Mike Mangini's 'The Grid' DVD - does explain the shiver technique?

T-1000

Senior Member
Mangini has a new DVD - was wondering if anyone has it, and if they can confirm whether it explains the shiver technique that won him the World's Fastest Drummer competition?
 
I got that DVD too, it's a bit random.

He does explain how to play quickly using bigger muscles, upper arm muscles and whatever else but it's only brief.
 
Honestly, I would strongly suggest not getting so hooked up on technique.

Mangini is one of those people who seems to be gifted with naturally fast wrists, and this obviously works to his advantage.

I have heard that he has also stated in the past that he would spend up to 90 minutes playing single strokes on the practice pad to build up his speed - so obviously the technique he uses has far less to do with it than the time factor.

I would strongly suggest you are much better off focus on developing both your wrist and finger technique, and spend a LOT of time practising. Forget about what works for Mangini, discover what works for you.

tl;dr version: Get off the computer and go practice!
 
Boomka, what I mean is that there are definitely some drummers who seem to have a much higher natural aptitude for speed than others. For example - when I was a teenager I had a friend who was not a drummer but could play single strokes much faster than me and was completely untrained. Then there are guys like Tom Grosset who set the world record when he was 16. Now, of course I know that hard work plays the most important part in developing speed, but I do believe that some people have a central nervous system that is better geared towards producing speed than others.

From watching how Mike plays, to me it suggests that he does indeed have a natural ability to play fast, especially seeing as he uses his wrists quite a lot - and that is a lot harder to develop than fingers only.

Of course, I could be completely wrong given my quite limited and untrained knowledge of physiology, I'm just going by what I have experienced and observed.
 
Boomka, what I mean is that there are definitely some drummers who seem to have a much higher natural aptitude for speed than others. For example - when I was a teenager I had a friend who was not a drummer but could play single strokes much faster than me and was completely untrained. Then there are guys like Tom Grosset who set the world record when he was 16. Now, of course I know that hard work plays the most important part in developing speed, but I do believe that some people have a central nervous system that is better geared towards producing speed than others.

From watching how Mike plays, to me it suggests that he does indeed have a natural ability to play fast, especially seeing as he uses his wrists quite a lot - and that is a lot harder to develop than fingers only.

Of course, I could be completely wrong given my quite limited and untrained knowledge of physiology, I'm just going by what I have experienced and observed.

I think you're right regarding inborn potential: not everyone has equal amounts of certain kinds of muscle fibers, etc. But I'm not sure it has anything to do with the thickness of someone's wrists. There's really very little going on in the wrists in terms of generating power and speed. That's all happening further upstream in the forearms and, secondarily, in the biceps/triceps. The wrist is a joint which is moved by muscle and tendons. It doesn't produce its own movement. Unless you figure "wrist thickness" has something to do with tendon thickness and this translates to speed but...I've never heard that postulated in any of the physiology stuff I've read regarding tendons.

What I will add is that -- as I understand it -- even for Mike, the "shiver" was a technique he developed for a specific purpose AFTER he'd developed a pretty big arsenal of technical tools. It seems to me that anyone who hasn't already developed that arsenal of tools comprising more standard techniques and movements may well be putting the cart before the horse to use practice time on such a specialised technique.

But, if you've got a musical need to play incredibly fast but not necessarily rhythmic single strokes, then shiver away, I say. Me, I'm still trying to learn to play a ballad like JR Robinson. We all have our mountains to climb.
 
Boomka, please go back and read my posts and you'll see I never mentioned ANYTHING about "wrist thickness"... Where on earth did you get that from?

I said I believe that Mike has naturally FAST wrists...
 
Boomka, please go back and read my posts and you'll see I never mentioned ANYTHING about "wrist thickness"... Where on earth did you get that from?

I said I believe that Mike has naturally FAST wrists...

You know what? In my pre-coffee state, I read "fat wrists", not "fast wrists". You can probably see why I tilted my head.

It's going to be one of those days... :)
 
Hahaha, that's actually pretty funny :)
 
No, there is no explanation on that technique, he does however say that in order to play fast you need to flex your bigger muscles since your smaller muscles tend to give out sooner.
If you see the drum solo Mike performs with Extreme (it´s on youtube) you can definitly tell that he was always a pretty agile dude BUT, remember that Mangini has been playing drums since he was around 3 years old.
Apart from that, Mike says that if you practice the same motion at the same tempo for at least 90 mins straight for 4 days per week for 6 weeks, that motion will be recorded perfectly into your muscle memory and that will allow you to play that motion a lot faster.
Note that when Mike Mangini talks about practice, he´s talking about focused practice for 90 mins, counting repetitions throughout.That´s quite a challenge in itself regardless of the exercise you are doing.
From what I was able to talk to him, he counts every repetition as a way to avoid getting bored and lose his focus. It takes a while to get used to that but it pays off.

In a nutshell, Mangini is one of those cases where natural skill meets hard work. That´s why he does the things he does, no mistery whatsoever.
 
No, there is no explanation on that technique, he does however say that in order to play fast you need to flex your bigger muscles since your smaller muscles tend to give out sooner.

That's the total opposite to Jojo Mayer's 'gears' system where he says the faster you play the smaller the muscle groups you use because these have the most dexterity and ability to fire with greater frequency.

So, one guy (Jojo) is telling you to build up the control and endurance of your smaller muscle groups in order to play faster, and the other guy (Mangini) is telling you to build up the speed of your larger muscle groups in order to play faster.

One guy (Jojo) is backed by about 99% of traditional drum instruction (almost any drum teacher you go to will teach a similar method) whereas the other guy (Mangini) is kind of on his own. I doubt you'll find any teacher that will tell you to tense up to achieve a 'shiver' with your big muscle groups if you want to play faster.

Yet both approaches are equally effective, it seems.

There is plenty of formal instruction available on Jojo's stuff, but it seems there is nothing out there in terms of instruction of how to do/practice Mangini's approach. Not even from Mangini himself. Has anyone found any teaching materials on the shiver technique?
 
Mangini did win WFD some years back, you can't really write off his advice. Last year I saw Jojo Mayer playing fast single hand 16ths and it was very impressive. They're both speaking truthfully I'm sure, it must vary from person to person.

I agree about the inborn potential thing, I am a bit of a slow coach and that doesn't seem to change much. At the drum camp last year, Virgil Donati said he wasn't the fastest, or especially fast (I'll let him be the judge of that), and you can imagine if hard work could make anyone blindingly fast, it would be him.

I don't focus on speed but any gains I accrue over the years, I'll take as a bonus.
 
Back
Top