Bo Eder
Platinum Member
Bo, sometimes I am playing with an acoustic guitar player who is singing without any amplification. I probably do not have the control you have at these volumes, but I am working at it. It is really tough or me to get that low of a volume, I am looking for as many tricks as I can find. At this volume, I choke the sticks, sometimes play with my hands without sticks. I have a foam pad that I put on the bass drum so that I do not get too loud. And this trick by playing at the top of the cymbal at the edge area, works for me when I have to get really low volume and maintain a steady beat.
I've been practicing on a pillow and that seems to help my control of volume as well.
Bo, what do you do to improve your ability to play low volume?
Actually, playing on really soft things tends to make technique worse. The best thing you can do is play your kit as much as you can. Perhaps its because of my brush technique that I can play very softly with sticks - but a majority of my formative years were spent playing that set of drums and although I own pads, if I can practice on the drums themselves, that's what I'm going to do simply because that's what makes the money
There's a Chick Corea album entitled "Friends" where Steve Gadd really shows off how softly he can play, and I've listened to and tried to emulate guys like Joe Morello and Mel Lewis all my life. Those guys were the kings at playing softly and intensely. Will Kennedy of the Yellowjackets is another guy who can cook really fast and soft too (actually, there are alot of pros who can, not just who I mention). Even Simon Phillips alluded to not playing his double bass drums so hard when playing because it would be a bit too much to have so much bass drum in the track, so he can do it too, although it's not apparent in alot of what he does. Another king of soft playing is Peter Erskine. Perhaps if you started to listen to some of these players, playing softly would make much more sense in a musical context instead of just trying to play what you would normally play softer.
But me building up those chops is just like everything else: you just have to put in the time doing it - no other way around it. You have to work on it. Listening to top notch players actually doing it is your end goal, so as you listen to them, that is your gauge on how well you're doing it. Start doing all your snare drum exercises really softly, and of course, start slow. Maybe you're trying to rush this development along to quickly, and as always, it leads to frustration.