Google Day and Electronic Drumset

Today during our 1 and 1/2 hours I acted as a mediator for two different groups while writing songs. I would piece what they had and tell them to glue it all together, without writing anything new. I will be recording these projects as well for them.

I also got a electronic kit, and as you can see, the time I'm posting this is 1 oclock in the morning. Time flies when you can just play drums forever. I got this kit mainly because it is much easier to record basic level sounding electronic kits than it is to mic up a acoustic kit. Since I can use the MIDI output on my rolad td-11 module (the brain for the electronic kit) I am going to hook up that midi information to EZ or superior drummer which takes drums samples and uses them, producing a much more realistic sound. This is what was done for Peripherys first album as well, so the quality of production will be much higher than it was last year.

Google Day

For this google project I worked on Art of Bop drumming. Most of it was triplet over jazz ride independence between my right foot and left hand. Other groups also have started to talk about their projects, I am now doing the drum tracks for two different projects! My traditional grip chops have been getting much better because I am using it more, but rolls and doubles with the left hand are still not as solid as I would like them.

Acoustic Panel Update

I finished building a total of 1 panel today. It takes a surprising amount of time to build one, but the next few will go by quicker. I have to buy more burlap though, because there is a lot of it I can't use because I have to cut and trim and what not. I hope to have three done by the end of this week, but we will see. I have some pictures, but I want to make an album of the process so I will upload them later.

Creating Acoustic Panels RIGHT NOW

I am currently making three acoustic panels. This isn't that many and will barley effect the room, but I will post pictures and results in a a couple hours!

Weekend Status update

I just got all the materials together to make some acoustic panels. I will be assembling them tomorrow! I have enough fiberglass for 12 panels but I will only be making 3 tomorrow. I will record basic sound (just using a camera mic) which will show the before and after of the room.

I am almost done with ghost on the dancefloor, there is a incredibly difficult area to transpose for about 30 seconds. Out of that 30 seconds I spent about thirty minutes trying to figure out the first twelve.

2nd sucks is covered. it was not a hard song to figure out, If time is generous I'll record it tomorrow.

Weekly Update

So It has been awhile, and I'm finding this project harder to do. Between the difficulty of Junior year and my laziness, I now know how much harder it is going to be. I have come to the conclusion that this won't get any easier, and I'll have to push incredibly hard to get were I wan't to go. I have not been working on my chops as much as I should have, as I have not made progress since my last tempo update.

However, all hope is not lost. I am constantly thinking about drums and music, I dream about it to some extent. It's just I procrastinate so hard, and It feels like I never have time. But, I am still learning, as slow progress is still progress.

In terms of songs, I have got almost the entirety of Ghosts on The Dance floor by Blink-182 down. It's just near the end were their are fills everywhere and I need to transcribe them one by one. The intro took me about 40 minutes to figure out and get down after I slowed it down with my computer. I am also just jamming to other Blink 182 songs to get the Travis Barker feel, I'm pretty confident with first date, but my right hand gets tired after playing sixteenth notes the entire song.

Link to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHPsjZ-TFxA

2nd Sucks, by A Day to Remember, I have down completely except for one part (Just a awkward snare rhythm) which should take me no longer than 10 minutes to get down.  I plan to have this recorded, filmed, and up by Sunday if I get up off the couch.

Link to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSPsrvnYbMg

In terms of Art of Bop drumming and lessons, I still have much to practice. If I really work hard this week, I think I can make considerable progress. I'm going to give this week my all and see how far I can get. The exercises I made up in Syncopation are going along pretty slow. I'm having trouble sight reading them with a triplet feel. However, once I have the first several pages of that exercise down with a triplet feel, reading jazz charts and placing fills in will almost be automatic.

Also (I know this is a long post! Stay with me here) I purchased some Roxul AFB fiberglass, and I am going to home depot this weekend to build sound panels! I hope to somewhat acoustically treat my drum practice room so recordings sound a bit better, and the neighbors are a little less annoyed.

Google day and Lessons!

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to take a lesson to make sure I was still on course. I have some new exercises out of one of my favorite books "syncopation" to help sight read fills. Throughout the google day I worked on bass drum and snare independence in triplets. I'm making slow progress, but I am getting better

End week Results

Singles: 180

Feet: 155

I am making progress on my chops and on Art of Bop drumming. I had a very busy week so I'm very far behind were I want to be. I hope to make it through comp exercises 4 and 5 in art of bop drumming this week. However, today I did learn a fairly easy song called "2nd Sucks" by A day To remember. The song wasn't difficult at all and took be about 30 minutes to learn (even though I don't exactly have it nailed down). However I do feel fairly confident with it. I want to direct my interests into the Trivium song "In Waves" which in itself isn't a hard song, but will take awhile to master exactly what he is doing. I hope to log in about 10 hours this week, as well as get a lesson in on Tuesday. Wish me luck!

Google Day/ Week Summary

The google day on Friday was incredibly productive. I finished comp exercises 2 in Art of Bop drumming as well as started com exercises 1 for bass drum independence. I am going to change my rudiment charts to just total single stroke speed for both feet and hands, as it takes about a hour to update it every week. I am still going to practice rudiments, its just hard to keep track. The progress I have made so far seems rather slow, I feel like I should be much farther in the book and I felt I would have made much progress since I have been practicing a lot more but I still feel halted. I might get some lessons in the following weeks just to double check I'm doing everything right. Last year I made a sonic leap in my playing with a few lessons, So I'm hoping the same will happen this year.

Weekend of first week

Overall, I feel like this week didn't go so well. School work has been a burden so I am going to have to work through lunches now to make time for myself to practice. I have still not yet been able to get my chops re-evaluated as I have been much more busy than normal. For this next week, I plan to log in a total of 15 hours and get my chops re-evaluated. My plan is to work as soon as I get home for two hours, and then two and a half hours on Sunday and Saturday. This means however I must do much more work over the week and spend less time on other things. Hopefully I can make the leap. We will see what this week brings.

Nearing end of week 1

This week (so far) I have been able to get about a total of 5 hours of practice time in. Due to last weekend I was far behind on homework, leaving little time for drums. This weekend I will fully catch up so I can practice more during the week. I am going to re-evaluate my chops speed, this is because I wan't them to be recorded as the cleanest and fastest I can go (after about a hour of playing) without accents, tensing, or other frills. I have only worked out of Art of Bop drumming so far, but comp-exercises 2 in the book is greatly helping my ride cymbal independence. Over the weekend I hope to be able to be fluently play in comp-exercises 2 and cover a simple metal song. This is all relying on that I don't procrastinate on Friday.

Day 5

I had a extremely busy weekend, and was not able to practice that much. However today and yesterday I was able to get about 3 and a half hours in.  My schedule is to play for 1-2 hours as soon as I get home. Today, I worked a little to long on rudiments and not enough on jazz. I need to get a clock to keep track of time. I also noticed that the rudiment speeds that I put up on Saturday were not entirely accurate. Most notable are my doubles. At 170 I cannot keep a even stroke, so on Saturday I will retest my rudiments and keep you updated. Art of Bop drumming has proved to be quite a useful book so far. As of now I can keep a consistent ride pattern over triplet variations, which I couldn't do a week ago. I am going to work on brushes technique tomorrow in hopes that I can play "around midnight" in jazz band better. I cannot wait for this weekend and will no doubt put 8 hours in. I hope to record and cover a easy song and upload it by Saturday, we will see how the rest of the week goes.

Day 1 Chops

The BPM I have listed are not the fastest I can play. In some cases I can my actual speeds can go around 20-40BPM faster than the original. This is simply a no warm up chop test were I can play comfortably and to some exaggeration "play it in my sleep".

*All are 16th notes except for single foot chops, which are played as eighth notes.
Hands
Paradiddle (RLRR LRLL): 140
Doubles (all wrist): 170
RLLL : 115
LRRR : 125
RRRR LLLL (Stone killers) : 111
RLRL (single stroke) : 172

Feet (double bass)

RLRL: 145
Right Foot: 165 (eighth notes)
Left Foot: 145 (eighth)

Max RLRL Sprint: 175

These chop logs will be updated every week.

Day 1

Practice Log- Day 1

(introduction & goals)

Hello, everyone. Very good to be back into the swing of things this year. This time however, a large focus of mine is to improve my drum playing exponentially by the end of December. My goals are rather basic and realistic, but very much time consuming. They are

1. Improve speed and accuracy of chops (feet and hands)

2. Develop a incredibly comfortable feel in 4/4 swing jazz

3. A moderate comfort zone in 3/4 jazz, 5/4 jazz, basic afro-cuban, latin (sambas and bossa nova are main priority).

4. Excel my already comfortable level of playing in Rock & Metal.

5. (Maybe) develop a sense of poly-rhythms applied in progressive metal (Periphery, Meshuggah, Animals as Leaders). 

6. Cover and Record 5-10 songs by December. 

  6a. Learn to mix and master drums (depends on if I can get the gear). 

To do this I have developed  a practice schedule of 2+ hours a day. This will most likely not be done in one sitting and will be broken up throughout the day. Also likely to change.

A. 30 minute chop session- 20 minutes on hands, 10 minutes on feet.

B. Jazz, 15 minutes of jazz exercises, 5 minute break, a continued 15 minutes.

C. Other styles, 15 minutes of exercises, 5 minute break, a continued 15 minutes.

D. 30 minute song focus. Pick up one song and try to cover. If to hard, focus on those chops and come back.

E. 30 minute chop session- 20 minutes on feet, 10 minutes on hands.

*Bound to change depending on what is needed, but the schedule does some up the general outline. 

As we gone on through the projects I will post updates of my chops once a week, and try to upload 1 video a week and things I'm practicing or what I do to improve my chops. 

Books I intend to work through

Art of Bop Drumming (Jazz)

Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer (Jazz)

Funky Thesaurus (Funk/Latin/Afro Cuban based book)

Bass Drum Control (Chops)

Stick Control (Chops)

I may pick up others as well depending on what style I feel I need to focus on. 

After this is all over, I expect a huge jump in my playing. I am hoping to continue this kind of practice routine after all this is over and develop a much bigger array of things I can play by the end of this year.