Post Your Greatest Weakness ?

How many of you drummers play double bass ?


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    102
sounds like you guys have all the problems i have. a good way to overcome that stuff i found is organization. make up a sort of schedule for when you practise. set aside some time for rudiments, techniques for both hands and feet. maby have some time after for learning new grooves and/or cooking them up your self. and with the new stuff you learn try to apply it to what you usually play instead okay heres my cascara now ill show you my blast beat. put them together in one way or another in sequence. and pretty much just find out what you weaknesses are and make time for those too. then after the discipline take some time to goof off on drums including the stuff that just joined your drum vocab. this is what i started doing about a month ago and its going great. also do ALL of this with a metronome. do it super slow, comfort speed, and a speed that you push it and every so slowly move all three up. i find having a mirror by my drums helps too. it lets me see myself play and what i may be doing wrong. a clock by your drums is nice too. another big one that my drum teacher told me to do was actively listen to music. once you play drums i guess it comes naturally but when you listen to music imagine yourself playing and the different ways it might be played. do this with all sorts of music as well. i know alot of you also dont have time to do all this so pick out what you think is most important and do that in the time you have. seriously your imagination is your most powerfull tool, so when your not behind your drums imagine you are and practise. i hope this all helps because it sure helped me. oh and my weakness' are letting myself get frustrated, left hand/foot technique and bad posture.
 
sounds like you guys have all the problems i have. a good way to overcome that stuff i found is organization. make up a sort of schedule for when you practise. set aside some time for rudiments, techniques for both hands and feet. maby have some time after for learning new grooves and/or cooking them up your self. and with the new stuff you learn try to apply it to what you usually play instead okay heres my cascara now ill show you my blast beat. put them together in one way or another in sequence. and pretty much just find out what you weaknesses are and make time for those too. then after the discipline take some time to goof off on drums including the stuff that just joined your drum vocab. this is what i started doing about a month ago and its going great. also do ALL of this with a metronome. do it super slow, comfort speed, and a speed that you push it and every so slowly move all three up. i find having a mirror by my drums helps too. it lets me see myself play and what i may be doing wrong. a clock by your drums is nice too. another big one that my drum teacher told me to do was actively listen to music. once you play drums i guess it comes naturally but when you listen to music imagine yourself playing and the different ways it might be played. do this with all sorts of music as well. i know alot of you also dont have time to do all this so pick out what you think is most important and do that in the time you have. seriously your imagination is your most powerfull tool, so when your not behind your drums imagine you are and practise. i hope this all helps because it sure helped me. oh and my weakness' are letting myself get frustrated, left hand/foot technique and bad posture.
 
Sloppy fills especially at faster tempos.

Metronome... practice every day...put in your head set...eventually even-time will be in your head...you'll feel it when you fluxuate...thats what all great drummers have, solid meter...the metronome is your key to success...
 
One great way to improve the sound and quality of your playing is to record yourself playing, and then listen to it for any flaws. Take note of these, and that is what you should focus on improving. I have it easy because I have an electronic drumset with a built in record button, haha.
 
My greatest weakness?................ Hmmmmmmmmmmm........

The one that I am focusing on right now is my left hand, (being right handed). For some reason I just hit walls when working on it.. But a few weeks ago, one of the big studio guys here recomended that I pick up Ted Reeds Synchopation book... I found that by simply playing 8th's on the hat, and using my left hand to play the snare line, everything loosens up nicely... Then swapping hands and repeating everything...

Also, making myself work at 60bpm and being smooth at it is helping my meter in general, as well as my "crispness" of playing. It's easy to hear dynamic issues and timing issues with all of that space. If you can do it at 60, getting faster is easy enough. My reading is improving as well.
 
I've been playing steadily for about 15 years now and I think I'm capable of a lot of complicated things, but one thing I have yet to nail is a really deep, solid, soulful backbeat at a nice midtempo. I can do it sometimes but not consistently.
 
I've been playing steadily for about 15 years now and I think I'm capable of a lot of complicated things, but one thing I have yet to nail is a really deep, solid, soulful backbeat at a nice midtempo. I can do it sometimes but not consistently.

I felt the same way for years, and wondered why, I finally figured out its just like golf & sex...sometimes it feels great & sometimes it doesn't...

it depends on how your body feels at the time & maybe what you did previous to playing will effect differant muscles, so maybe your actually doing the right things but yourbody & muscles don't feel comfortable & are faking out your brain..Thats all i can give you !!!
 
one weakness - making transitions while playing, as either a physical or mental thing.

example 1 - taking a simple (or complicated) groove and then trying to open it up improvisationally around the kit, it can take a few bars (or longer) of what feels like pure junk before finding a variation that seems like it should have just fallen into place with the original beat. And conversely - moving back to a tightly controlled beat after playing more open and free.

example 2 - playing a beat that doesn't utilize fast footwork and then doing a fill that requires a burst of speed from your feet. It can be a speed that's not hard to play at a more continuous pace - but just trying to throw it with control into the middle of something else can be really hard.
 
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"Weakness" sounds like some sort of physical deficiency.

So I don't think of it as "what's my weakness?" as much as I think of it as something that simply needs to be developed with hard work.

If your left foot is "weak," that just means that it's underdeveloped.

So develop it!
 
complicated rudimental fills!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you play the complicated rudiments on 1 drum? Rudiments consist of combineing single & double strokes hand to hand. I suggest to start building the coordination moving around the kit, use your SD and Tom #1 above it. and play all the Single strokes on the Tom and all the Double strokes on the SN..then start useing other toms etc...
 
Another one of my greatest weaknesses is playing in front of semi large groups of people. It seems like I drum GREAT when im practicing alone, good infront a few people, and then when it's a large group of people...I get nervous and just forget half the stuff I know. It's weird....I spend too much time watching all the greats like Buddy Rich, Thomas Lang, Jo Jo mayer and the rest that I feel like I suck when I play infront of people.
 
Another one of my greatest weaknesses is playing in front of semi large groups of people. It seems like I drum GREAT when im practicing alone, good infront a few people, and then when it's a large group of people...I get nervous and just forget half the stuff I know. It's weird....I spend too much time watching all the greats like Buddy Rich, Thomas Lang, Jo Jo mayer and the rest that I feel like I suck when I play infront of people.

I don't know how old you are or how long you been playing, but sometimes that never goes away, I know of a well known drummer that even today brings a puke bucket on stage every night...cause he gets a little nervous in the stomach...

try putting a par facing your drums so it impears your vision to everything in front so you cant see the people. then zone in on your kit & your playing, maybe if you can't see them you can build some confidence & eventually get rid of the light & enjoy the people...and let them help you perform to your greatest level...good luck!
 
I don't know how old you are or how long you been playing, but sometimes that never goes away, I know of a well known drummer that even today brings a puke bucket on stage every night...cause he gets a little nervous in the stomach...

try putting a par facing your drums so it impears your vision to everything in front so you cant see the people. then zone in on your kit & your playing, maybe if you can't see them you can build some confidence & eventually get rid of the light & enjoy the people...and let them help you perform to your greatest level...good luck!
I'm 18 and i've been playing drums for about 4 years. Thanks for the advice, i'll be sure to give that a try.
 
My two big ones are left foot independence and the Vinny Colaiuta RH-RF. Those, and I seem to have problems making fills that don't include blurtas!
 
My singles have improved - I can now, on a good day, play 16ths at 170BPM (still wicked slow, I know) for 2 minutes.

MY timiing has improved heaps from both playing along to songs and practicing on my pad in my room (when I can't use my kit, which is quite often :p)

My double bass is, quite frankly, still crap (140BPM 16ths for about 3 minutes) :(

Oh yeah, and I suck at flam accents/flam taps/flam anything, just about (minus flams :p) and French grip (which is a real b*tch to master, but I'm hoping I'll get somewhere with it soon)

The fact is, I've picked up on (and addressed) so many bad habits during my 3 years of playing that I still sound like I've only been playing for about a year. I never learnt proper single-stroke technique until April this year (when I got back into lessons) and made the mistake of putting the tempo up EVERY WEEK with double bass after I started, regardless of how even/uneven it was.

I'm hoping to reach 175BPM 16th singles with my hands by the end of the year and 150BPM 16ths with feet by the same time.

The fact is, I focus too much on the negative sides of my playing that the positives seem scarce in comparison.
 
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