The Drum Theorist's Blog

I’ve been away for a bit. I’m sorry. I hope that doesn’t mean you won’t do me a favor. Not a huge favor, just a small one, okay?

Play four counts of 16th notes with an accent on each downbeat, starting on the right hand.

Done? Cool. Now, play the exact same thing but use a paradiddle sticking. Start on the same hand.

Finished? Thanks. I owe ya. Now answer this: did the two patterns feel different? I bet they did. And that’s important, because the way you feel while you’re playing a pattern affects the way you keep time. I call this the “handfeel”.

One of my drumlines is currently having difficulty playing paradiddle, tap-diddle, and diddle-tap exercises at a steady tempo. The thing about those diddle-based rudiments is, unlike rolls, they’re used to play a linear succession of beats in a non-linear, sometimes asymmetrical manner, as opposed to the constant symmetrical and linear alternation of hands.

I know, I know… what on earth does that mean? It means space. The alternative sticking of diddle-based patterns provides each hand space between notes. This space gives us the opportunity to keep time by playing a basic rhythm using different stickings other than your typical hand-to-hand strokes.

Take, for instance, the four counts of 16ths played in a single-stroke manner:

Playing that hand-to-hand is very direct, very driving. In contrast…

Paradiddles – for example – offer each hand some space, which means that although the pattern itself is driving, the handfeel is more laid back After all, the right hand is playing:

Notice that I left all the rests in 16th value so you could see all the space your right hand has while playing paradiddles… and, oh, how much space there is! The left hand plays the same pattern during those spaces, but of course its cycle begins at a different point.

Tap-diddles and diddle-taps contribute to this spacious handfeel with their asymmetrical patterns on each hand. The notes are delivered in a linear succession without breaks, but one hand plays the tap, the other plays the diddle, and each hand gets its own unique set of space. Neither hand is playing the same thing, so you have to figure out how that asymmetrical, spacious handfeel feels inside the tempo.

In the case of diddle-based patterns, it’s this space that can help you figure out how to approach the pattern so that you can play it at a steady tempo. Take advantage of the resulting handfeel and “lay back” by not approaching the passage with a sense of driving through the passage really hard, but instead with a sense of open space as opposed to closed space. This doesn’t mean you should play lazily and drag, of course, nor should the rhythmic interpretation alter.

The concept of handfeel offers a way to help you be aware of how these patterns feel physically within a selected tempo. This is used in conjunction with understanding how the denomination of notes fit within a time signature and tempo; understanding how all the beats are placed in time. It’s a burden to mentally keep track of all the beats you’re playing, making sure that you’re placing each and every beat in perfect metronomic fashion, or counting along in your head (as many younger players are prone to do). At some point, feel is going to have to take over; you’re going to have to know what fundamental rhythms and sticking patterns feel like.

Not to mention that these stickings offer us a choice. Since different stickings have different handfeels, we can choose how we want to keep time during certain passages, and that lends itself to musical interpretation.

And it gets more complex when you combine different patterns, say, a paradiddle into two tap-diddles into a paradiddle-diddle into an inverted paradiddle. At some point, you have to have enough diddle control to keep them evenly spaced so that no matter what kind of space surrounds them you don’t end up closing the space of the diddles themselves. Through the entire passage, however, you’ll need to remember that all of that space requires you to lay back and keep everything open, rather than drive right through and close everything up.
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Oh… what about double-stroke rolls, you say? Rolls fall into the hand-to-hand category because, although you’re playing doubles on each hand, each hand does move up and down to a specific fundamental base rhythm, whether it’s 16ths, 8ths, triplets (12ths), etc., which means that the hand alternation is constantly symmetrical and linear.

Rolls are really another story… and another post.

I’ve tried writing something about this topic 4 or 5 times by now. It’s a tricky subject and one I think about a lot. After all, the goal is to pass on knowledge and wisdom to the students, right? As an added bonus, teaching helps one to understand and perform his or her craft better. I’m constantly analyzing my craft(s) and the ways I can convey concepts to my students. I want them to understand what I’m talking about, and that means I have to understand various teaching methods as well as the nuances of the craft itself.

Now, think about the above generalization. Think about that and then ask yourself, “If I call myself a teacher, am I really teaching?”

Allow me to be cut and dry here.

There’s teaching, teching, and instructing. Which one do you do by default?

Instructing is the base of all three categories. Quite simply, an instructor tells someone what to do. Since this is a drum blog, after all, I’ll “Play that again.” “Go hold a roll.” “Clean up the flams.” This, of course, is drum-related (it’s a drum blog, you know), but you’ve seen the stereotype of a bad teacher on TV: “Open your books to page 94 and start reading to the end of the chapter. Do the questionnaire at the end.” In basic, basic instruction, you can certainly show someone how to do something. Demonstration, for example, is a form of instructing; by demonstrating a method and giving a play-by-play of what you’re doing is basic instruction. Instruction, however, doesn’t always have to contain information other than instructions of what needs to be done.

Teching is the step up. It includes instruction but also offers a bit more information. For me, teching deals with the issues and problems at hand. Techs address these issues, offering both instruction and advice, but generally the lessons given are not global. That is, the lessons aren’t related to other, similar topics both inside and outside of the craft. For example, a tech will help the student fix an accented passage in a piece of music by may not generalize the concepts of playing accents so that the fix can be applied to other, similar situations.

Now, instructing and teching aren’t bad things. In fact, in the medium of competitive drumline, you get a lot of instruction and teching that are very narrow in focus, and depending on the time restraints, sometimes you just have to give instruction and hope that the students trust you know what you’re doing.

The problem is, I often see instructors and techs that default to these methods and still call themselves teachers.

Teaching is the final step up. It includes both teching and instructing, but whenever possible the lessons pertain to both the immediate issue and is also relatable on a global scale. Teachers will take narrowly focused information and offer to their students a way to apply it to other, similar situations. Fixing an accented roll in a passage of music can also have general drumming applications. There are analogous situations, too. I can’t count the number of times I’ve related the discipline of being in a drumline to becoming a disciplined student in school, or how respectful presentation learned in drumline is related to showing up to a job interview.

Global lessons lead to this point: a teacher should be imparting wisdom to the student, and that includes giving the tools to the student so that they will eventually be able to go out and teach themselves different things.

Having said all this, ask yourself again, “Am I a teacher?” If you call yourself a teacher, but the answer, according to what I’ve laid out here, is, “no,” then perhaps you should re-evaluate how you approach your students.

A little Op/Ed piece, since I just had a drum corps weekend and witnessed quite a few things, both good and bad.

This particular piece of writing is going to touch on the rising trend of electronics in drum corps and, for that matter, indoor percussion ensembles.

First, let me get this off my chest in an impolite manner: I hate electronic instruments in drum corps and indoor percussion.

*ahem*

Before anyone says that I’m just an old curmudgeon that can’t stand change, let me say that that assessment would be wrong. I’m fine with change. I like evolution. But a medium is a medium because of how it is defined, and one way to define a medium is to acknowledge its boundaries.

To me, drum corps is acoustic. There are no electronics involved. When I listen to drum corps music, I want to hear horns and percussion. That’s it. I want to hear a great hornline rip my face off with a bigger-than-life sound. I want to hear a battery play creative, clean, fun beats with an attitude. I want to hear mallet percussion performed with agility and musicality. I want to hear auxiliary percussion contribute nuance and color.

What I don’t want to hear is a mandolin sound. I don’t want to hear samples of a storm or the wind blowing. I don’t want to hear a piano. And while we’re at it, I don’t want to hear an electric guitar or bass in a drum corps, marching band, or indoor percussion ensemble, either.

The full name of the drum corps activity is Drum and Bugle Corps. I don’t see the words “piano”, “synthesizer”, “violin”, or other such descriptors in the name. Any other sound is just out of place and, instead of a drum and bugle corps, you get a musical ensemble that is basically comparable to any mixed ensemble: a big band, an orchestra, a pop band. Without these boundaries, the medium becomes something other than drum and bugle corps. Same thing with marching band (all wind instruments and percussion) and indoor percussion.

And let me get in a quick word about indoor percussion. An indoor percussion ensemble should be a percussion ensemble, right? A synthesizer and an electric guitar or bass are NOT percussion instruments. So why are they allowed in a percussion ensemble? That’s like saying it’s okay to have strings in a wind ensemble, or brass in a woodwind sextet.

The great thing about any medium’s boundaries is that they force practitioners to be creative within those boundaries. In drum corps, you don’t get to use a piano, you have to use a marimba, xylophone, vibraphone, or other some such keyboard to convey what you want. You have to use the musical and tonal properties of those instruments to convey something piano-esque, if that’s what you’re after.

Succumbing to the use of outside sounds through the use of electronics basically means that the show designers can’t creatively use the instruments that define the medium in such a way to get the results they want. They have to resort to outside sounds, and this is the sign of giving up. This is a sign that says the medium should become another medium because the show designers cannot work within the medium as it is defined.

As far as sound effects, it’s ridiculous that show designers need to use synthesizers to produce sounds of a thunder storm. Me? I would use concert bass drums, sheets of metal, and cymbals. Need to add sounds of rain? That’s what rain sticks and ocean drums are for!

The great thing about music is that it’s abstract. Despite what we’ve been told since childhood, music is a language but it isn’t a universal language. Each person will receive a different communique from a piece of music because it is an abstract artform. Music relies on emotion and mimicry to convey a message. And while I think it’s great to be able to use samples in mixed music formats, such as pop music, the marching activity has always been an acoustic musical activity. I think the acoustic concept is important to reiterate as we talk about music as an abstract medium. Drum corps and marching band have always been acoustic musical activities. They’re basic and primal and rely on acoustic instruments to convey impressions with which the listener can associate. When a trumpet whinnies like a horse, it may sound like a trumpet, but the listener knows it’s mimicking a horse. When a bass drum pumps out a faint bum-bump, bum-bump pattern, the listener associates that with a heartbeat. It is this quality that I appreciate about drum corps.

It is a sad day when electronic instruments become the norm in drum corps. Marching band and indoor percussion are already plagued by them. I would hate to see drum corps rely on such a crutch. I want to see evolution and creativity, but I want to see those things within the boundaries that define the medium. I don’t want to see drum corps turned into something it isn’t. Push the boundaries, but don’t redefine them. A truly creative person can be so within those boundaries.

I got out of the car about 7:30 last night and heard someone playing his drum set.

Oh… we live in a condo, by the way.

It didn’t bother my wife and me because we live on the other end of the building so we didn’t really hear it unless we were actually listening for it, but I do remember feeling very sorry and angry for their upstairs neighbor (so I guess it did bother me).

While this drummer is actually pretty decent, he’s giving drummers a bad name. Many people think that the drums are cool and that drummers themselves are cool, but only during a performance or conversation. Any other time, people find us annoying. We drum on everything: shopping carts, the desk, the table, our laps… And then there’s practicing: the tick-tick-tick on the drum pad, the loud sound of the drums… it’s rare that I can drum on my drum pad at home without my wife asking if I’m going to stop soon.

We are annoying musicians to most. And the guy playing a drum set in a multi-dwelling building is a rude contributor to that. But, he’s also one of the inspirations behind this post.

There is no reason why he needs to drum on his kit, really. Yes, playing on your instrument of choice will help you to become more familiar with how that instrument feels, how to handle it, how to manipulate it, etc. But the drums are unique in that all you really need is a pair of sticks (and sometimes not even that). You pretty much need a saxophone to learn how to play the saxophone. Same with a violin, cello, trombone, etc. But drummers can learn how to play the drums with nothing but a pair of sticks and a surface to play on.

The other inspiration behind this post is a particular group of high school kids that just don’t understand this concept.

Back in February, at one of my high schools, several of the students got very, very disappointed when I told them we wouldn’t be using drums for at least two months. A deep sigh emanated from their breaths and all I could say was, “You don’t need to play on a drum to be a drummer.”

A good drummer should be able to sound good on a drum pad. If you sound good on a drum pad, chances are you’ll sound pretty decent on a drum. If you sound horrible on a drum pad, you are most definitely going to sound ten times worse on a drum. Everything becomes amplified: all the mistakes, the bad attacks, the lack of control… the rule of thumb is if you can’t play it well on a pad, it will sound worse on a drum.

In the end, if a drummer really loves the act of drumming, it shouldn’t matter if they’re playing on a drum or a tin can. The physical act of drumming should be fun, no matter the playing surface. Indeed, playing on a drum is fun, and it’s certainly educational, but time has taught me that a pair of sticks and a surface that can tolerate a beating is also just as fun if I’m playing well.

Plus, I can play in my condo without bugging the neighbors.

I’m pretty sure it was my age-out year of drum corps. I was walking across the gym at our housing site with my instructor/mentor/friend/boss, talking about… drums, probably… and we passed by one of my fellow snare players ramming beats on his pad. We asked him what he was doing and he said he was working on his chops.

In response I said, for the first time, “Remember: technique first, chops second.”

Technique, technique, technique. It’s important. Yes, chops are important, too, but without technique your chops will be useless if you hurt yourself.

If you look up “technique” at Dictionary.com, you’ll find the following definitions pulled from the Random House Dictionary:

1. the manner and ability with which an artist, writer, dancer, athlete, or the like employs the technical skills of a particular art or field of endeavor.
2. the body of specialized procedures and methods used in any specific field, esp. in an area of applied science.
3. method of performance; way of accomplishing.
4. technical skill; ability to apply procedures or methods so as to effect a desired result.

Okay, so let’s derive that technique is a specialized method by which something specialized is accomplished. Let’s specify this for drumming, shall we?

(Yes, you can also apply this to other disciplines)

Technique is a specialized method that helps to accomplish a specialized goal in a manner that allows the body to function naturally, with some modification, and promotes efficiency, fluidity, and prevents physical harm.

Several techniques exist for drummers and other percussionists to choose from, depending on what instrument they’re playing and what they want to accomplish. In my case, I developed a default technique that I use for general playing, but when needed I use another technique. The general technique I use is also the one I teach my students, and the reason I do is because I think it embodies the definition of “technique” that I presented above. As a teacher, my goal is to make sure my students learn to relax, play efficiently, and play in such a way where they don’t physically harm themselves. If they can learn to do these things, then drumming will be easier for them.

Learning and using bad technique will do the opposite; drumming will be difficult, consume a lot of energy, become a tense activity, and may cause detrimental pain that could have long term effects.

Now, let’s define “chops”. The closest thing I could find was on Dictionary.com’s pull from the American Heritage Dictionary:

Slang The technical skill with which a jazz or rock musician performs.

Meh.

In the drumline activity, at least where I’m from, I know that we use the term “chops” a little differently. “Chops” is certainly a slang term, and in my usage, it refers to speed and stamina as they pertain to muscle use. How fast one can play and for how long is an indication of having chops. And having chops is a good thing, of course. Without chops, a drummer is limited in how fast and how long they can play, obviously. Chops also aid in the betterment of technique. The more a drummer practices using a particular technique there will be an increase in the ability to use the technique more naturally as the muscles become used to the motions used.

Thus, a cycle is created: the better a drummer’s technique, the more speed and stamina will come as a result. As the muscles get exercised, chops will increase resulting in a boost in speed and stamina. As the chops increase, the technique used will be practiced, resulting in improved technique.

Now, let’s think about this. If a drummer has bad technique and continues to play and play, thus increasing their chops, and thereby getting better at using their bad technique, they’re basically increasing their muscle strength while supporting bad drumming habits. And, as mentioned before, bad technique can be detrimental to both playing and to the condition of the body.

Unlike the chicken-and-egg scenario, we know what comes first in the cycle: technique. When a beginner picks up drumsticks for the first time and attempts to drum, the way they hold their sticks and hit the drum or pad is, essentially, a form of technique. This is where the journey begins. Chops come from playing and practicing, and you can’t play drums without some form of technique, whether that technique is primitive and uneducated or refined.

Hence, technique first.

If the concept here is indeed cyclical, then why worry about it at all? If technique begets chops, which begets improved use of technique, then what does it matter as long as proper technique is used?

Young drummers should make sure that they actually DO emphasize the learning of good technique. This, of course, is part of the teacher’s job, making sure they are promoting good technique. However, young drummers should also know that the more they play, the better their chops will get. In the drumline activity, we do chops-busting things like hold rolls and accent patterns, but never, ever at the expense of technique. Chops will do then no good if they play with bad technique.

The moral of the story is: chops will come. Don’t worry about them. Good technique is the basis for everything physical. Concentrate on learning good technique and, I guarantee, the more you play, the more chops you’ll acquire.