Category: Drumming
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Strumming While Drumming
Today I had a thought: hey, could I strum a guitar while working the pedals of a drum kit at the same time? And to my delight, I could! This is a breakthrough for me. As a self-taught guitarist, one thing I never learned to do is tap my foot to the beat while strumming.…
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DIY Backing Track Practice 2
Day 2 of trying my idea of using the Ableton Move to come up with simple loops for practicing my drums to. I’m happy with the loop! My drumming still needs a ton of work though. Some super bad fills in there but hey, I’m improvising and practicing at the same time. And still a…
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Found the Perfect Use for an Ableton Move
I’ve had the Ableton Move ever since it came out a year ago. And frankly, I never used it. I really only played with it for a few days. Even though I’m happy to have it and I thought it was super cool, I never get around to doing anything with it at all. But…
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First Hints of Finger Technique
Today I got my first hints that the finger technique is coming to my non-dominant hand. After one week of focused practice, here are the signs…. Also my first time uploading a video to WordPress. Took me a while to figure out. Apparently downloading it to my Linux machine was jacking up the codec or…
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The NEW Ultra-Minimal Drum Practice Kit
The more I practice speed and rudiments, I’ve come to realize it’s my left (non-dominant) hand that’s really holding things up. So I started focusing on my left hand a few days ago. It has helped. My non-dominant hand suddenly feels more coordinated than before. But my finger tips still lack the strength, speed, agility…
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The 16ths Matrix
Took the time to sketch up a matrix of all possible 16th accents. Credit goes to Electric Campfire. I worked on this at 50-55 bpm. It was hard! I could only kinda sorta do the first four. This is going to take a lot of practice.
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My Own Exercise: Beginning Limb Independence
Came up with my own exercise today to help with limb independence. Mainly my left leg wouldn’t do what needed to be done. Had to take it slow until it got programmed into my brain. Didn’t take very long actually. Making good progress. Here’s the exercise:
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Kick Drum Practice Pad Under the Desk
Without a doubt, this has to have been one of my finest ideas…. Over the last couple of days I have been talking about “getting reps in” on my non-dominant hand by just doing single strokes on a practice pad. It has helped already, even with just the few days I have been doing it.…
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Focused Practice
I saw a YouTube video a few days ago that has stayed with me. He spoke about focusing on what’s giving you the most trouble. For example, if there’s a difficult section of a song, stop practicing the whole song and only work on the tricky bit. It stuck with me because this was how…
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Sixteenth Kicks at 80 bpm and Routine Planning
Wanted to do some kick drum workouts to help build my stamina. I cranked it up to 80 bpm, a new top speed. I could barely hang in there, and it was a bit sloppy. I went at it until I was too fatigued. I checked the recording and was shocked that I only lasted…