the moeller killer - will it make a difference ??

[Kurtis]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYT77qnP ... re=related

this guy has great hands. would like to see him pull this stuff off on a medium tension snare drum. those drum heads are so cranked up. makes for friendly rebound.

[YamahaPlayer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYT77qnPqcI&feature=related

this guy has great hands. would like to see him pull this stuff off on a medium tension snare drum. those drum heads are so cranked up. makes for friendly rebound.

I'd have to disagree there.

Modern marching snares have less rebound then a drum set snare, they certainly don't have more.

A marching snare is about the same as your kitchen counter. Put your snare next to your counter and A/B them. You'll find very quickly that a harder surface does not equal more rebound.

In fact, a softer surface does. This much is clearly evident if you're ever played on an eKit with mesh heads. Or for that matter a gum rubber practice pad - hence the term "pad hands".

[Kurtis]

i have tried marching snares. i get TONS more rebound on those things and then some. buzz rolls are a cinch. doubles and singes were easy to achieve also. i have heard a few of the drum corps guys play on rubber practice pads and they can still play fast singles and doubles just not as fast. maybe its just the snares that make is sound faster. do you think Jim Kilpatrick could play those fast singles on a steve gadd tuned snare? might be a bit of a challenge. guys like virgil donati don't need much of a rebound surface. they just have that twitch thing going on. it's nice to be born with that.

[YamahaPlayer]

i have tried marching snares. i get TONS more rebound on those things and then some. buzz rolls are a cinch. doubles and singes were easy to achieve also.

I'm not sure how to respond to that, as it's so completely backwards from reality... keep in mind what *you* hear is not what really is. My guess is you were playing at about 10% of the normal volume that you heard snare players playing at and if you recorded yourself, it would not be exactly what you think it is.

Additionally unless you regularly practice with marching sticks, on a laminate surface, there's just no way you'd be able to just "try" a marching snare and make any reasonable assertions or observations.

Buzz rolls on a marching snare are considered one of the hardest things to play (getting the hands smooth from hand to hand).

Virg has his snare cranked btw, he also specifically practices very powerfully. He would definitely be a player who "muscles" the stick.

This also: "i have heard a few of the drum corps guys play on rubber practice pads and they can still play fast singles and doubles just not as fast." Makes absolutely no sense at all.

THIS! Is getting closer to the truth: "maybe its just the snares that make is sound faster."

Sonic perception is very different from reality. Also no offense, but you just may not understand what you are hearing when those guys play. The complexity of modern marching rhythms is shocking. To hear a player cleanly grid inverted cheese's is impressive as all get out, fubar's, slivit's, etc even more so.

As someone who teaches both drumset and marching, I can very safely say the complexity in rhythms of snare drummers is far above what drumset players on doing on average. This is, most likely because, they are a very focused thing. Where as us drumset players have about 40 more things to do at the same time.

[sejuba]

dont' worry about speed, worry about what you want to say on the drums. Speed will come after time.


his videos certainly speak for him....

Deseipel, I love your use of irony hehe

[moose]

I'm having a lot of trouble finding video or audio of this guy playing actual music with anyone.

And check out the tension in his shoulders, and particularly in his neck, in that Vimeo video.

[Steve Holmes]

Impressive singles for sure. I'm not sure I would want to work the hours required to get that ability. It's pretty limited.

[sejuba]

Impressive singles for sure. I'm not sure I would want to work the hours required to get that ability. It's pretty limited.

Neither would I, was just hoping anyone here would explain what he is doing (since he claims its some new technique he came up with)

[Phil T.]

I'll just chime in to say there aren't any "new" techniques out there. Singles will come from arms, wrists, or fingers. Moeller is a rebound technique but there are other ways of using momentum that are equally valid.

For what it's worth, I wanted fast singles years and years ago after watching "Rich at the Top," a PBS show from the early '70s with Buddy and his band. He did a long solo feature - could have been the West Side Story arrangement. I was 14 or 15 with my jaw on the floor all the way through. He did one bit that I copied endlessly: Fast singles slowing way down and then building back up. I wanted that - wanted it badly.

I inverted Buddy's routine and did slow to fast to slow for probably a year and a half, and eventually got pretty speedy with singles. Definitely not as speedy as some but more than enough - overkill, even - for 99% of things. I didn't know about Moeller then and I'm still not very good at it. At first I forced the speed but eventually learned to relax and let the drum's rebound carry most of the load. That would be the goal: Relax and let the drum do most of the work.

Just my $0.02.

P.S. And it occurred to me that probably the best thing about that little exercise is that I forced myself to start slowly (say quarter notes at 60 - or 40, even) and pay attention to how the strokes felt, where they fell, etc.

[DeeP_FRieD]

I really think relying on certain techniques for speed can be a good and a bad thing. I spent a lot of time on the moeller technique, and when that push pull thing was getting a lot of heat, I worked on that every free second I had.

The techniques did wonderful things for me, but when I really started digging in this latin thing I've been working on, these two techniques started to fail me.

It was all the Mambo Bell and Mozambique's(the really one, not the Gadd/New York one) fault.

In a really cooking mambo, the bell part on one hand can get pretty quick and I was using my finger technique to get through, but I was constantly getting yelled at by my teacher about it.

The thing that was happening is that the clarity of the notes was changing between wrist strokes and finger strokes, making it not sound legit; also, it's really hard to use the finger technique when changing very quickly between the high and low part of the bell.

Once my wrists built up the speed and endurance, my shit started to pop; plus there was a bonus: it was much easier for me to throw a feel on it using the wrist.

Well, once I did this I went back through my playing and reevaluated everything from a consistency standpoint... I haven't abandoned the moeller stroke or finger techniques, but I only use them when necessary or if it is fitting.

On fast bop I use the push pull on the ride a lot... you can get that 5 stroke in one hand Tony thing going like that, and from watching slowed down videos, he seemed to use this too; although he used every finger not just the middle one for the pull.