So far I’ve only encountered some very basic drum fills in the songs I’ve been learning but they’ve still presented somewhat of a challenge to me as a new drummer. One of things that has posed a problem for me is figuring out which hands should hit which drums in the course of a fill. Sometimes I find it easier to use an alternating (RLRL or LRLR) technique and other times it seems easier to use sort of a hybrid technique (RRL or LLR, etc.). For instance, in a sixteenth/sixteenth/eighth fill, I’ve sometimes found it easier to hit the toms RRL as opposed to RLR. In some fills, I’ve found it useful to learn the fill multiple ways and then pick which way sounds best. It’s tempting to choose the method which makes the fill easier to play, but I’ve tried to go with the option that sounds most like the recording. So far, I’ve run into this issue in Don’t Tread On Me and in the fill that leads into the tom outro in Enter Sandman. Learning the rudiments has helped me quite a bit as they cover every conceivable hand pattern and allow you to more easily play the fills in multiple ways.
In addition to working some more on Don’t Tread On Me (I have up to the solo learned, but not flawless), I was trying to jam along with some of the preset tunes that come with the Alesis DM6 drum module. Basically they give you some preset songs that you can play along with…you can either play with their preprogrammed drum parts or with no drum parts at all. Of course, you can add in the metronome to either. My improvising ability on the drums is of course pretty limited but it’s still cool to try coming up with some original ideas. I’m still plugging away on the first three drum rudiments and I’m thinking that after I finish with Don’t Tread On Me I’ll switch gears a bit and try a Guns N’ Roses song. I’ll probably check out Sweet Child O’ Mine as I hear it’s pretty easy. I’ll keep ya posted.
I’ve finished up learning My Friend of Misery which brings my total of songs learned in roughly a month to three. Not too bad I guess. Next I’m moving on to Don’t Tread On Me. I’ve done a bit of work on it but not a ton as of yet. I’m also working on the third drum rudiment: the single stroke seven. This is another pretty straight-forward one it seems. As with the first two rudiments I’m making use of Mike Michalkow’s Complete Drumming System which I’m loving thus far. They have a very cool way of presenting the rudiments that make them fun and allow you to apply them immediately to a musical situation. If you haven’t yet and are interested, you might want to check out my review of this Drumming System. I’ve also been messing around with some of the play-along songs that come with the system although right now my ability to jam is obviously pretty limited.
I started working on the second drum rudiment today: the Single Stroke Four. This is another pretty simple one which I picked up pretty quickly. It seems to be incredibly useful though as I’m running into it quite a bit in the songs that I’m learning, particularly some of the My Friend Of Misery fills. I’ve got most of that song down, now I just need to work on the outro part which has quite a bit going on. I was looking to try something new in between working on that though so I decided to give Don’t Tread On Me (also from the Black Album, of course) a try. It’s in 12/8 so it will be my first time playing something in a meter other than 4/4. I’m used to odd meters though from my time playing Dream Theater and similar stuff on guitar. I actually picked up the intro, verse, and chorus pretty quickly but I need to really polish it up now that I have a rough idea of what’s going on. Other than the time signature, the whole song seems to be simpler than Sandman and Misery but we’ll see how it goes. ‘Til next time…
Well, I’ve finally started working on some rudiments starting of course with the first one: the Single Stroke Roll. As I mentioned in my last post, the Drumming System I ordered presents the 40 rudiments in a very useful fashion, providing you with a video of the rudiment being played on its on, in a beat context, and then as a fill. The Single Stroke Roll is pretty simple so I didn’t have much trouble at all playing the examples. I’m going to continue to work on it for a bit and then move onto the next rudiment: the Single Stroke Four.
I’m working on the outro of My Friend of Misery which has quite a few cool fills in it and I can already see how the Single Stroke Roll can help me play them better…the Single Stroke Four is also in a quite a few places as well so that should be very useful as well. I’m hoping to have the whole song down pretty soon.
Well, I’ve got most of My Friend Of Misery down…the intro, verses, chorus and solo (well sorta). I say “well sorta” because there are a couple of fills at the end of the solo that I haven’t gotten yet. One of them has a double bass roll (?–I’m not exactly sure of the terminology) and without a double bass pedal I’ll have to customize that one a bit. The other one is a series of triplets which I think will just take some practice to get down. I’ve had to rearrange things and customize the fill a bit since I’m lacking a 4th or 5th tom but I’m pretty happy with what I came up with.
However, working on that fill has instilled in me the need to start working on those drum rudiments I’ve been talking about since I started this blog. I’m unsure of the best way to play the triplet fill (i.e. which hands to use when) and I think that the rudiments will help me be able to do what I need to do more effectively. So, tomorrow I’m going to start working on rudiments 1-3…the Drumming System that I recently bought gives you a video demo of the rudiment and then plays it in a beat context and a fill context so I’m going to be making good use of that. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Today marks the end of 1 week of drum lessons at home. In addition to having an absolute blast learning to play, I’ve accomplished the following:
- set up the Alesis DM6 Kit Performance Electronic Drumset
- learned several basic rock beats
- learned “Back In Black” by AC/DC in it’s entirety
- learned “Enter Sandman” by Metallica through the guitar solo
- generally improved my overall technique and timing
Not bad for a week’s work of at-home drum lessons I’d say. This week I’m going to try to knockout the rest of Sandman (or at least most of it) and start working on some rudiments, assuming I get The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Drums
Got in some good practice time today and am now pretty comfortable with “Enter Sandman” through the verse and 1st chorus. I know the 2nd verse and chorus beats as well but the little part in between where the main riff plays again has a fill in the 4th measure that for whatever reason is proving a little tricky for me. It sounds so simple on the record and I’m sure it is…just getting myself to hit the snare on 1 as opposed to the kick has me cursing. It’s that limb independence thing again I guess. I’ve also worked in the open hi-hat in the fill at the end of the “Back In Black” verses so that just leaves me the measure leading out of the interlude to nail down and I’ve got the whole song. Not bad for just a week I think. I ordered
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Playing Drums
module a bit more. They give you 10 preset kits and then you can save 5 of your own kits in provided slots. I’ve found the snare is not loud enough in general on this kit so I ended up adjusting the volume of that in the module Voice menu (you can do this for all the drums and cymbals, which is pretty cool) and that improved things greatly. After tweaking all the volumes to the way I wanted them, I saved that as my kit. I also wanted to figure out how to turn the ride cymbal into a second crash because during the tom part of Enter Sandman I was breaking my back trying to get to the lefthand side one. It turned out to be incredibly simple so now I have two crashes in my saved kit.
“Back In Black” gets more and more refined the more I play it and the intro to Enter Sandman isn’t quite as raggedy. The verses and prechorus are pretty simple and I basically have them. I’m hoping to tackle the chorus next…it seems pretty complex to me but I’m sure it’s child’s play to anyone with more than a few days experience like yours truly. I really need to start buckling down on drum rudiments and other fundamentals. My flams in the AC/DC tune aren’t consistent at all and I know the other rudiments would help me as well. Soon, I promise, soon.
