Instrumental lessons

over the past few weeks I have looked into and learnt a variety of warm ups, fills and beats from a couple of styles from the music world including; The Nod (hip hop), Cold Pants (funk) and the hammer blow (metal).

Warms consisted of playing 4s (16th notes), then 3s (triplets), 2s (8th notes),  then 1s (quarter notes) around the kit so, snare to tom1, tom 2, tom3 and so on. seeing how long can keep it going and gradually building up speed over time.
Another warm up was a triplet based warm up using the snare, and toms 1 and 3, how you would perform the warm up is the first hit is on tom3 (right hand) 2nd hit on snare with the left hand then the 3rd hit on the snare with the right hand then left hit on tom1 the right on snare then left on snare and so on, getting faster then afterwards adding to more hits so on on the toms and one on snare so 3-5-7 hits, then cycling through them, doing 3 hits, then 5 then 7 and back to 3.
Another warm which was taught, actually quite a tricky one at first, but once learnt, quite fun to play- basically its a [pro-active based beat splitting up your limbs so one is playing 3 the other 4 so 4 over 3 beat left hand hitting snare, tom1 then hi hat and the right hand playing snare, and the toms, however at first you hit each thing with hands in unison, then after you have learnt that then you would playing the hands giving separate hits. The final step to add would be adding a bass note after each hit with both hands so right hand left hand, then the bass drum, then after one could 2 bass notes after every two hits.

A couple of the fills we learned incorporated

The Hip hop beat The Nod being the main that we have been looking into, over the past few weeks, simple 4/4 beat with fairly simple fills at the end. A couple of off-beats but nothing to major.
8th and 16th notes with the bass drum and snare moved to weird places.

The hammer blow using a quarter note based beat to give it a heavier sound and therefore more impact in songs. The bass and snare at times are moved to off-beats.

Evaluation of the Induction

Through the past few weeks, my weaknesses that have come to light from rehearsing and performing these variety of genres, mainly consist of my time keeping, counting beats and playing the transitions in the correct places. confidence, not being nervous when performing (which will come naturally) also resulting in my other flaw of speeding up as a result of me being nervous, so hopefully when one flaw is covered another will follow. overall practising more and studying the drummers style and also the genre of music.

Rock - Final week!

Week 6! The final week of induction and we're studying rock, and were I performed 2 songs! Bon Jovi-Livin' on a Prayer and big Guns by Ac/Dc. performance wise I feel that Livin' on a Prayer went far better over Big Guns by Ac/Dc.
Livin' on a Prayer was a little easier to learn and play over Ac/Dc - with Ac/Dc my main problem once more was my timing - going from verse to chorus to verse etc. I'd lose track on how many times I'd played the beat, so I'd forget to change the beat or perform a certain fill. Furthermore, I had rehearsed this less than the other song, which is another reason the other song I performed, I performed better.
Livin' on a Prayer went the best out of all of the performances, just well rehearsed and more practised and I was less nervous and managed to keep the time better and not speed up as much. the fils were okay, and overall I feel it went quite well.

week 5 Funk!

The Commodores Brick house- week 5 first rehearsal went rather well learning the beat and generally getting the groove down. We listened to the song to work out the structure i.e. verse chorus, build up chorus so on and so forth and overall was going quite well. However the next day as a result of me being late, I missed rehearsal time in the morning before the performance, and so was therefore oblivious to the changes that had been made to the song, resulting in me making mistakes at the end of the song.
The band during the performance felt a little shakey. I was nervous and as a result, my drumming lacking confidence caused me to speed up a little and mess up on occasions.

The genre was enjoyable, and I would love to look more into that area of music, learning the many different grooves and fills that accompany this style of music. I feel it would be strong step in helping me write my own music in the future.

Motown 4th week of induction

For the forth week of induction, we studied the Motown genre, were I rehearsed and played "Ain't no Mountain High Enough" performed by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrel. I found this song particulary strange and difficult firstly from the first main beat in the song where the timing was still 4/4 but the groove was strange as the bass drum hits where placed at odd points. The motown fills are were a little challenging also as you had to play double strokes straight from the off of hitting the mid tom and then rolling back onto the mid tom after performing the strokes on the snare - I learnt to play it, but failed to add them into the song.
There was also this particular snare beat where the snare is played on every beat and the bass drum on   the & of 3 and on the & of 4 and also on beat 1 - this beat I had a little trouble playing the bass drum on the right beats but got it eventually.
over all I felt the performance didn't go to well and was rather messy. The structure was a little everywhere and the were quite a few beats and fills missing, I managed to pull it off, but I could of definitely done a better job at it.

Pop Ballads

Week 3 - Pop ballads week - I performed the song "I Want to Know What Love is" by Foreigners. This song I feel went quite well so so - It didn't go horribly wrong, but then it wasn't an amazing performance either.
The rehearsing went okay, I learnt the song best I could, there was a weird swing pattern which took me a little bit before I could play the section properly, but even when we performed I still missed out some parts from the song. just small things like maybe an opened hi-hat or a small fill, something that's in the song but not to significant that would cause chaos if not put into the song. Fortunately for myself, as a result of the genre being Pop ballads, drums are not the main instrument- its presence is not so significant to that of the piano, or vocals or even guitar, so the drums being soft, repetitive and simple, not many mistakes could be made.

Week 2 - Reggae 08/09/2014

In week 2, I had to perform the song Boy Lolli pop by Millie Small (1964). We practised and practised the song over and over. My main fault which I found from rehearsing this song was counting timings and beats, as we had a lot of trouble when it came to the chorus of the song with this particular part, I would continuously screw it up. My other fault was the swing pattern I incorporated into the drum groove, it was a nice and well known swing pattern but it was the wrong one for the song, also something that was corrected and then practised to get right for when we perform later on.
The swing pattern being quite a tiring hand exercise, meant I had to take a break or two due to palms becoming really sweaty, so drumming became slightly more tricky with my sticks flying out of my hands every so often.
I believe the performance went well, however my over confidence from practising the song so much,, I then got really into playing the groove and forget to do perform the first transition between the first verse and chorus. The second time round however, I remembered and managed to pull it off. Could of done far better I believe but..