Chicken or Egg, Which Comes First?

joeybeats

Silver Member
So what do you think? Do you play the song and obtain the skills, or do you obtain the skills and play the song?

I received a Led Zep Bonham transcription book (Drum Techniques of Led Zeppelin) for Christmas and have been banging my head trying to play some of my favorite tunes. So much fun and great inspiration this book. Problem is, I haven't been able to get my right foot up to speed to actually tackle some of these challenging speeds. Even Immigrant Song at q=112 is just too much with the double BD hits. I worked my way up over the past month to 105, but I have hit a wall and making zero progress. Those last 7 bpm are killing me. And the BD trips in Good Times Bad Times at 95 are also out of my reach. But I'm trying as I go slowly up the metronome.
Certainly all of you have been at this or some level where you didn't have the skills to do the job. What did you do? What do you do now?

I found Jason's exercise http://jasonhorsler.tripod.com/id83.html

Should I just keep moving notch by notch up the metronome? Or, would you experienced players/teachers suggest the triplet/double exercises and then return to play the song, after I have the skills? Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Thanks. Joey
 
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Well, I say both in this case. Playing to songs acts as a metronome to some extent, but sounds much better. Overtime, you gain a better sense of tempo playing to songs or a metronome. However, if the song is out of your league, then you'll want to work on skills first. When I hit a dead end with a song (which is a lot of songs), I usually just find a simpler song that I can play to and usually work on my own fills with it. Then, when I think I may be good enough to try one of the songs that gave me trouble, I go for it, usually sounding much better.

As for working up on a metronome, that is definitely good, but works more on precision than anything. You don't necessarily NEED the metronome to work up from to get the desired chops, but it helps a lot in many other ways.

And lastly, for the Zeppelin songs, I don't think there's any double bass drum hits. Try using the ball of your foot for the first stroke in the quicker hits and then your toes when coming back up. It isn't that hard of a song to play overall when you get the hang of that. And Good Times, Bad Times, you could use any of the quick foot tricks, be it slide or heel toe for the quick doubles and the ball of foot to toe thing for most of the rest. When I try that song, I tend to choose heel toe. To be able to do just quick doubles like that, it will probably only take a couple of days if you don't already know the heel toe technique, and after that it's really a piece of cake.
 
What I like to do when I can't play song parts is to transcribe them as best I can, then practice from 20 below the tempo of the song to 20 above.

I've found, again with myself, that I tend to try too hard when I come to a part in a song I know I've had trouble playing before. Then you tense up and even if you know you should be able to do it, you can't.

Another thing I find is beneficial VLC player. It has a mechanism to set start and endpoints to a piece of audio, then just keep playing along until you get the feel of the beat, and try playing along to the whole thing again. You can do it, you just have yourself convinced that you can't.

edit: Eggs came first, i.e. lizards laid eggs before chickens. Context people, context.
 
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You're on the right track dude. There's no one right answer to that question and a little bit of both is what you'll need. It just totally depends on your own personal circumstance (how fast are you, how fast is that other drummer on the record).

Just remember that sometimes these skills won't come together in one or two practice sessions - it may take weeks, months, or even years if you set the bar high enough. That Bonzo had been playing amazing drums for a long time when he did that first Zeppelin record - and those parts are legendary among rock drummers - don't be surprised if it's a long battle to get them down. Just keep at it, use your metronome wisely and feel free to explore other (perhaps similar) ideas or grooves while you're steadily picking away at the fast-foot stuff (or any technique you try to master).
 
Very good question!

Sounds like you're on the right track. Don't forget: A lot of what your hear from Bonham might not be so hard to pull off from a technical standpoint but, it takes years to develop the feel he had. I've heard countless people play a halftime shuffle (a la Fool in the Rain) with all of the notes in the "right place" more or less, but it just sucked 'cause it had no soul...

It's also very cool to check out bootleg recordings, especially when the boys had way too much to drink. Some incredibly stellar moments no doubt but also a chance to hear just how hard those parts were to pull off in the heat of the moment - even for Bonzo.
 
When I hit a dead end, I try to figure out why I hit a dead end. Am I not fast enough? Is my coordination not up to par? Does my timing suck? Anyway, when I find out what's going wrong, I do a lot of exercises to work on the problem, after that, I get back to the thing I was working on.

I think the chicken comes first. The chicken is where you want to be, so you practice the egg until the chicken is within your grasp.
 
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