These are almost always incidences of individuals platying along to a recording and playing exactly what's on the recording. Someone learns the drum part to a U2 or Nirvana tune, and plays it exactly that way.
Pluses- easy to tell if you're correct, can work on steady time and correct feel.
Minuses- don't really need to listen beyond time and feel, not creating anything new.

Loops tend to be just a piece of a composition repeated over and over again with no variation.
Pluses- Can concentrate on a particular groove without having worry about shaping a song form. Good for playing "against something". (See my groove surfing " post. )
Minuses- Not dealing with a whole composition or the time/dynamic variables that go with it.

Play alongs are a little different. They are usually recorded to click and one instrument at a time so they can be played on with the drums removed. They usually involve different interpretations of difficult compositions and are usually about learning an arrangement and playing it the same every time.
Pluses- Good for learning and memorizing arrangements, showcasing hard material
Minuses- Usually so concerned with showcasing drumming they don't hold up as compositions. Click allows one to get "lazy" about listening.

I feel playing to recordings creates particular challenges because often we are playing with recordings done without click so we have to learn to "balance" all the natural dents and shifts in the time. Therefore we can't get so wrapped up in what we're playing that we stop listening on a deep level. This also involves reacting to what's going on in the recording rather than just aping a part or playing some slick stuff over a backing track or loop.
Other ways we can challenge ourselves to listen on a deep level are 1) Play the recording at a lower volume than is naturally comfortable ( also helps considerably with developing one's low dynamic range ) and 2) Playing along with music you've never heard before and trying to build a part for the song on the spot, and commit to what one's done even if it feels like wrong turn.

Okay, what else?
Oh yea, I finally figured out why I find pads such an unfulfilling playing and listening experience. Acoustic drums and cymbals vibrate, A LOT!  I personally find a lot of joy and excitement to these vibrations, to the point that I think my physical and mental health is improved when I experience these on a regular basis. It's okay if you don't feel that way, I've just realized this is what works for me….

Finally, I recently saw a relatively famous drum teacher showing an exercise where one plays paradiddles and the recites the alphabet, then recites it by speaking two letters then thinking the next 2 etc. I think maybe he even got into reciting it backwards but I didn't get that far.

Hmmmmmm……

How is this useful? Well, I suppose it helps us remember our alphabet, but I assume most of us have that together, more or less. Maybe if one is doing some sort of drum/spoken word solo gig, although I don't think those come up that much. It's a bit sad because players (especially young ones, and I was certainly in this group myself) see something like this and think, " this is difficult, so I should learn it". The problem is, it also has nothing to do with playing music, Now, playing paradiddles while singing a standard tune, or even counting bars into 4 and 8 bar phrase lengths. Long story short, time is valuable. Don't waste it practicing dumb things……..

Al Harewood ideas

Guitar great Reg Schwager recently posted this great Horace Parlan track on social media




It features the almost criminally ignored Al Harewood. I lifted 2 timekeeping ideas from this, although the track is chock full of comping gems.

In the first one, which appears in bar 7 of the head, he plays this great double time phrase on the snare. It's very reminiscent of something Roy Haynes might play at a similar tempo. ( See example 1)

Note: The ride cymbal and snare should not line up in this case. Try to keep the snare straight and the cymbal swung. Also crescendo the snare throughout and accent the last note. Okay, here's the second idea, played during the piano solo.

This is a great variant on the "Philly Joe click on 4" thing because it creates a 2 bar rather than a 1 bar phrase. Cool! Now let's look at a partial list of ways I've worked this material over the last few days.

With idea 1)
-play snare drum idea on bass drum
- play "" "" on snare and bd together
-play idea on bd and snare alternating
-play idea alternating between SN. , BD,  and hi-hat
-play idea on snare while playing rest of 8ths in bar on hi-hat alternating hands w/ samba bass drum
-play idea as double stops on snare and cymbal w/ samba bass drum
-play idea as is with double time swing time keeping
-as above but with 2 feel on cymbal
-play snare idea with rh while filling in rest of 8ths with left and left foot clave and tumbao bd
-play snare idea on closed H.H. w/ right hand while playing 2 & 4 on snare w/ LH and BD pattern of your choice
-play idea in half time w/original rest of beat
-as above but with double time 2 feel on RC and HH

…..Phew, as you can see there are a lot of options and you know what, find your own variations on the 2nd idea. The only limit to any of this stuff is your imagination! :)

Brush nuance exercises

Hey all,
Hope you're hanging in and staying safe. I saw a recent post by Dan Weiss on Instagram where he was doing finger control stuff with brushes and it reminded me of the different types of effects we can get with brushes on the snare drum while keeping our brushes on the snare head the whole time. The video below demonstrates 3 different techniques for this and the sounds they create. The first one is using very small fast movements to create accents. The sound is quite thin and staccato, even though we are still getting the sustain from the brushes continuing to sweep the drumhead. The next one is using the amount of brush surface to create the accent. This results in a lush, big sweeping sound, and generally a  legato feeling. The final way I demonstrated is to use the fingers to strike the drumhead with the part where the brush handle meets the wires, all the while continuing to sweep. This is the only stroke mentioned here where we actually get the whole drum to respond, rather than just the head. I demonstrate the 3 techniques with just quarter notes, and then the ride rhythm.




Now, if you'll forgive me, I'm going to go all FOUR ON THE FLOOR  on you and tell you what I've been listening to lately.

Sam Rivers "A New Conception" ( Steve Ellington on drums)
Sonny Stitt "Pow" ( Roy Brooks on Drums )
Mahler 3 ( Many percussionists on drums )
Bobby Timmons "Chun-King" ( Tootie Heath on Drums )
Miles Davis "On The Corner' " and "Big Fun" ( DeJohnette, Billy Hart, Billy Cobham, Al Foster, Don Alias on drums )
Ray Bryant "Sound Ray"  ( Harold White on drums. A new discovery! )

As before, keep practicing and say positive, healthy and safe!

Time to take stock

          One of the ways we can make the best of the social isolation we're dealing with is to look at aspects of our playing that we don't have time to   usually think about, let alone address, when we're playing and living normally. I have decided to "take stock" of what I'm doing as drummer. What could be changed, improved etc.Perhaps you will use this as inspiration to take stock of your own music, so let's all take a look at some of the things we've been taking for granted.

1. Sound 

This is a great time to record yourself and think about how you feel about what you hear. Or you could just try tuning your drums a different way and see how that affects how you play. Tune your drums high? Take them down and see how it sounds/feels. Like to play your snare drum low with loose snares? Crank it up for a change. For me, I've been playing on a ride cymbal in the place I've been practicing that's quite dry. Think DeJohnette/Earth cymbal unlathed sort of vibe. I decided to get over my "tape on a cymbal equals moustache on Mona Lisa" attitude and put a couple of pieces of duct tape on my 22" old K. I'm digging the results ( Lots of stick sound, way easier to control etc.) Time will tell if this drier ride sound becomes a permanent part of my set up but regardless I'm sure it will be healthy for me to shake things up a bit.

2. Types of Techniques/Ideas

This can be a great time to dig into things you normally don't do on gigs or practice much. For example, I've never done much with double paradiddles ( RLRLRR LRLRLL ) but I recently discovered some great exercises on thatdrumblog . Mr. Adam Osmianski's excesses are great because they intersperse different accents and diddles with the regular sticking, and  they are all 1 bar examples so they are very handy for variations of voicing on the drum set, as well as not being too much to keep track of, and therefore are easily memorized etc.

3.Gear

Although I haven't done a lot of this so far while isolated, this can be a great time to try out different set ups, and types of drums and cymbals. The drums I'm playing on in my rehearsal space feature 10" and 14" toms. I'm not convinced I would ever use a 10' tom in my set up without a 12" as well ( I find the 10' not versatile or gutsy enough) , it's been fun to have something different to play on and hear.

4. Listening

Because a lot of us have a bit looser schedule, it's a great time to listen to things we don't normally check out, or don't have time to in depth. In fact, I have dishes to do after I finish writing this, so I'm going to listen to some sort of classical piece I haven't heard before. Longer pieces of music are especially handy to check out right now, and I've enjoyed listening to the almost 17 minute Bob Dylan song, as well as some of Mile Davis' electric period music that i haven't heard much of.

You know, before we know it, we'll all be back to our busy lives, let's use this time to expand ourselves as musicians, and ultimately  humans. 

Playing beautifully

One of the positive things I'm trying to take away from my forced isolation is the chance to not only practice more, but practice differently. I decided yesterday to try and play and work on whatever i was doing until it sounded beautiful to me. What were the factors in that? Well many, but some of the things I was looking for was time/groovyness, pleasing and consistent sound, good balance between the different voices of the drum set, being able to play it at different tempos and volume levels and not sound strained etc. I certainly practiced longer on smaller amounts of material. I realize using a term like beautiful might seem vague as you could say it's in the ear of the beholder, but I think that's good. We all need to decide what we think is beautiful and would to hear, and then go after that.

Also inspiring to me has been watching other talented players post stuff that sounded beautiful to me. I'm thinking about people like Ferenc Nemeth, and Toronto's own Chris Wallace, as well as non-drummers Trevor Giancola and Mike Murley.

Here's a few tunes from Peter Hum's Quintet at The Rex, shortly before our tour was postponed by COVID19. Hopefully we'll be able to resume in the not too distant future, because, this is a group that I believe plays beautifully together.

New 5 beat over BD patterns exercises

Hi all,
Depending on your viewpoint, you could see all my posts lately as an altruistic ray of hope for my online drumming friends, or just a way fro me to keep my sanity during quarantine, or both! BTW, my online hang is still going on at 3PM everyday. ( See my previous post for details.)

Anyway, here's a five beat idea I've been playing for a long time. RLRRF, with a double stop on the last R w/ the LH playing the open H.H. and then closing it on the 5th beat.  Then add either a Samba or Salsa style BD pattern.Confusing? Wait until you see it written out! :)

 Okay,  here's  a few videos with first the dotted quarter/8th note pattern and then the tumbao type pattern. Then the next 2 have us playing the foot part with the H.H. open, giving it much more of a  70s Tony Williams /Punk Rock vibe.

My apologies about the shaky  camera and the "Belly Cam"! :) 

Let's De-Isolate!

Hey all,
I'm not afraid to admit I'm finding the lack of work, no money, and social isolation in general very challenging. In an effort to share stories of hope, practice ideas, and just general drum related hangage, I'm hosting an online meeting at 3PM EST all this week. Please come by if you feel like it. The link is https://zoom.us/j/2265007321

Would love to virtually see you! :)

Also, here's a great doc about Stan Levey and the Lighthouse scene in the 50s. ( Thanks to Adam Nussbaum for sending this out. )




Awesome!
I also have a new set of exercises that I'm going to film tomorrow, so stay tuned! :)