House of Drumming.com

As I mentioned a while back I've reduced my workload quiate a bit with the goal of really focusing in on my drumming skills. I'm only working 2 long days and one really short day at them moment, basically leaving Thursday-Sunday open for a full working day of practicing. But during e.g. Easter next week I'll have 10 days in a row like that.

How things will be next year is still uncertain. I've applied to an additional position teaching saxophone and clarinet in addition to guitar, bass and drums. Don't know if I'll get that yet. If I don't I'll be leaving for my hometown when summer comes combining this routine with working at the local factory for a year. Getting work there on short notice is not a guarantee, so I might have to accept being without any work for a short while. The basic idea is to work for at least one year, live for free and save most of the money.

I'm taking lessons at the moment from various people to get some hints and ideas, but mainly just to stay inspired and get some insight from really experienced and educated people on this instrument.

My old work situation tooks it's toll, and now since I've gotten back to a really good diet and do a short body weight workout everyday I seem to have the energy do this with ease. Mood is way improved. I'm completely beat every night, but in a good way these days.

It's good to take a day off once in a while, but so far so good. My body lets me know. Then I either do nothing or just play brushes all day.

My routine is kept very simple concept spending about 30-60 focused minutes in each these areas either every day or every other day:


Conditioning(Accents, doubles, single doubles, rhythm scale.)

Rock/Pop ostinato

Jazz Swing/Brushes

Afro

Cuban

Shuffle

16 th. Shuffle

Funk

Odd time (5, 7, 9)

Linear

Double Bass/Samba



The basic idea of my routine is that I have about 8 hours every day to practice. Mondays and Wednesdays I have only 4.

I start the day with timing and conditioning 3 times a week. In the evening I either work on my conditioning either my double bass or samba.

The idea is not to just do exercises per see, but rather keeping time for an extended period of time and just keeping a log where I slowly add new ideas/increase speed or whatever in each of the areas I’ve sort divided my routine into. Basically making everything feel good, keeping it musical and under control. The point is basically to increase comfort and freedom in each area, so I move forward slowly with sort of a concept of time keeping, soloing, accenting and filling all at once simulating moving through the sections of a song.

I’m not using mp3 play-a-longs much, but mostly the iReal app.

As far as progressing my routine, it seems new ideas come up faster than mastery of each idea, so how things progress sort of takes care of itself.

Main tools are currently the Chaffee books, Syncopation, New Breed, Code of Funk and Vinnie’s playing on "Ten Summoner’s Tales" and "Truth be Told." I’m also getting back in to my old more varied listening habits of various jazz and latin stuff, but I guess now with more of a drummers ear.

The school I will most likely be applying to is a jazz school, so my idea is to prepare 2-3 traditional jazz tunes as well as a couple of more har hitting fusion things. Time will tell. I will take at least 1 year, maybe 2 and make sure my bank account can at least keep my refridgerator full of healthy stuff for 2 years of school without me having to worry about needing a job.

That all sounds great, but if you're not doing so, try to play with other musicians as much as possible, preferably musicians better than you. Best advice I ever had. Just practicing without practical application can lead to a range of problems later on...music is about communication after all.

The way I work on stuff is sort of not to be dependent on playing with others too much. In an ideal world that's all I would do, but better musicians, or even musicians that are at all able or even interested in the stuff I want to play aren't something you find in a place like this.

Getting a gig anything is good practice, but I've sort of be through that for more than 25 years as a guitar player. If I go back to my hometown I'll be able to play a bit of acoustic jazz with good people, though.

I'm basically just going to school as seriously as I can, getting the basics down in important styles, building chops and start building my own readily available and usable vocabulary. Hopefully I'll end up with a routine that I can get down to 3-4 hours, so that, yes, most of my time in the future will be spent writing or learning songs and playing wiht others. That's one of the main reasons to go back to school in the first place. Meet other hungry students who want to just get better and play all day without the pressure of having to make a living.


Today I've mostly been working on jazz independence using only the first syncopation page in what I guess are the 4 most common ways, playing in different tempos and combining it with different solo ideas and long periods of just straight time keeping.

Offcourse brushes. Important . Important.

Then I went through a collection of BD patterns in 5 with a few different ostinatos.

Next I did about 30 minutes of an Elvin style afro thing that my teacher showed me.

I just came back from lunch and just wanted to have some fun, so I put on the Sting record and played through most of it.

Next now is ostinato practice time at 50bpm. Today splashing 8th notes on the hi-hat and then I'll come back later to do 30 minutes of double bass conditioning before bedtime.

Right hand is pretty tired now, but left foot feels fine.

Slight setback today:



So today so I've only worked on A stickings and some general hi-hat work.

Oy! Need head needed.
Good luck practicing! Congrats on being organized.

Left my new heads back in my hometown, but luckily I'm going there tomorrow, for ten days. Just finished packing the drums in my car.

Went to Oslo this weekend to get some lessons. Sort of informal lessons from friends so unclear about payment. Long time until Christmas so I'll have to think of some way to compensate them.


Got a lot of new ideas and inspiration.

Got a pair of Ralph Hardimon Corpsmasters as pad sticks. Also found the Jazz Drumming Cookbook to be probably the best jazz book for me at this point in time.

Second the cookbook. That, and the DeJohnette/Charlie Persip book are the two that made the most sense to me when studying. Congrats to you. Hope your regiman yields the results you're looking for!

Some extra work I did for group A stickings. Or any group for that matter, but works best with A and C because of the odd numbers.
Besides all the combinations and studies, I went for making the easy math over 16th notes with them first. For instance: 5 note group completes a cycle every 5 beats or five 4/4 bars.
Then, I used them to fill up a number of 4/4 bars.
One bar would be 5-5-5-1. Two bars would be 5-5-5-5-5-5-2 and so on.
After that, I tried to find ways to use them in a practical way to get to certain target notes. This is implicit in the studies, but I went one by one with a specific goal. First, I'd see where each group would take me by playing just one on the downbeat. Then, find where to play it so I would land on the downbeat. For the 5note group that would be 2-e and 3-ah. Then the same thing can be done with two groups and different positions around the bar.
The whole idea is to know them inside out within the bar and over to the next one. Then, what I do is improvise different phrasings until something pleases me and fill in the gaps. Gary's approach with numbers is still valid and must be done, but in addition to making the numbers and play them until they feel comfortable, I try to make them instinctive so they can come out in a more ear-friendly way -which is the big danger with all the number-ish Chaffee stuff: getting caught in the numbers and not hearing "melodies" anymore.

With the Chaffee stickings I try to move very slowly and exhaust the possibilities. They are endless, but I apply a combination of improvisation and adding new things in a strict manner first, as I do with everything. It's the same as learning scales, licks and learing from the licks as I do guitar.

Took a break for several days now. Had a guitar gig on Friday.

Seems I'm slowly moving into a more traditional routine of 2-3 hours pr. day, og full out one day with conditioning and then a day off each week.

Things are quite uncertain at the moment.

I might stay here in one of my just if I can teach woodwinds as well.
I might end up far North in Mo i Rana for one year as purely an electric guitar teacher. (My guess is that I will be first Choice after the interview for this.)
I might end up South in Porsgrunn as a drum teacher. (less lightly as I have no diploma as a drummer yet.)
I might end up at the factory back home and living in my parents basement.(This is what I would prefer. More money for gear, back home with friends and family and a much needed break from teaching.)
I might be unemployed for a while. (Not good as my savings have gone out the window lately, but it's survivable for a little while.)