My new power, speed and endurance exercises

[DavidPartay]

Some concepts have been stolen from Virgil Donati's Power Drumming. All these exercises are meant to be played at the SAME tempo - I've started playing them as 8th notes at 140 (ie. so it's really 16th notes at 70). I use the higher tempo count so it's easier to get the spacing between notes consistant.

David’s Power, Endurance and Speed exercises:

All hand exercises alternate as 1 minute VERY LOUD hits, and 1 minute VERY SOFT hits.

In all feet exercises, VOLUME and TIMING must be CONSISTANT! No accents unless stated otherwise!

All exercises are leading with the weak limb (ie. A right handed person leads with their left hand or left foot) unless stated otherwise!

1. 5 minutes DOUBLE STROKES between the FEET.

2. 5 minutes SINGLE STROKES between the FEET.

3. 4 minutes DOUBLE STROKES between the HANDS. MATCHED GRIP. FOUR strokes per drum.

4. 4 minutes SINGLE STROKES between the HANDS. MATCHED GRIP. TWO strokes per drum.

5. 2 minutes SETS OF FOUR between the FEET.

6. 2 minutes SETS OF EIGHT between the FEET.

7. 4 minutes DOUBLE STROKES between the HANDS. TRADITIONAL GRIP. FOUR strokes per drum.

8. 2 minutes SETS OF FOUR between the HANDS. TRADITIONAL GRIP. EIGHT strokes per drum.

9. 2 minutes SETS OF EIGHT between the HANDS. TRADITIONAL GRIP. SIXTEEN strokes per drum.

10. 2 minutes alternating two strokes hands, two strokes feet. Ie. LH RH LF RF. Two strokes per drum.

11. 2 minutes alternating four strokes hands, four strokes feet. Ie. LH RH LH RH LF RF LF RF. Four strokes per drum.

12. Repeat previous two exercises leading with RIGHT HAND.

The next four exercises are ONE stroke per drum.

13. 2 minutes alternating single strokes between LEFT HAND and RIGHT FOOT.

14. 2 minutes alternating single strokes between RIGHT HAND and LEFT FOOT.

15. 2 minutes alternating single strokes between LEFT HAND and LEFT FOOT.

16. 2 minutes alternating single strokes between RIGHT HAND and RIGHT FOOT.

17. 2 minutes SWISS TRIPLETS leading with the LEFT HAND played around the kit.

18. 2 minutes SWISS TRIPLETS leading with the RIGHT HAND played around the kit.

19. 2 minutes 3 feel doubles played with LEFT FOOT on top of 4/4 beat

20. 2 minutes 3 feel doubles played with RIGHT FOOT on top of 4/4 beat.
Total Exercise length: 50 minutes.


...Opinions?

[peter]

That sounds great, David!

[DavidPartay]

It's for my seeming inability to gain speed naturally ;) I also NEED the endurance and power benefits that the heavier hitting in the exercises will give me because my band played Josie by Blink182 the other day and I realised that I couldn't even play halfway through it!

[peter]

Don't try to do too much. Do what
you can well. It'll come with time.

Your routine will make that time less.

[DavidPartay]

Yah, I didn't realise that I COULDN'T play Josie!!

I have been unable to increase my speed for THREE years. Simply because I thought "oh doing this a few times will work!" and I've grown to the realisation that you've gotta WORK HARD AT IT EVERY SINGLE DAY for it to work!

So from now on I make sure that I do those exercises AT LEAST once every 24 hour period. Hopefully on the days that I stay over at my Fiancee's I'll still get an opportunity either in the early morning or late night to have a practise on my pillow and floor, teehee!

I'm also starting the exercises fairly slowly so I can be totally relaxed.... 8th notes at 140bpm is NOT very fast at all, so I think it's a good start. Obviously doing the single strokes will progress faster than the sets of four and eight, but each exercise focuses in a different area and those are ALL areas that I want to gain control in.

I will be VERY pleased when my double bass strokes are up to 160. They're not even at 100 anymore *sigh*. It's cos I get out of practise due to 'forgetting' due to not having time, and then a lack of commitment when I do get back behind a kit because of the whole "why bother? I won't have any more time for another few days anyway" factor but then I think "NO! MUST PRACTISE!" well now I have a definite routine that I'm going to follow whenever I have that time. So yay!

[DavidPartay]

On top of that, if I have over an hour to practise then I will also work on a lot more jazz stuff. I'm currently also working on 16th note patterns played between the foot on the hihat and my right hand on the right cymbal (I don't have an X-hat) while playing the beats between snare and bassdrum with left hand and right foot. I LOVE those sorts of beats!!! Only thing is, I really suck at them cos I've only had one practise session at them and my left foot still needs a LOT of work, even though I can do 8th notes at like 150-160 on it, once it gets to actually THINKING about what it's doing, it slows it right down to about 8th notes at 120!!

[BrettLee]

Your practise routine sounds great. It somewhat resembles that of Virgil's PowerDrumming exercises, and I bet it would certainly help drummers, push themselves to their highest limit. It's better to wear ourselves out while practising, then to have that happen on stage.. It's very frustrating when that happens.. Virgil's power and endurance is simply out of this world!! I gotta see his performance with Ring Of Fire...

[DavidPartay]

Well I hope my routine helps other people as well as myself :). I just got home and I'm about to start it on my pillow and floor (it's 11pm)

whee!

[jonberg]

That´s a good routine DavidPartay.
Keep it up and you will see some results!
Try to record yourself and compare what you sounded like a couple of months ago...that will inspire you to practise more.
It´s a neverending story...

[alencore]

agree.

Cool stuff there bro. Tnx. me try some of it.

[bootdogs]

Just curious to know why you would practice hand chops in TRADITIONAL and MATCHED....?

[DavidPartay]

because I play both grips.

But since I left my punk band I want to move almost completely to traditional grip. I really prefer the feel to matched, and if Virgil can be as fast and powerful as he is, then so can I.

[jimi]

i think its good to know both, no matter which way you prefer. good stuff david!:)

[peter]

I don't think I mentioned it before
but the night I saw Virg, he played
trad on both hands, at the same
time, flipping his sticks back-end,
one the other!

[bootdogs]

I know that traditional is pretty hip these days and you can get a different level of speed with your left hand, but if it's not practiced well you can end up with some pretty bad back pains.

[jimi]

@peter: ya that backsticking is cool! it does wonders for all the arm muscles too. i'll get a link i found about it if you guys want to read up on it?

btw, empty your PMs Inbox and Outbox because you cant receive more messages if its full and i cant reply to your PM otherwise!:)

[DavidPartay]

Yeah, I'm still struggling with trad a little bit, I'm really pushing for power and speed in moving around the kit. Sometimes I get a bit too frustrated and I'm close to forgetting about traditional grip. Meh. But I don't want to give up! And I've had so much trouble playing matched with my left hand due to starting with bad technique that this is like a fresh start, except that I can already play single strokes faster. My double strokes need a fair bit of work with both hands, but yeah.

I'm actually going to stop doing these exercises with matched grip, and do all the non-duplicated ones playing traditional. Matched is gone for me, I don't need it anymore since at the moment all I'm doing is playing at church and at my youth group, although my youth group needs me to play loudly but I've managed to play loud enough with traditional grip for them on a couple of occasions, and I once had to do a roll that I could NOT do playing matched, and I almost couldn't do playing traditional. I'm glad I play traditional because I *can* play faster rolls with it.

Mmmm professional looking grip