The Matrix question

Stijnn1990

Junior Member
Hi...
I don't know if there's anybody working on "the matrix", from the newest dvd of thomas lang but my question is: Is it important to count loud? Because that is a lot harder then without counting...

Thanks,
 
Hi...
I don't know if there's anybody working on "the matrix", from the newest dvd of thomas lang but my question is: Is it important to count loud? Because that is a lot harder then without counting...

Thanks,

Hey bro!
Well I just got the dvd recently, but before doing his system -called matrix, I'll be 1st building by finger, wrist and foot m,uscles first. And I'm thinking changing from heel-toe technique to slide technique ;)
 
Hey, not familiar with 'the Matrix' myself, but can tell you that out-loud counting is very beneficial, particularly if this is involving independence or time-enforcing aspects. It is very hard to do, but by doing it you are essentially exercising your fifth limb (ahem), that being your brain/internal clock.

That said, it's a very easy thing to overlook in a practice schedule.
 
i have been working on the "matrix" before thomas lang even came out with the dvd, and i never counted out loud. I think its unneeded. You dont need to do it. If you can do it better without counting. Than IMO thats better.
 
You MUST count out loud. Thee are many exercises in the Matrix that involve playing and thinking in mutiple time signatures. You must be able to count in both the original sig as well as in the superimposed one.

Have you finished the entire first section yet? Because you're going to grind to a halt really soon if you haven't. The level of foot technique required is daunting to perform many of the Matrix exercises at speed. You'll be doing stuff like paradiddles with the feet while superimposing multiple time sigs over that and then mixed note rates. Wild stuff

I'm still on the first section. I have been working on double strokes with the feet (not heel-toe but legit doubles) for almost 8 months now and I have them up to 175-180 on a good day with a warm-up. Once I have the entire first section nailed at speed then I'll attack the second one.

Is anyone else working on this stuff?
 
i have been working on the "matrix" before thomas lang even came out with the dvd, and i never counted out loud. I think its unneeded. You dont need to do it. If you can do it better without counting. Than IMO thats better.

You've been working on the matrix before it even came out? What are you talking about?

The Matrix is a name for a system for addressing coordination issues in a logical manner developed by Thomas Lang. I have never heard that specific term used by drummers in this fashion before Thomas' video came out. So, you are talking out of your rear end, my friend when you say that you've been working on it.

Nice advice, too. Telling someone not to count? Thomas himself stresses it in his video repeatedly. May as well tell them not to use a click either.

Please don't represent yourself as being some kind of authority when you are obviously not one.
 
Nice advice, too. Telling someone not to count? Thomas himself stresses it in his video repeatedly. May as well tell them not to use a click either.

Please don't represent yourself as being some kind of authority when you are obviously not one.

But Jeff counting while playing makes things harder! Why would we want to work on our weaknesses? It just doesn't make sense! If you want to improve everyone knows the quickets way is the easiest way! ;-)
 
No i'm not working on rudiments with my feet yet but i'm just doing some stuff with my feet that i can use for example, a samba.. you know what I mean? And after that i'm maybe go play rudiments but then I have to improve my foot technique a lot...

I think when I am doing these excercises with counting, It becomes a lot easier after some time...

Thanks guys...!
 
Each to their own,if it helps do it :p Im working on it too,and jus started mixing it p too,doin paradiddles with my feet and alternating my left foot between hihat an double pedal,then putting all the other combinations with my hands around the kit,its tricky at first but when you get it it feels good!
 
Oke i've got another question...
If you would play for example, a paradiddle ... there are 8 different stickings...
-RLRRLRll
-LRRLRLLR
etc.
Is it important to play al these stickings....? And I mean not only with paradiddle but with all rudiments...

Thanks..
 
Oke i've got another question...
If you would play for example, a paradiddle ... there are 8 different stickings...
-RLRRLRll
-LRRLRLLR
etc.
Is it important to play al these stickings....? And I mean not only with paradiddle but with all rudiments...

Thanks..

If you can play one sticking you can play them all, they are all the same...
The counting of it isn't that difficult.
 
If you can play one sticking you can play them all, they are all the same...

Is that so? Using this logic it is extremely simple to take any beat or fill and displace it on the fly by one sixteenth note. After all, it's the same thing at a different place...

It doesn't work that way. All paradiddle inversions feel different, just like inverted doubles feel different from standard doubles. How about a single stroke roll leading with the right hand and the left hand? Practicing these permutations makes you see the same thing from a different angle, and that's why it is important to practice all the variations.
 
Yeah its far more difficult then you think...!

Is it also important to place a accent one the one by each different sticking? because that makes it also a little harder...

Thanks...!
 
The New Lang video is going to challenge everything you know to date. There is a reason for everything he tells you to do. When you can do everything on the video, you'll have all the answers you're looking for.

Jeff said it best "Once I have the entire first section nailed at speed then I'll attack the second one."

Good Luck!
 
I'd just like to add a thought to the conversation.

I'm not working on Lang's "Matrix" concept, and I'm deliberately not working on it for a very specific reason.

My reason is that it is a single concept, and in musical terms it sounds like a single concept. Given that, the return on time invested seems astonishingly minimal to me.

As an example of why I think it's an inefficient use of practice time, imagine a pianist learning to play every scale against every other scale in a manner similar to what Lang is doing with sticking combinations.

Sure, playing a random scale against another random scale in a different note grouping has a certain jarring, uncoordinated sound that might be cool once or twice in a set - it would provide another colour to paint with. But learning to do every scale combination seems ludicrous considering how few actual musical possibilities the exercise would develop in the massive time it would take to complete. It would seem more sensible to do what actual pianists do in real life and learn specific, musically purposeful combinations of notes rather than just trying to complete every statistical combination of what can be done with your fingers.

To extend the colour analogy above, painters fill out their palette by deliberately mixing colours for specific intended artistic use. Lang's approach just seems like taking every possible proportion of colours and mixing them together to get the largest possible palette. While technically it does give that result, it rather ignores the fact that 99% of the resulting colours are actually just different shades of the same kind of mucky, unattractive brown and offer little artistic interest in terms of contrast or compliment. And since what you practice consciously tends to inform your subconscious artistic decisions, you're going to end up playing with an awful lot of unattractive brown if this system becomes your bread and butter in the practice room.

If you ask me the job of an artist - and I tend to think musicians are artists and that drummers should aspire to be musicians - is to do more than just put together random combinations and hope the result is alright. It's to find the results that would take a million years of hunting in all the random possibilities, to find the systems that actually produce consistently good results rather than just systematically trying everything. If that was all art was about then computers would be infinitely better at it than people.

Now, funny enough Lang actually points out my complaint with his system himself on his DVD. He says something like "I believe that how you practice is how you will play" - maybe not verbatim, but words very much to that end. He's 100% right in that. But I'm puzzled how he can understand that and not also consider that if you dedicate hours every day to practicing combining repetitive phrases in short number values in regimented sticking combinations, your playing will start to sound like short numeric phrases put together in arbitrary layers. It seems the obvious conclusion even from his own words on the DVD.

I think the comment about practice and its influence on your playing is the most valuable thing Lang says on that entire DVD set, but unfortunately in my opinion the rest of the material he's presenting is working completely against that conception by suggesting the practice of thousands of hours of material that sounds musically undistinguished and largely impractical.

Now, I don't doubt that Lang's system will turn you into an absolute co-ordinational and mertic monster if you can finish it. The results in terms of pure co-ordination and mental understanding of number combinations are doubtless immense. But I also think it has a very narrow reward in terms of giving you things you can actually use to play the drums, because very little of the thousands of exercises worth of material that he's presenting actually sounds significantly different from the rest of it in musical terms. If you play his system for ten years you'll get astonishing at building combinations of limbs and short rhythmic phrases, and at quickly acquiring new co-ordinational patterns - but you'll gain next to nothing in terms of musical depth or expressive concept. If you want to be any good then you'll still have to put in time additional to Lang's system in order to develop some musical results. My argument would be that that additional time could - structured correctly - deliver many of the benefits of Lang's system without all the time wasted on artistically meaningless but logically consistent combinations practice.

Jojo Mayer said some things to this effect in clinic when I saw him too. He had quite a lot of disdain for what he described as practicing "statistically", and instead talked about how he'd tend to find one combination that he finds musically pleasing and then work through as many ways of delivering that as he could - varying accents, changing sticking patterns while playing the same actual notes, changing the dynamics, the tone, syncopating individual notes etc. He was suggesting starting in places you believe in your gut to be musically interesting and then expanding your playing from there. Which is what human beings do in everything. I recently moved to a new city. After moving here I haven't dedicated a huge amount of time to walking down every street in town. I just go the places that seem interesting, and learn my way around how those places connect. That seems a much more human and ultimately rational use of your life than trying to go everywhere that's possible.

Some of the people in this thread I don't know. Others I do know and I have massive respect for - Jeff Almeyda, for example. I'm not going to stand up and say "You're an idiot if you work on this" - I'm not that disrespectful or arrogant. But I'd want to add this question to the thread:

Does the stuff Thomas plays inside this particular singular drum concept actually excite you as a musician?

If the answer is yes then you have my respect for the dedication it's going to take to tackle this system: it's a monster pile of work. If the answer is no then you can join in with me in working on something else entirely guilt-free!
 
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