Criticize my technique #2 @mattsmith

Benfordrum

Senior Member
Hey guys! I'm Kyle, 16 years old (some of you call me ben, lastname is *ben*ford :p ) anyways, i posted a video back in February regarding my technique. I wanted you guys to pretty much comment and criticize on my playing, things like that.

Uhh so yeah this video is just me getting bored at home and picking up sticks. Didn't really warm up or anything but it's not bad at all. I mostly worked on wrist consistency and finger control, as Matt Smith instructed me to do on this thread: http://drummerworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=86953

Anyways yeah any constructive criticism and compliments would be awesome! I'm trying to learn every day and i feel as if this wouldn't be a bad idea :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4LBm8ckUiI&feature=youtu.be
 
You're doubles are fairly smooth, one thing on your paradiddles though: Unless you're doing it for a specific purpose on the kit, don't accent the "first" hit. Make it sound nice and even throughout. I would practice all the rudiments a little bit slower, you might be rushing a bit. But pretty good overall, keep at it.
 
You're doubles are fairly smooth, one thing on your paradiddles though: Unless you're doing it for a specific purpose on the kit, don't accent the "first" hit. Make it sound nice and even throughout. I would practice all the rudiments a little bit slower, you might be rushing a bit. But pretty good overall, keep at it.


Yeah, I had originally learned paradiddles accenting the first 16th note, i was originally taught paradiddles by a DCI guy and he said that accenting the first hit would be useful in the long run. And i was trying to accelerate but i do have a tendency to rush paradiddles in general.

thanks!
 
Paradiddles are supposed to be accented— it's one of their defining features. Anyway, nice work. You have more than ample speed with those rudiments in isolation, at that dynamic level, for any musical application I can think of. The rhythm of at least the paradiddle-diddles and 6-strokes was distorting a bit at the high end, but what the hell, you're playing them faster than they were ever meant to be played. Your doubles are pretty good— I like to hear them a little more solid than you've got them. I'm not wild about that closed corps type grip you use, but it's perfectly legit. I'd have liked to see you get quieter on the one or two times you played softer than f/ff. Unless you're planning on getting into corps, or getting famous for being fast, I'd say it's time to start thinking about what you want to do musically.

Oh, and don't rest your sticks on the pad before you play.
 
There are many useful ways and reasons to accent paradiddles, but you should be able to play them proficiently without accenting also. Just saying.
 
You probably won't get a response from Matt. He doesn't post anymore. He got frustrated and left.
 
My teacher would tell me to keep my sticks at a constant height above the pad which will make you more efficient/fast over time and help you control unwanted accenting at speed. If you watch your vid the stick heights are all over the place. Nice hands by the way- great speed and much better than me.

I agree with whoever said that paradiddle should be played unaccented so they sound like singles if you listen to someone play them with your eyes closed. Nice and even in voume and tempo. You should be able, eventually, to accent any note within any paradiddle but should definitely be able to play them without any accents.

Someone correct me if I am wrong, no need to give bad advice.
 
Nice hands! A great start!

As for paradiddles being accented or not, there comes a speed threshold where accenting just isn't practical. Look up on YouTube drummers playing paradiddles at high speeds, and you'll see what I mean.

But the accented paradiddles are very useful (and they have their own musical value, since they do NOT sound like singles). Getting paradiddles to sound like singles is an admirable goal, and worthy of exploration, but the musical result is that you'll almost sound like you're playing singles. So practice them both ways.

I also hear an unevenness in the paradiddles, paradiddle-diddles, and 6 stroke rolls. It sounds (and looks) to me like that, within each of these rudiments, the doubles aren't quite keeping up with the singles, which means that you'll have to find some way to accelerate the doubles (lower stick height?) and/or decelerate the singles (higher stick height?). I would also suggest that you record yourself and really listen. Slow down the recording to half speed and listen again.

I was surprised to see you do push-pull so well, and yet still have a somewhat "stiff" sounding double stroke roll (but maybe this is a stylistic choice). Jojo Mayer has a great demonstration in the Secret Weapons DVD, which might help you to make your doubles sound more "fluttery".

Your singles are sweet! Did you notice that your left wrist moves when using fingers?

But yeah, now that you're a ways down the path of "super sweet technique and speed", what do you want to do with the instrument? What music do you like? Do you have music career aspirations? Do TB and I sound like parents? :)
 
Hey Kyle,
your hands are quite impressive overall!

I could play along to most of it at those speeds but have to really push to hit your singles speed. While not fully maxing out at paradiddle and doubles. You're quite good at push-pull (and flams - I'm sloppy at that flam accent speed). What your L hand does is what I can do with my R hand, haha. Given your singles and flam speed I'd expect you could play doubles and paradiddles even faster than that. (Or maybe we're all different and some stuff happens easier/harder for everybody.)

I'd recommend to take it easy in terms of speed - you've already reached a decent level - and focus on cleanliness. My experience is one can hit good speed rather quickly but getting it clean takes multiple times. Moderate/slower tempo and maximum awareness of the motions, grips, stick heights should do the trick. Practicing in front of a mirror (at least once in a while) is great to detect the above issues - stick height, grip etc.

For more left hand development - practice way more with your left hand leading. Overexaggerating the accents with your left hand can help, too. Now if you do so in front of a mirror you might notice that your left hand is 'less mobile' (e.g. when preparing upstrokes or Moeller motion) which might escape you when you're playing the usual way (no mirror or 'detection'). A mirror will really tell you a lot of things.

Kyle, how long have you been playing, and could you provide the link to your video #1 (just curious)?
 
@Arky and Brent, thanks a ton for the advice! Those are actually the main things that i've noticed about my playing, my doubles seem to be smooth yet they loose their fluidity when they're tied to other rudiments.

Arky- Ive been playing for about 2 to 2 and a half years, and the link is- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k27dvcQj1fQ&feature=youtu.be

I definitely feel as if i've reduced tension (aside from my ridiculous faces haha) which is something ive been practicing more often than being clean.

@Brent- I also play mostly fusion and jazz though, its quite pointless to have all this speed haha but i feel as if it keeps me more relaxed in general when im on the kit playing any slower. I also use a lot of ghost notes when i play, which is the only reason why i find being fast useful
 
As far as accenting paradiddles or not I think one should do both. Personally I'm a firm believer in learning any accent pattern along with any sticking.When things are comfortable play them on a real drum, maybe along to a play-a-long or vocal track,any sort of music really, and make it sound and feel good.

Speed depends on your needs. Start combinig things, make them musical, add an ostibato with your fdeet and so on. Be creative
 
your left index finger is pointing at times- mainly when doing singles, and your elbows (particularly your left) are too far from your body. your upper arms should hang relaxed. practice with tennis balls between your elbows and body. and work on smoothness. play as fast as you can while maintaining absolute smoothness, accuracy, and control. you favor your strong side. you need to work your weak side MUCH more. sorry, i'm a nazi. keep up the good work! and paradiddles are meant to be accented, to allow alternating hands to play the accented note while playing four note groupings. it's good exercise to play it un accented, though.
 
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Looking good. Your finger single sound like a automatic machine gun from mw3!!!! try to relax a little more.. main thing is paradiddles. play them without an accent and play all 8 of them , not just the rlrrlrll. without accent and with accent and with accent not on the one :) otherwise great job (way faster then me , an old fart)..
 
If you can start the rudiment slow, and speed your way up to faster tempos, make sure that you can also come back down to slower tempos with ease. I know you were probably just messing around for demo purposes, but it's just something to practice. There is an unbelievable amount of drummers who can go from 0 to 60, but cannot, for the life of them, go from 60 to 0 with ease. By doing this, you'll gain a great amount of control, and you'll also work the smaller muscles in your arm that do not typically get used as much as the larger muscles. Keep it up though, man; you're doing great.
 
If you can start the rudiment slow, and speed your way up to faster tempos, make sure that you can also come back down to slower tempos with ease. I know you were probably just messing around for demo purposes, but it's just something to practice. There is an unbelievable amount of drummers who can go from 0 to 60, but cannot, for the life of them, go from 60 to 0 with ease. By doing this, you'll gain a great amount of control, and you'll also work the smaller muscles in your arm that do not typically get used as much as the larger muscles. Keep it up though, man; you're doing great.

starting a rudiment slow just to arbitrarily speed up and slow down never made any sense to me....this is how my old teacher made me learn these when I was a kid
didn't make sense to me then and it doesn't now ....it's just not practical

and it also makes no sense musically

I am a firm believer in practicing technique in a musical way..... because that is how we are going to use it right?

so instead of just arbitrarily speeding up for the sake of speeding up and then slowing down with no real destination ......play it in time and give the illusion of speeding up and slowing down by running the rudiments through subdivisions.

for example take a simple paradiddle....set your met to 60 or so and run it like this

quarter
quarter trips
8ths
8th trips
16ths
sextups
32nds

then back down

this way you are in a way speeding up and slowing down but it will always make sense and will be in time
 
YES! Do this.

"for example take a simple paradiddle....set your met to 60 or so and run it like this

quarter
quarter trips
8ths
8th trips
16ths
sextups
32nds

then back down"

You can even add in quintuplets and septuplet phrases for building more awareness of splitting up the beat. Most important thing with all rudiments is that you train your muscles to play them perfectly at all tempos so you can understand when and why they aren't up to snuff when you're working on pushing your upper limits of speed. Sometimes the low-med tempos are actually harder to play perfectly if you're not used to it.
 
for example take a simple paradiddle....set your met to 60 or so and run it like this

quarter
quarter trips
8ths
8th trips
16ths
sextups
32nds

then back down

this way you are in a way speeding up and slowing down but it will always make sense and will be in time

I'm sure this is just a gap in my study, but how do you play a para diddle in triplets? Just count and play single strokes in triplet to the pulse, alternating sticking in normal para diddle form?
Code:
one trip let two trip let
 R    L    R   R    L   R

Etc...

Like that?
 
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