Strength and Stamina

As I was rummaging through the Internet's drawers, looking for something to help me build speed and strength in my wrists and fingers when I am not near a drumkit. I did manage to find a couple of gems in the clutter of websites, but I also recalled that I used a couple of exercises that were developed out of necessity last year. The exercises used a 2 litre plastic pop bottle filled with water (and in our case powdered goat milk). Once a year for several weeks we bottle raise baby goats (for serious farm reasons, not because we think its fun or cute) and we need to make milk 4 times a day. Its that time of year again which is how I remembered the exercises.

Part of the reason for my quest was an inspiring blog I read when searching for info on Gil Sharone (Stolen Babies). http://drummingasart.tumblr.com/  describes Gil's work with great use of visually creative language and really increased my desire to improve everyday. This blog is a must-read for anyone. I can only hope to be written about on this blog (good or bad), but since the odds of living to 150 years is against me, I don't see it happening.

Gil Sharone himself is a great source of inspiration and material to use for practice. I have owned Wicked Beats  (his instructional DVD) for a few months and seem to watch it every couple of weeks. His hi-hat work with his right hand is truly outstanding and is a great foundation for many styles of music.

I know there's no practice like actually playing, but I find myself sitting in my car for hours at a time or at my desk, wasting good practice time. I keep a drumstick in the car and when stuck in traffic I bounce it on my leg or car seat. A couple more tricks I found in my searches include:
1. Practice rolls on a pillow-top matress or car seat. The less bounce the better, make your wrists do the work.
2. Hold stick near the tip and slap the body of the stick against your wrist using pinky, third and middle fingers.

The pop bottle exercise I developed goes like this:
Hold a 2 litre plastic pop bottle (full of water, not pop) in one hand sideways (palm up) shoulder high, and twist back and forth for 2 minutes. Take the same bottle in both hands stomach high and throw the wrists down like playing drums, then raise it and do it over for 5 minutes. The main purpose of the actions are to mix the powder into the water, so shake vigorously. I found that it improves strength AND endurance. Do this 4 times a day for 8 weeks. After 8 weeks, wait one year and start over. Well, that's my regimen, you can set your own schedule.

Reverberation

Check it out! We now have a ReverbNation site setup with our debut single. http://www.reverbnation.com/shootthemoonband. We will be adding more audio and video over the next few weeks so keep an eye out or follow us on twitter or facebook for news.

Our Web site has been updated with video, audio and the twitter feed. Find it at http://www.shootthemoonband.com.

Our next show date is June 14th, 2013 at Orillia Fairgrounds (ODAS Park). We will be the opening act for the Relay for Life event, supporting Cancer research and survivors. As soon as opening ceremonies finish at 7:30pm, we'll be pumping out some crowd favourites. More event info can be found at http://relay.cancer.ca and on our web site.

Follow us on Twitter for regular updates and news - @shoothemoonband
http://twitter.com/shoothemoonband

Our facebook page is kept up to date and also has live shows and studio work posted. http://www.facebook.com/parkst.high.  Add us to your FB likes!

Benefit Show

Tool Shed sound check

As I take the picture above, ToolShed is running through sound check to an empty hall, getting their sounds and mix ready for the evening and a last practice of a few songs. A few hours later the community hall of Joyland Beach becomes the most popular place in the area as many generous friends and residents fill the chairs or stand on the hardwood to raise money for the girls of the Ramara Rockets soccer team's trip to Wales. 
Shoot the Moon! opened the night with our fine selection of cover tunes and original songs. The stage sound was great which makes it easier to play, the drumkit didn't move around or break and my streak of not poking myself in the eye with a drumstick extended through another great show. A big Shout Out goes to Tool Shed band and Mario for the use of their P.A. equipment.

A few minutes before show time

The previous couple of days included a lot of snow shoveling, walking through deep snow and other general farm chores that seem so much harder when there's a foot of snow.
 The last couple of days were tiring, but somewhat fun at the same time. I wonder sometimes if I am nuts. But the answer usually presents itself shortly after - like yesterday when I was backing down the snowy hill beside my sister's barn with a hay wagon (it took 45 friggin minutes to go 100 yards). On the night described above when, after working outside all day I packed the drums into the car, set them up, played and got home at 2AM. Tiring...  maybe. Fun... Had a BLAST!

Technique

It has been some time since I last posted here. Plenty has happened, good, bad and ugly. I finished recording the drum tracks to our originals and I am really stoked about the songs Woody wrote. I think people will quite enjoy listening to them. The name of the band changed - we are now calling ourselves 'Shoot the Moon' - and we are getting ready for our next show on February 9th at Joyland Beach Community Centre. We encourage everyone to show up and help the local girls soccer team travel to Wales for an International tournament. All proceeds from the show, silent auction and raffles will go towards the travel expenses. Get more info here: Rockin' for the Rockets.
On the farm, the hay shortage is causing concern. We are constantly looking for decent hay at a reasonable price. Unfortunately,  we are having to bring it in from distant sources, which is increasing the price significantly. We found a seller in Western Quebec (near Gatineau) who was selling reasonably priced hay, but transport costs could be prohibitive (6 hours away). The seller knew a trucker who was picking up a load in our area and would bring the hay at a reduced cost - Brilliant! After agreeing to the costs with the trucker we left it to him to arrange the loading of hay with the seller and scheduling the delivery with us. A few days later we learned the the flatbed was at the farm and loaded, however it was not tied down because the seller had pneumonia and had to rest for a day before he could strap it. The next day we received a call to say the tractor-trailer load had left the farm, but it was stuck on a hill about 1 km away. The temperature at night was about -30c, making it difficult for the operators to hook up tow trucks. The Trailer was left on the hill (blocking a neighbours driveway) for the night so they could get some rest and have a fresh start in the morning. The next morning, they found that the air-brake lines had frozen on the trailer, making it impossible to tow it up the hill again. The day after that, we heard that they finally managed to get the trailer off the hill, but damaged the truck pulling it in the process when one of the chains on the tires broke. 3 days after that, we are still waiting for the hay to arrive, but have been promised tomorrow however that is starting to look unlikely due to the freezing rain warning in effect.  We do need the hay, but not so desperately that we can't wait a few days, We just feel bad for the poor trucker who lost at least as much money as we are paying him in extracting the trailer and repairing the truck. 

Meanwhile, on the topic of drumming, I have been perusing the Internet searching the subject of drumming and came accross Jojo Mayer teaching stick and foot techniques. Two of the most popular stick control and speed concepts are named Moeller and Gladstone techniques. 
I have been using the Moeller sticking for a long time (but never knew it had a name). It uses arm motion and stick bounce in a kind of whipping motion to increase double and triplet speeds. Dave Weckl provides a great video to show the movement of the arm and stick here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFZfOLbnBwI.
The Gladstone technique works differently in that it is a drop and bounce, rather than the whipping motion that Moeller users. As it turns out, it is basically the motion and control I came up with in my previous post. Use the wrist to drop the stick onto the skin and then control the bounce with your fingers.  Using JoJo Mayers video I will be practicing the technique as much as possible. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUz7WH50AqQ.
What I am teaching my arm and fingers to do is to drop the stick with my wrist, then bounce the stick with my fingers. For speed I want to bounce the stick sequentially with my pinky first, then ring finger, then middle finger. That would end up being a four-stroke roll. When I started, I could do a four-stroke roll at about 95 bpm. In two weeks of practice and exercise I am up to 129bpm.
The exercises I found were to place my hands on a table and tap each finger four times in a row. Another is to hold the stick with my normal grip but the stick is vertical. I tap the bottom of the stick against the outside of my leg using my pinky, ring and middle fingers. It is building up strength and stamina in the fingers.

At Odds with Nerves

It has been about 20 years since I last sat in a recording studio and worked through songs over and over until its right, waited for the other players to do the same while drinking coffee and playing pool to kill time. It was a great experience for me. I learned so much about the recording process and was in awe of the recording environment and the equipment used. I recall reading a book about audio and sound at the time. It detailed out frequencies audible by humans and at what levels of loudness they are generally perceived by the human ear. The Fletcher-Munson curve is one of the graphs in the book and it is used by Sound Engineers to improve the recording. This graph shows that lower and higher frequencies are less perceivable and require higher volume levels in the recording or playback process.

Photo Courtesy Lance Troian

20 years ago I was an idiot. Not necessarily for anything I did or didn't do, but I was 20 years younger and more stupid than I am now (though some would argue I am still as thick as two short planks). That said, I was at Woody's place recording his original songs last week. His 'recording studio' is like many others of this era. In his basement with a mixer and a 12 track Korg recorder. I set up my drums and microphones and started recording as best as possible. The previous week I used Rhythm Rascal, a software application for creating drum patterns, to create the dummy drum track for 2 of the songs. I created the basic drum parts that matched the songs patterns and sent it to Woody. He used it with one of the songs to record the guitar parts and together they became the bed track for all other instruments to play to in the recording process.
 Since the guitar part was recorded to a click or electronic drum line, the drums needed to be recorded. In the 20 years that passed since my last recording experience, I must have forgotten how different it is to play live versus being recorded. When I am playing live and a mistake is made, I can usually cover it up and carry on without notice. If I miss a drum or I miss the beat by a fraction, it may be noticeable, but is forgotten by the next bar or phrase. Recording is definitely another bowl of goats. You can't miss a drum or be out of time because that mistake will be played over and over (and over if we become famous). 
 After about an hour, going through the same song, trying to get the recording perfect, I found myself nervous. Not because I was worried that Woody and Lance thought I was useless (the only two listening to me at the time), but because I was half way through the song and hadn't made a mistake. My muscles tensed and I felt butterflies in my stomach. I started getting that nervous shaking that comes when you are about to make a speech in front of thousands of literary academics ( I'm guessing). Once I noticed the flying larvae in my Santa belly I had a good chuckle at myself. I found it amusing that after all of the playing experience, I still get nervous when I play.  At this point I still have a minute or so left in the song that I am recording and I am trying to relax and play what I want and need to play to get a great track down. Breath, think about my parts, play on time, DON'T F***-UP!  I did manage to finish without incident and it may end up being the final take.
 The recording sessions were at the end of three weeks of a busy farm and work schedule. My wife and I were in Vermont acting as judges for a Cashmere Goat competition, I worked days and nights to get a new virtual application environment running for a client, we were cleaning pens and barns to get ready for breeding season, Becky was training a cow to be milked for a buyer and we setup our booth at a Fibre Festival to show and sell our yarn.

Little Breakthroughs

The past week has had a good share of enlightening moments. It started last Saturday in Kitchener at the KW Knitters Fair. My wife and I setup as vendors, selling our Cashmere yarn and complimentary products. It's a fairly big publicly attended event catered to Knitters, etc and we always do well selling our products. While I was tending our booth, I noticed that many of the ladies walking through were wide-eyed with beaming smiles. During a conversation with one woman who was looking at our products, I pointed out that everyone seemed to be very happy. She said to me that, for knitters, being able to walk around a huge venue full of wonderful fibre that they can experience with all of their senses - it was better than chocolate!  'nuf said.
In the quiet moments that day, I was trying to figure out what I needed to do to improve my drum rolls - particularly the left hand.  Nothing was entering my little head, so we packed up and headed home - 2 hour drive to find a sick yearling cashmere goat when we landed at the farm. An after hours Vet call was necessary, but luck was with us and our Vet was on call. The goat was successfully saved and is recovering nicely. 
Throughout the next week I read and watched videos of drummers playing and teaching drum rolls. After watching some Buddy Rich I was particularly intrigued with the four-stroke he plays with his left hand. He plays traditional grip, but I play matched grip, so watching his technique or instructional video for traditional grip does not help me. 
By Tuesday I had not found any helpful info and decided to try to figure something out on my own.  One of the traditional grip techniques that I came across had you move your second and third finger back and forth under the stick to create an extra bounce at a quick pace. I tried to apply that thinking to my matched grip left hand and came up with an idea to squeeze the second, third and pinky finger up into my palm in a sequential order. The technique would be as follows: play the first stroke normally, action the first bounce with the second finger, action the second bounce with the third finger and action the third bounce with the pinky. That will create a four-stroke roll that can be played quickly - with enough practice. I grabbed a stick and hit the bed and tried the new idea. My fingers were either completely uncooperative or just plain spastic. But I felt it could work, so I kept at it. The more practice, the less spastic and the more cooperative.  I only had time to practice a few minutes at a time a couple of times a day.
My practice time was limited by the work I was doing at my `real` job. I was assigned a project to install and configure the relatively new Virtual Desktop management tool called VDI-in-a-Box from Kaviza (now owned by Citrix). I have built other Desktop Virtualization environments, but it was a first for me with VIAB. Also this week I was migrating, transitioning a client`s messaging server from a stand-alone box to a fully fault-tolerant and load balanced solution. I learned much.
That gets me to the whole point of this blog post. After a week of limited but efficient practice, I improved my double and quad-stroke roles greatly. I was enlightened by many great drummers old and new, Buddy Rich, Peter Erskine, a few unknowns on Youtube and Gil Sharone. If you haven`t heard or seen Gil Sharone - google him! 
 I found a way to improve my speed and consistency and now have a great technique to practice (and practice).  
My `little breakthrough`at the end of the week came when I was practicing to random songs on my MP3 player (Blackberrry Torch). I have a playlist of songs I want to practice as they have some techniques I like to work on. I always choose shuffle and jam out to what ever starts playing.  After warming up with four stroke rolls at 114bpm I started the MP3`s. Ex Girlfriend by No Doubt blasted through my headphones first. I can`t think of any specific technique i want to practice in that song - I just  LOVE playing it. A Led Zeppelin song and a couple of Rush songs played, then Tight Rope by the late great Stevie Ray. For as long as I can remember that song has made me sing and play air drums and other weird stuff.  But I have never been able to grasp the groove the drummer is playing. The shuffle is thick and has been elusive for me. The Snare strokes never seem to stop, like he`s playing the snare with both hands - but there is a sweet high-hat pattern on top. When I started playing to it that night - I had it. The four-stroke roll is the technique that makes that song, and I was able to play it - for the first time EVER. My stroke is nowhere as smooth, but I had it - which means I can practice and improve it until it does sound as good. 
Drumming is about making small strides throughout a lifetime of playing, always trying to improve just a little bit at a time. It`s those little breakthroughs that keep me interested.

Luck vs Success

"I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have."
~ Thomas Jefferson

 When I first read this I thought it made sense, however as I contemplated some more I began to realize it's just a motivational phrase. I have had some luck, but much more success. As far as hard working people go, I am not an all-day -  all-nighter. I do enjoy both physical and mental challenges and it seems that I also like to take on more work/play than I have time for. 
When I think back a bit, it wasn't luck that the Barn foundation happened to be finished the day before we brought 1000 bales of hay into it. It wasn't luck that I finished my Microsoft Server certification and landed a job with an IT firm in Markham. It wasn't luck that LivingRoom Experience asked me to be a member of their band. 
It was luck when it didn't rain on my hay after baling it, but it wasn't luck that we frantically loaded it all onto trucks and trailers and drove it under cover - avoiding the rain.
Hard work brings success, luck is just part of life.
I have heard some say  'I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time'. There are elements of truth there. But if you didn't get off your ass to be at the right place at the right time and have the 'right stuff' (which takes work) - you would have been 'Out Of Luck' !
Luck can smack you in the soft cheeks sometimes without you realizing it. In that case, it takes work to realize when a lucky opportunity presents itself (and therefore is no longer luck).
After that philosophical hogwash - its time for a glass of wine and a nap.

"Luck is a tag given by the mediocre to account for the accomplishments of genius."
~ Robert Heinlein