Drum Related

Know What You’re Doing!! – I’ve saved the best until last. Now it may be something pretty obvious, but you’ll be surprised as to how many people try and play not really knowing what they are trying to do! This is my point… You must know exactly what you’re doing at all times, otherwise how are you going to be able to do it?!?! I think this is a pretty good rule for life in general too!
You must know the most intricate detail about your bar. You need to know, BEFORE you start, what it is you are listening out for. Otherwise how are you supposed to know you’ve got it right when you do?!?  Be able to describe what you’re doing to someone else so that they’ll be able to understand it. If you can do this then you have a much greater chance of getting the hang of something. If you don’t know what you are trying to play then figure it out before hand.

These are my fundamentals. Work on these things and you have a much greater chance of being a great drummer.

Counting – Counting means that you have a marker for your bar. My analogy is this….. If I gave you a plank of wood and told you to mark a point bang in the centre from both ends you might have a good guess and get it pretty close, or maybe just right every so often. But there’s no consistency in it. Now if I gave you the same plank of wood and a tape measure you could get it right every single time without fail! That’s what counting is for your bar. It’s the tape measure. If you want to put something into a specific place you need to count to make sure you get it there!

Hand & Foot Coordination – If you have great hand and foot coordination then it will enable you to play more complex grooves. It’ll enable you to play faster tempos without necessarily playing physically faster. It will make everything more fluent and easier to play, therefore easier for you to play for longer. When things are easier to play you can concentrate more on what sound you’re producing and how you are contributing to what other people are doing as opposed to being completely absorbed in what you re trying to play each and every second of your bar.

Round the Kit – Some drummers are very fast, but only on one drum. This should not be so. If you work round the kit then it improves your hand/ eye coordination. It gets your hands, arms and body to work in harmony together. It enables you to play faster and more complex fills and to be more confident with creativity. If done at speed for any length of time it can also be very good for your cardio!

Singles – By singles I’m really talking about stick control. However this could also be pedal control. It doesn’t necessarily always mean hand to hand. It could just be a single hand or foot too. So really maybe it should have been called “hits”, but hey! If you have great singles then your control must also be good. If you work on your singles then your endurance will also be good. The better your singles, the more ability you will have to gain power should you want it. The faster you can play your singles at the more tempos open up for you at which to play songs. Also, using singles means you can play pretty much the same speed on any surface, not only on a tight one.

Below is a breakdown of Green Day’s Basket Case, it shows the section name and number of bars, the notes give you an indication what to play.

Section                No. of Bars               Notes

1st verse                16                             Don’t play!

Chorus (2 parts)   10                             Hi hats ¼’s & appropriate lifts
                                4                               Fills on 1st and 2nd bars then Groove in on trashy hi hats.

Instrumental        4                               Don’t play 1-3 then fill in 4th bar

2nd Verse             16                             Trashy hats and a fill in 16th bar

Chorus                  14                              Ride. Fills in 11th and 12th bars.

Instrumental        8                              Trashy hats. Fill in 8th bar.

Bridge                   4                               Trashy hats. Fill on 3rd bar.Stop in 4th!

Instrumental      16                              Trashy Hats. Lots of crashes. Fill in 16th

Chorus                 14                              Ride. Fills on 11th, 12th and 14th bars

Outro                  18                               Trashy Hats. Fills on 4th, 8th and 12th bars. End on “+” “4” on 17th bar.

This evening saw me put on an event in my town for the guys and girls who I teach. It involved people who I teach doing a variety of different things from playing to tracks, duets and solos. All in all, though I was completely knackered and brain dead before the whole thing started, it went very well! I totally ran out things to say towards the end, but hey, that’s what you get for add libbing your entire life!
If you were one of the performers, WELL DONE!! I couldn’t have had the evening without you! I hope you all had good fun and enjoyed what everyone else played too.
I’ve already had a few people tell me that they wanna play next time!
Even though I couldn’t single out a player of the day (I know, cop out right?!?) I’m very proud of all of you and your accomplishments.

The players from left to right: Callum, Sam, Jed, Finn, Gaz (at back), Robyn, Ryan, Max, Deborah, Nikki

I do have a few specials mentions though……
Deborah, very well done… solid time keeping and you didn’t appear nervous at all!
Callum, also a big well done with time keeping, you didn’t speed up once. You took it all in your stride. Very impressed!
Gaz, I know how nervous you were, but you got up and did it anyway, with the least amount of preparation! That’s my daugg!
Max, people have said good things! Keep it up and you’ll now HAVE to enter the young drummer of the year next year!
Jamie and Peter, though you guys didn’t play, thanks for all your help. Made my day a little easier!
Thanks to all those who participated and a further thanks for everyone else for coming along.
We’ll be holding another one in the summer term next year so I look forward to that one, and I hope you do too. Hopefully I’ll have it a bit more together after learning from this one!

This weeks “Track of the week” is Basket Case by Green Day. How could I exclude this track? Obviously, I’d be a fool if I did. This track has also inspired a generation to take up the drums. I don’t know any drummer who doesn’t like to see me play this track. Unfortunately for all the beginners out there, this isn’t really gonna be the track for you as it’s pretty quick! However, if you fancy giving it a crack, be my guessed! Let me know how you get on!This track doesn’t have to be played note for note perfect. You can get away with the right SORT of tings being in the right places. As it is so fast you COULD play ¼’s on the hi hat if you really want, but make sure you keep them trashy to hide it! In this weeks’ write up I WILL include the fills in case you miss them.Even if you don’t play this track it’s still worth a listen, it’s something to aspire to.

Some tips on performing - volume 4

Finally let’s look at, nerves. How can we mentally prepare ourselves for them?

Knowing and understanding what nerves do to the body is the key here. When we feel “nervous” it is part of our bodies defence system, the “fight or flight” reflex. It’s getting our body hyped up to act. What this does is release adrenaline (a chemical) into the blood stream which in turn makes our heart beat faster. In turn this can make us hot and sweat and our senses are heightened… What you need to be aware of is how to combat this sudden influx of adrenalin. The most problematic thing that occurs is that we will start too fast because of our heart beat, or the simple fact that we just wanna get the hell off stage! The best way to conquer nerves is to have a routine to “centre” yourself. This is the kind of thing you see athletes do when they are at the start line of a sprint race. They’ll have a certain walk, a certain way in which they stretch, a certain way they kick their legs out….. All these little things are preparation. If they focus on the little details, then the big race they’re about to partake in is merely a formality. They go through their steps to prepare and it just so happens that the last step is to RUN!! My advice to you is to do the same. Before you play, maybe check your kit (always good advice anyway!) without hitting it. Wipe your hands (again, good if they’re sweaty!) close your eyes, take one or two deep breaths with a long exhalation, pick up your sticks, THEN you’re away. You can easily add in more steps to calm yourself, it’s just a case of finding what works for you. But getting a “centre” is a very good idea. Even get used to it in practice. That way your preparing yourself to play, and you’re brain will respond better if you get it into the zone you want to be in. There’s actually loads more of this psychology stuff I will talk about in more detail. But try this out for now and see how you get on.

Some tips on performing - volume 3

Let’s now look at the second thinking point, preparing for mistakes.

Now this may sound like an odd thing to mention, as how can you prepare for making a mistake…. Intentionally make them when you practice?? Well no, the answer to this is very simple. You must have a game plan.
By this I mean a “go to move” for when something goes a bit wrong. Say for example, because the kit you’re using isn’t yours, you catch a stick under a cymbal and drop it. Now if you’ve not dropped a stick in practice, or at least mentally prepared for dropping a stick, you’re more than likely gonna stop! Bad move!! You should have a game plan to make a stick EASILY reachable for such an eventuality. Within a split second you have your new stick and it may not have even been noticeable. When I used to practice a few years back I ALWAYS dropped my stick, so in practice I used to do the same thing each time, which was to chuck a new stick up in the air, put my feet quickly on the bass pedals, then catch my stick and carry on. Now that actually happened in a performance and because it’d happened so many times in practice my auto pilot kicked in and saved the day. People actually thought my stick juggling was part of the act! So don’t intentionally make mistakes in practice, but if they happen, get used to doing the SAME thing each time to rescue yourself. And just make sure that “same thing” ISN’T stopping! It may well just be a case of tapping the hi hat in time while you sort yourself out, or carrying on a simple groove until you find your place…. Whatever it is, get a game plan and stick to it.