Today I read Neil Peart's latest 'News' http://www.neilpeart.net/news/index.html (see January 2012). He writes very well and I thank him for the opportunity to read this post, in particular because he lets us into his past a little more than he has before. I am not generally interested in the personal lives of celebrities (I don't have time to care in most cases), but I have always wanted to know a little more about Neil's leave of absence after the cruel family tragedy he endured.
I don't know how to send my regards to Neil directly, so I'll use this blog as my way of communicating. As usual, Neil's prose gave me some inspiration to keep writing and keep practicing. This evening I sat down behind the kit and set a click track. I dropped it down to about 100bpm and in 4/4. Something weird came over me and I started playing both hands on the hat, but backwards. On the 1, I played Bass drum (right foot) and left hand. Playing a 'disco' beat on the hat (sixteenth notes), hitting the snare with my left on 2 and keeping my right hand play the 'and' of each eighth note. I kept that up to see how long I could. It felt uncomfortable, but I was enjoying the feeling of Independence. I ran for about 10 bars, then had to regroup.
Then I tried doing the same playing triplets on the hat, so it went beat 1 bass drum and left hand on the hat. In this case, the right hand plays the snare. Still awkward for me but makes me feel good.
After playing that for a bit to get comfortable, I moved my right hand to the ride. Still doing the triplets, my right hand played the ride and the snare while my left kept the beat on the hat. This gives the ride a new feeling because it comes opposite to traditional 'on the beat' hits.
Now I have to work on playing a good bass drum pattern underneath and accenting the ride and hat in different ways.
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