My friend Andrea from Cleveland asked me my opinion of balancing daily life with practicing and I thought it would be good to post my thoughts here. It's often assumed that the amount of practicing we have to do is impossible to accomplish with our busy schedules. Personally, I've had the luxury of having a ton of "free time" to dispose of, but even when things got busy, especially in college, I still made it work. I think it's mainly changing our perception that makes finding practice time less stressful. As percussionists especially, all we do is more our bodies. So, even when we walk, we can practice. Just focusing our thoughts to our arms, hands, legs and feet we can take a 3 minute walk and turn it into a 3 minute practice session.
"Away from the instrument, there are tons of things to learn" - Jojo Mayer, and I completely agree. If you can't get to a rehearsal space there's always a drum pad. If you can't play at home, there's always YouTube, Pandora or Spotify, and when you know you can get to a rehearsal space, you can plan what things are most important. I know timpani time is extremely limited, but I own a timpani practice pad, so I can work on the technique at home so when I get to the rehearsal room I don't have to focus on it as much. I found these ways of thinking really opened up the possibilities of practicing for me and I find that I can practice anywhere, doing almost anything. It's not so much finding a balance between things in your life, but finding ways of incorporating multiple things in your life. When I spend time with my future fiance, I try not to physically practice because I want to dedicate that time to her, but being with her creates new emotional events that I can access in my performances. So in a way, it is practicing, without practicing. I don't have to choose between music and life, life is music. This is the way I think of it now, and perhaps this can help you create more opportunities to practice as well.
Sticks and Stones
I love stick control, any stick control! From Stick Control and Accents and Rebounds to Superior Technique and Developing Dexterity, I just can't get enough permutations of common rhythms and stroke patterns. Most drummers out there at least know of or own the Stick Control book, but not everyone knows how to properly use it, or any book for that matter. I can honestly say that, in the beginning, my use for stick control was a lot different than it is now, and with the progression of use came a deeper understanding of how to develop and maintain technical proficiency. Hopefully this can help someone else find more opportunities within the exercises.
Number 1: The Exercise Itself
Obviously you have to play the exercise properly. The stickings, rhythm, required repetitions and any other information must be executed precisely with little to no extra effort or struggle. Once "mastered" at a certain level, tempo can be adjusted to either be faster or slower. Really seeing how slowly and smoothly you can perform the exercise will determine how well your body is accustomed to the movement itself. The faster tempos will show you how agile the body can be within the exercise's structure. You can only go so fast, but you can always get slower. Go for that more! Stick control is an excellent medium to work on your time within different rhythmic patterns. Take advantage of and exploit this as much as possible!
Number 2: Improvisation
Only after the exercise has been "mastered" can you move on to another one. While continued work on every exercise is encouraged, they can get boring to some people. So, improvising on the exercise can give it more "shelf life" and make things a lot more interesting. Jacques Delecluse's method book has very simple rhythms within his exercises, but he encouraged and even wrote in specific improvisations, mainly using dynamics. So, instead of just practicing the same exericse at the same volume, you can use all dynamic levels, crescendos and decrescendos, and even subito dynamics to get more variation. Depending on the exercise, adding embellishments and accents can also make it more interesting to work on. Basically, you want to be extremely creative, figuring out what you can and can't do with that exercise. The more variations created, the more technique gained.
Number 3: Feel and Sound
So, within both of these we have two key elements: the physical feel, and the sound we create. Usually, the sound will influence the feel, but for a while, in my case, the feel influenced the sound. If that's like you then you probably have a great sense of feel but not so great variety if sound, at least at some point. In which case, really experiment to see what different feels sound like and just don't always go for the most comfortable feel. As for the ones whose sound influences the feel, really memorize how those sounds feel and see how many varieties and combinations of sound ideas create similar yet different feels. Be sure that the movements are effortless, not over tensed and over worked, and that the sound isn't crass and is very clear, unless otherwise intended. Stick control is just as much about developing your ear as well as your hands.
Doug Waddell always told me, "I don't care which stick control you do, just make sure you do it everyday." This is definitely one of those things you do not want to just skip out on. Honestly, for most of my college days, that's all I would do, literally for hours on end. Just stick control and scales. If you can get that technique in tip top shape, everything else is a piece of cake. The more vocabulary the more ways you can express yourself. The more fluent in that vocabulary the easier it is to say what you want. So no matter what book you use, or warm up exercise, be sure to do it everyday and to really focus while you are doing it. The last thing we want is to be going through the motions with stick control, or else it won't fulfill its function of helping you get better. Experiment, set goals, mix and match, try new things, and be adventurous. You'll be surprised at how many things you can accomplish with this mindset.
Time
The metronome. It introduces us to the concept of keeping time, helping us find stability within it. However, this time is essentially artificial, mechanical. It is planned out to land on certain parts of a second at a certain time. This of course is very helpful because a metronome can show you various combinations of those beats per minute and its use for this purpose is extremely important. But, when we take away the metronome, what do we rely on? What can we relate our time to? I think that, ultimately, time is felt. 120bpms feels a certain way and 121bpms feels a certain way. I think of time more like I do tuning. With tuning, usually the darker the sound I want, the tendency is to play it "flatter"; the brighter I want the sound, the "sharper" I'll play it. Similarly, if you were to tune a major chord, you cannot simply play every note in tune with themselves and put the 3 together. They have to be tuned in relation to each other. The spaces, intervals, between the notes can't be too large or the chord sounds too wide, and vice versa. I compare this way of tuning to my way of setting and keeping time.
The space between notes is comprised of the appearance or disappearance of intervals and silence. With time, the space the silence takes up creates the tempo. How do you count 30bpm? A trick is to just think 60bpm and play every other beat. The downside is, you're still not playing 30bpm. You're playing 60bpm at 30bpm, so the character of the 30bpm ends up feeling like 60bpm. Unless you can feel that space between each quarter, you can't play the character of that tempo or any of its subdivisions. It's really obvious to hear with slow tempos, but not so obvious with fast ones. When you play 165bpm, yes it's fast but it's not hurried. It's slower than you think. Unless you can feel the quarter without the subdivisions, trying to make it to the next beat instead of landing on it, it will sound "notey", as if it's just played note to note individually, unconnected. Feel the bigger beat and don't use the subdivisions as a crutch.
The idea is not to do away with subdivisions, but to make sure the subdivisions are taken from the desired tempo and not an extract of another one, put into an equation and processed to equal the desired tempo. The big beat is king. Now, when the beat is found, you have 3 main choices: play right on, ahead or behind (perfectly in tune, a little sharp, a little flat). The key to this is to have control and flexibility over these changes. You should know when you drag, rush or are "perfect" and a metronome is great for experimenting with that. After that, the choices, with individual notes within the beat, are their lengths. You can play the eighth note its full value, longer or shorter. This too can give allusions and characters within the time itself. My instructors at DePaul, Marc Damoulakis and Eric Millstein, gave me a perfect combination when it came to this way of thinking.
With Eric, he always talked about the character of pieces, each having a certain sound, a certain groove and feel. Marc always talked about the lengths, colors and feel of the notes, having complete control and endless varieties of them (both of course had similar views on all topics). Put these two together and you get a more musical interpretation of not only the music itself, but time as a whole. So a march tempo with long but bright notes sounds more stately, but change the bright to dark and it sounds tyrannical. You could change the drum or the tempo to do either, but why bother when you can just use your hands?
When in the orchestra, you have to be flexible. This takes a little time to get used, but the more music you listen to, the faster you'll figure it out. Notes before and after pauses or holds, long or short (but especially long), ritardandos and accelerandos are the ones that are most important to pick up as soon as possible. Each metric transition has common tendencies that almost every orchestra is sure to do. It's something you have to hear, feel, react to and not rush into or hesitate with. When in doubt, watch the concert master, or whomever is the main voice at the time, but when you can react without the aide of outside forces, then you are in the moment, and ultimately, on the stage, that's what you should be getting into anyway. Time is now, living moment to moment.
Listening is important to your time. Playing with a human being means you have to be flexible, even when you are being rigid with the time. If you are playing a march and people begin to drag, it's better to play a darker (behind) version to try to get the tempo back instead of blazing away or staying in the center of beat (this is only if you are the only one with the rhythmic figure, otherwise do stick as close to the majority as possible without losing the desired time. I find the slight behind or ahead placement is good to stay with the group and not lose them or the time). Of course things like this cannot be mechanically calculated in the moment because it can change note to note. Your ears, your feel and your reflexes have to be open to change and adapt moment to moment, note to note, especially on pieces that come with these tendencies to rush or drag.
So practice with a metronome, get acquainted with the time as often as possible, and when you're on stage throw it away. Mechanics have no place in the performance. No one wants to hear a string player's string crossings while they are playing a beautiful phrase. It would sound like someone saying, "I.......................love.........................................you." No one will say, "Oh the orchestra was dragging, but that snare drummer just kept going. Way to stay in time!" No, they would say, "He should've went with the orchestra or something." So of course, get the technique, get the stability of time within yourself, but when it's time to perform that particular piece on that particular night before or after a particular piece that you either play on or not, 60bpms might not sound like 60bpms that day. It might feel like 61bpms. What does the moment say it feels like, what does the moment say it sounds like, what's the time and tempo in that moment. As you practice, if you drag you will notice it because you will feel yourself slipping away from the moment, or if you rush you will feel yourself falling forward. You won't need to always depend on the recording's playback; you should be able to tell right then and there what happened to your time! When you're aware of those ideas and atmospheric changes, first in practice and then in performance, then you'll really be playing in time.
Listen
"It's the sound that sets you free"- Man on Fire
Ah the sound. Why is it that when we are on the audition stage it frightens us? For me, getting used to the initial sound breaking the silence was extremely hard. It's just me, my drum and the screen. I have to break the silence and play the excerpts. For some reason, my intrusion of that silence was scary. If you are like me, maybe you can relate. So how do we get over this fear of sound? Not only that, but what sounds are we even making at that moment? Are we conscious of it or is our fear and apprehensiveness deciding that initial sound for us? Here's how I tried to counter this.
I think there are three main facets of being comfortable with your sound: having control of it, accepting all aspects of it reacting to it both in positive and objective manners. First, the control. You must have maximum control of what you want to accomplish musically. If you can express what you want, then your technique is fine. However, if your soft playing is thinner than your loud playing, or vice versa, you have work to do. Usually, especially with soft playing, musicians tend to go too far south as far as playing way too soft to manage or maintain. This can be caused by not having enough weight to support the sound, either with air or actual weight support, making it sound thin and timid. Making sure that your sound has that bottom, that fullness, at all levels, and the opposite, having a manageable thin sound at all levels, and anything in between, I believe is crucial to being able to adapt to any hall and any situation. If the hall is really wet, you have to play shorter to be clearer, in most cases. You can do this by thinning the sound out, but you can also just play the full sound short, or have a complimentary mix of the two. The more options you have, the more adaptable you become, as long as you allow yourself to make those adjustments naturally, not forcefully. If you try to play soft or loud, you usually use more energy than you need, making the sound seem unnatural or forced.
Next, full acceptance of what ever comes out. No sound is bad. All sounds are "good." The quicker you accept this, the easier it will be to be comfortable with the sounds you make. There are only appropriate and inappropriate sounds for the moment. Nothing is bad and all are good. Kenny Werner, author of Effortless Mastery, talks about making the "ugliest sound" sound like the most beautiful thing in the world. When you hear that "ugly" sound, it shouldn't make you cringe. Don't shy away from that sound because it's yours, you made it. Yes, it might not be appropriate for that moment, but it is yours. Enjoy that. The less you judge your sounds in a subjective fashion, the easier adjustments can be made to get to a desired result. If your practice is always in fear of a sound, you'll never fix the root of the "problem" and the "ugly" sound will continue to appear. Accept it, find why it is there and what causes it and embrace that knowledge. Then you'll be able to navigate around it.
Finally, guiding the reactions to your sound. As previously stated, you cannot label your sounds as bad. Really, no sound is good or bad, they are just sounds. So reacting in a negative way only further hinders their being. I would rather react positively to all sounds rather than making the distinction between bad ones and good ones. Remember, there's only appropriate and inappropriate for the moment. This objective view will allow you to make more efficient changes with less stress on the outcome or the process towards that outcome. Also, reacting to the initial sound you make, and also anticipating it at the same time, dissolves the mystery of what is going to happen. If you know what sound you want, know that you can achieve that sound with little to no effort, extra or otherwise, and just allow yourself to do what you hear, you will always make the sound you desire. From there, just react to what that initial sound gives you. Yes, you may have calculated the amounts of air or stick heights for the excerpts, but that can never be set in stone. What if the hall renders that system unusable? You have to be ready and willing to do whatever needs to be done without a second thought, hence the reason for reacting to what comes, having the control and technique to change without thinking and not perceiving any sounds as bad, but in a positive, objective light.
The pictures used were from the New York Film Academy student resource article about stage fright. While I have yet to tackle this topic, I do believe that this article makes very good suggestions and has great examples that you might find helpful. This of course is another aspect that effects our ability to perform, let alone create the sounds that we want. But, again, I think that thinking about the creation of those sounds in this way will lessen the stress and make it easier to perform in the long run.
5 Ways to Improve Your Technique
When it comes to learning to play drums, there are five questions you should ask yourself:
1. What am I learning and why?
2. Is this natural or forced? (is it relaxed or tense?)
3. Is it easy as pie? If not, then why?
4. Am I making progress?
5. Does it sound the way I want it to?
Speed is a big thing for drummers. It’s impressive and it just looks awesome. Using these five questions, let’s do some drum technique exercises that will not only give you more speed, but better tools to improve your drum technique.
1. What Am I Learning and Why?: Answering this question will help you establish a very clear goal with room for improvement. Since your first goal is speed, find out what is the fastest speed you can comfortably play, and see what that sounds like. After that, your focus should be to play any amount faster, or play a faster version of the previous easy tempo.
Here are some drum technique exercises that will help you boost your speed:
Play 8 eighth notes with one hand, and four sets of 16ths starting with the opposite hand.
Then, do the opposite: 8 eighths with the opposite hand and four sets of 16ths with the hand you started with.
Do this at a very comfortable tempo, one where you can really feel how your hands move and make it as natural as possible. Make sure that the stick is bouncing. If it’s not bouncing as much as it can without getting out of hand, you will not be able to play faster.
Remember, let the stick do the work at all times!
2. Is it Natural or Forced?: This question is my personal favorite. No matter what you do, it’s crucial that you’re relaxed when you play. If you’re straining to play something, it will sound hard and harsh, and you run the risk of getting hurt.
Make sure to check your grip. Let the stick bounce and rebound off the head with your hand. This will make the stick and your hand move in unison.
3. Is it Easy as Pie? If Not, Then Why?: If the stick is moving freely with your hand but you can’t reach the goal you’ve set, then you have to ask the question, “is it easy as pie? If not, then why?”
What’s the easiest thing you can play that you don’t have to think about? Are there any similarities to this and the goal you’re trying to reach?
Let’s say striking the drum at an easy, medium volume twice (once with each hand) is the first answer. For the second question, it could be that you’re only hitting the drum twice. Those two questions are really easy to answer, but it’s the third question where you start to do your problem solving.
Playing fast involves striking the drum many times. The motions of striking the drum are the same, just faster. What about that motion makes it easy? Whatever that is, it’s important to maintain that same feeling when you play faster. You know you’ve reached your natural limit when this seems too difficult.
4. Am I Making Progress?: This process of critical thinking and questioning is very valuable when you’re learning drums. During practice, you will mainly be asking yourself questions two and three: Is this natural? Is it as easy as pie?
Trying to get the motions to feel natural and easy is the best thing you can do to reach your goal and achieve the sound you desire.
Once you’ve accomplished this, you will be able to answer the fourth question because you will be able to see and feel your progress.
5. Does it Sound the Way I Want it to?: Now let’s assume that you’ve answered all of the previous questions. The final question is, “does it sound the way I want it to?” What you’re doing may feel natural and easy, but if you aren’t getting the sound you want, you will still need to make a couple of tweaks.
Since you’ve already done the work to make things easy on yourself, it will be that much easier to make these changes. Sound is generally influenced by three factors: evenness, dynamics, and sound quality.
1. Evenness: If the sound is uneven, make sure you’re playing in similar places on the drum, and that both sticks are the same height and are going the same speed to and from the drum. Also, make sure both sticks are rebounding, and that you’re holding the sticks in similar places.
2. Dynamics: Stick height, placement on the drum, and rebounding are all very important to manipulate your dynamics. If you want to play fast but soft, then you have to practice playing the natural, quick motion low, and vice versa for playing loud. If you want to play crescendos and decrescendos, you have to have an even staircase effect where your heights get higher or lower while maintaining the natural, easy feel you acquired.
3. Sound Quality: The question of quality is the tricky one, which is why it’s the last step. In the end, you want your playing to sound good, not just to you but to other people listening as well. If you’re making fluid movements and letting the stick bounce, that’s more than half the battle and things will sound good naturally. With these little tweaks, you’re just fine tuning the work you’ve already done to make it sound “clearer.” This is similar to clicking “HD” on a gritty YouTube video, but even with that, the video still may not look great.
The same goes for your sound. You may be producing nice sounds that sound easy and not hard or harsh, but people may not like the sound you’ve chosen. It’s not any fault of yours, this is how you chose to play and you should be proud of this accomplishment. Let’s say, however, a band director asks you to change your sound; you now have the ability to do that!
You’ve practiced different tempos, and you know your limits. You’ve practiced different dynamics, and you know how to change them. These two elements alone can help you change almost any part of your playing! By simply learning to play faster, you have gained the necessary tools to improve your technique. Remember, everything should feel easy and natural. The stick has to rebound, otherwise it will create a harsh sound.
If you approach your goals and your drum technique exercises with these five questions, you will make significant progress. You can use this method to improve your speed, drum technique, and any other goals you set for yourself.
Don’t stop there. As you saw, even within the set questions there were other things you could think about. The more you ask, the more you will find out and the easier the process will become. Being curious will definitely help you grow.