Single strokes (how to develop them)

[Gaddabout]

If you REALLY want a challenge, try flam accent 5-stroke rolls. Nailing those grace notes couple out of a double stroke have always been my nemesis. In fact I curse those grace notes. Curse them, I tell you! Back when I worked on my hands for hours a day I worked up to about 120 bpm. But that's one technique that will disappear fast if you don't work on it all the time.

[Odd-Arne Oseberg]

I do all my accent excercises with flams on the accents as well.

[Julián Fernández]

Talk about huge forearms...
Thomas is THE man!

[YamahaPlayer]

Great exercise for singles, sheet music included.

[Jim Richman]

Its all about knowing what you want to play. If you are having problems with playing on your kit, then you are having a musical problem. Technique is what you aquire from playing music.

[Gaddabout]

Great exercise for singles, sheet music included.

I love the snarescience.com folks, and if you haven't visited their site, they have a ton of excellent exercises and grids for the enterprising drummer that will get your hands (and in some cases your feet) up to speed.

But one thing they do drives me nuts: They continue the same drum corps mistake of refering to eighth notes in 12/8 as triplets. They're NOT TRIPLETS! They're just eighth notes grouped in threes! Triplets are nested by the arc and the number three over the top and they have a quarter-note value. Three unnested eighth notes in ANY time signature have a dotted-quarter note value! I've begged them to correct the title in their 12/8 grids to no avail.

I guess I'm a drum geek, but that stuff bugs me to distraction. LOL

[YamahaPlayer]

Ya, SnareScience is rad!

Its all about knowing what you want to play. If you are having problems with playing on your kit, then you are having a musical problem. Technique is what you aquire from playing music.

I'd have to disagree there. It's the other way around, developing technique is required to play what you hear in your mind.

The drive to practice and get better comes from not being able to execute the ideas you have. The mind is most always several steps ahead of what the physical capabilities are.

While drummers particularly should practice musicality. If a person is not able to execute a given idea, that's a physical problem.

You can sit there staring at a kit all day long imaging amazing things to play, but without training your hands and body to play at that level, you'll never be able to execute those ideas on the kit,.

[Jim Richman]

Ya, SnareScience is rad!

Its all about knowing what you want to play. If you are having problems with playing on your kit, then you are having a musical problem. Technique is what you aquire from playing music.

I'd have to disagree there. It's the other way around, developing technique is required to play what you hear in your mind.

The drive to practice and get better comes from not being able to execute the ideas you have. The mind is most always several steps ahead of what the physical capabilities are.

While drummers particularly should practice musicality. If a person is not able to execute a given idea, that's a physical problem.

You can sit there staring at a kit all day long imaging amazing things to play, but without training your hands and body to play at that level, you'll never be able to execute those ideas on the kit,.

The problem is that many people learn technique and do not have anything in their head to say, so they play 3 zillion notes to make up for it. I have heard many drummers with minimal technique who sound great, and many with chops galore who sound like shit.

Playing music is the best way to get better at playing drums. Have a problem with something, play it slow, then speed up.

[gretsch-o-rama]

I've recently found out that relaxing my grip has helped my speed tremendously and has helped to to build speed as well. It seems contrary to what a lot of drum corps guys would do.

[Rodge]

Being relax is the key for everything !!!