speed?

[duggano]

Hi there,

Im pretty new here and one thing that struck me is loads of you guys are really hung up on the speed you play at!! I think the most important thing is that all you guys stop thinking about the speed you play at and start thinking about how you can improve playing in your band, or how you can improve your soloing. What about rudiments? These are the most important things in drumming. They train your hands to be in the right positions when you do a fill, or even when playing a groove. Ive heard loads of people who live near me say oh man i just got my double bass pedal and now im really getting fast, but when i hear them they cant play one! Have any of you guys ever heard fireball by Deep Purple? Rumour has it that Ian Paice went into the studio and found keith moons bass drum and added it to his kit. He recorded fireball double bass. Then he went on tour with a single bass pedal. I think thats a great message, cos that guy had mastered single pedal way before he even thought of double pedal. I think over speed, its more important to be tasteful when playing bass drums. I dont think virgil concentrates on being the fastest player in the world, but to be tasteful and play what feels right. I thhnk if you sat him at one bass drum with a single pedal, he could play quite a lot of things that seem impossible on a single. I think instead of practising goin at 230 bpm on a bass , rudiments should be practised over and over again, thats how you get to be the greatest drummer afterall! Id really love to hear what everyone thinks!

Rock on guys

Dug

[jimi]

I don't think everyone is hung on speed, but yes there are alot of questions about it. The most that i ever say is that a drummer should forget about speed. CONTROL is the key word, and id even go as far as avoiding the word speed altogether!
I think you mentioned the right things in your post like concentrating on a band situation and being in the music. Rudiments are important, but only along with everything else, like playing for the music, understanding a band situation, etc. etc. Balance is important, but think of an acrobat. they can do all sorts of things but still have balance through all of it, doing crazy things but staying on the tight rope. In other words balance is more than just being able to walk across the tight rope!
Anyways im gona stop there before i rant on more:)

[duggano]

Hey jimi well said man

Sounds like you got it all figured out, i bet your a great drummer :-D Although i think everything is important i would still say rudiments are really tops. I mean when you think about it there wouldnt be any drums without rudiments! if i said to you play songs without rudiments then i think there would be tons of things you couldnt do but if i said play a song with out bass drum, well thats been done before. Im not being funny just saying, maybe i just love rudiments too much:-) does any one else find them selves just tapping them on their knees?!

dug

[jimi]

oh ya for sure! but rudiments came into existence long after drums were invented you know? they are the scales of drums, like major and minor for piano/guitar etc.
Just remember the music came first and then the theory:)
Dont get me wrong, i practice rudiments all the time, ok? i think you'll get me anyways:)

[duggano]

haha i hink we both know what we mean but cant put it into words:-P:-) whats your fave rudiment. Ive been doing this rudiment called a paraquin . Basically you arrange a quintuplet like a parasiddle. So its like RLRRL over and over so you get a paradiddle feel. If you accent the first R every time it sounds awesome, and combine it with toms and cymbals to get a killer sound! Haha the swiss army triplet comes a close second because of its name for me:-P How bout your fave rudiment?

Dug

[MaltBuddow3]

Control, Control, Control. You increase your ability to play fast by working on control. Let's face it, in a big band setting, your burn factor separates the men from the boys, when you can sight read something like Wind Machine or Magic Flea perfectly, getting every figure, leading the band into figures, and soloing. If I had the control to pump out a 1000 bpm single stroke roll for ten minutes straight without effing up, think about how relaxed my groove would be. I would be getting all the calls for sessions, because with that much control I would develop unbelievable precision, and then I get hired over a drum machine and become the most in demand player that ever was (that's gonna take me a while)... And in soloing you gotta have some chops, even if it's just a very chilled out melodic one you still gotta have control.

Beats per minute is just a concrete way to show our progress. We show our level of control by putting it in terms of what bpm we can play a groove or fill or rudiment. Sure we have lots of discussions about how to get more speed, and if you read them we all talk about control, and starting off slow to learn things the right way.

I saw Kill Bill Vol.2 last night, man it was awesome! you gotta go see it.

I know you asked Jimi this one, but my fav. rudiment would have to be... the paradiddle/five-adiddle layering in 5/16... haha

Keep practicing those rudiments!!! They're the basis of it all!!!

[MaltBuddow3]

oh yeah... IMO all rudiments should be practiced over and over again, b/c that IS how you become the best like you said, but you wont become the best if you dont push yourself using a metronome, which is where the relation to speed comes in.

I'm done!

[jimi]

Malt, i think you talk the talk better than any of us here!!:)
Yeah i dig the swiss army triplet alot, and lately i've been diddling with displaced accents, basically Virgil put a displaced accent lesson online and i've been doing it with rudiments. i must mess with that 5-a-diddle in a minute too!!

[MaltBuddow3]

Thanks Jimi, so... ugh... what are you... doing this weekend??? haha!