All musicians should view themselves as craftsmen with a job to accomplish. Like all good craftsmen who take pride in their work, we need to have the proper tools for the job. The more tools we can put into our toolboxes, the better prepared we will be to handle the job at hand. There are five tools we strongly feel should be the foundation of any drummer’s toolbox. They are:
While sitting up straight at the drum throne, allow your arms to completely relax and fall to the floor. Make sure your shoulders are relaxed. From this position, slowly raise your forearms so that they are parallel to the floor, but make sure your shoulders and hands are still completely relaxed; the hands should be drooping at the end of your forearms. Your elbows should be close to your sides. As silly as this position may look, it is what I call the “home position” and is the healthiest and most natural position for playing drums! This position promotes ergonomic body motion. This healthy approach to drum set playing focuses on natural body motions as opposed to unnatural or forced body motions. All the techniques ranging from grips to the various strokes (wrist, arm, finger) are all based on this natural approach to playing the drums.
RELAXATION + CONTROL = SPEED AND ENDURANCE
We cannot express the importance of counting enough. Again, many drum students tend to agonize over the virtues of counting. I view counting much like I view training wheels on a bike. Counting helps you learn. Once you learn, you no longer need to count and can rely on feel.
Rudiments are a point of contention among many drummers. You may think that rudiments are old fashioned and strictly for marching bands. Soon you will begin to realize just how vital the rudiments are to drumming. Besides the history behind them, rudiments are essential for building technique. They also provide an instant vocabulary on the drum set for beats, fills and solos. The name rudiment implies something foundational. There is a reason they have endured all these years. It is impossible to play the drums without playing rudiments whether the drummer playing is aware of them or not! Why try to reinvent the wheel? It is much easier to accept a method of sticking patterns that have stood the test of time and are tried, true and proven to work.
Coordinated Independence is a fancy phrase that simply describes a drummer’s ability to do different things with different limbs in an organized manner. We believe the concept of “One Surface Learning” to be an immeasurable aid in achieving a level of proficiency with multi-limb independence. The concept is simple. It is based on patterns (such as rudiments) that are played on one surface such as a practice pad or snare drum repeatedly until the muscles have memorized the motion. Once the pattern is learned, the limbs move the sticks around the various sound sources of the drum set. You will be surprised at how different it sounds when in actuality you are playing the same pattern. This concept allows you to squeeze the most you can out of each pattern you learn. I feel it is one of the quickest and easiest ways to amass a vocabulary of multi-limbed patterns on the drums.
Reading music also helps in the quest for Coordinated Independence. The concept of drum notation is not unlike the “connect the dot” puzzles we all did as children. If one can count and connect the dots so to speak, one can learn Coordinated Independence.
Reading music is another sore spot amongst musicians. However, it is an invaluable tool, just like reading and writing any language. Reading music is a powerful tool that allows the musicians to write down ideas, figure out phrases, expand their learning from instructional books and compose “cheat sheets” for auditions, gigs and sessions.
We encourage all students to bring in songs they are interested in learning. Drum notation, chart and transcription reading become far more palatable when presented in this fashion. There are several fringe benefits to this method as well. These include playing along to enjoyable music that is in time and analyzing the recorded drummer’s phrasing, fills, beats and style. Copying your favorite drummer is another effective way to increase your drumming vocabulary. Even if you play the pattern note for note, it still won’t sound exactly like the original drummer. We all are different and we feel time differently. We all have different backgrounds and influences. This is what makes us unique.
These fundamentals will create a solid base on which the student can build their drumming future and continue to accumulate additional tools for their toolbox.
Our approach entails each student becoming familiar with the basics of each fundamental. Once the student displays a level of proficiency in the basics, we shift to a more comprehensive style involving the student having multiple goals from each area of the fundamentals to practice simultaneously.