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.