mvm.

10/9 - LOOKING AT DYNAMICS

So, for tonight’s practice session, it was imperative for me to have a gander at dynamics, as that is one of my strongest weakness. It can really have a huge impact on your playing skills, especially overall kit control and fill orchestration.

But first, starting off with the usual. 

START WITH USUALS 

For this session, I started with the usual of metronome practice on the snare. Kicking things off with single stroke rolls, double stroke rolls, paradiddles, flams and triplets all based around eighth notes and sixteenth notes. This is going from 120bpm til it gets sloppy, which is around the 160/170 mark for most rudiments. From this, I went on to look at Open rough three stroke rolls that push the accent on the last sticking – RLR LRL – this is the same case for 4 stroke rolls and 5 stroke rolls. This is an exercise in itself, as it requires a great amount of stick control and technicality.

DOUBLE STROKE ROLLS – RRLL RRLL

“open rough” 3 STROKE ROLLS – RLR LRL

4 STROKE ROLLS – RLRL LRLR

5 STROKE ROLLS – RLRLR LRLRL

6 STROKE ROLLS –RLLRRL

7 STROKE ROLLS – RLRLRL R

Sooo, I had to get really gritty and slow it down to about 90bpm, to really accentuate the accentuated sticking and less so with the other stickings, so I can really get to grips with my dynamic control.

This went on to not only practice them on the snare, but around the kit, as fills. So, I began exploring down that aisle. Practicing the accentuated rudiments around the kit. One at a time. 

With ideas from Thomas Lang and his Drumeo’s video, Applying Technique on the Drum Kit, I began exploring ideas, such as, applying the two 16th notes from a six stroke roll on the toms and the rest of the stickings placed the same on the snare – making 16th note triplets.

And damn it sounds good once you speed it up! 

Aswell as this, I also used a practice idea from Mike Johnston, which is first 8 stickings, then 4, then 2 hits, and another 2. This gives you greater sticking control, and hand variations. 

This felt like a 40 minute exercise, but it probably ended up being like 2 minutes …

So, this week will all be about dynamic control. 

THEN THE FUN STUFF 

Then, it was just a case of just updating my drum cover playlist on Spotify. Found out some really kewl bands too, current favourites of Anika Niles. John Mayer. Ghost-Note. Some really groovy tunes in there… Check ’em out if you wannnttttt toooooooo … !

Until tomorrow. 


See y'all then. 

Alex