Drumteacher and the thing with the "Shortcuts"

Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2010 6:59 am

Hello everybody!

Before i come to my questions about drumming, i will introduce myself. My name is Kevin, I'm 18 years old and I play drums for 2 about years now. I'm from good old Germany, so sorry for any mistakes haha.. i was only playing for myself and I did a lot of exercises, I learned from other drummers. Like paradiddle or the simple RLRL things ... then I played a simple back beat to "get the groove".. everything with a metronom.. but I had always the feeling that this typical things doesnt work. I did not get better.. Maybe it was my Motivation as well, just to focus on this things and not to play something different after 2 minutes of practicing.

A month ago I met a drum teacher. He plays the drums for 20 years now and I thought, well, why not taking lessons?! We all know, intelligent people learn better when they have to act under pressure .. haha.. So, he told me that he took lessons for a very long time and that he worked with three drumteachers. All of them told him the exercises i was doing all the time, RLRL and this things. He said that this is stupid and dont get you any better, it is only wasting time. He said that he started learning the moeller technique 2 or 3 years ago and he showed me, how fucking fast he could do things like paraddidle, double stroke rolls and triplets.

He told me i could do this things, with my talent, in 1 year. He showed me also a different stick grip. He hold the sticks at the slower parts not wit the thumb and the first finger, but with the last 2 fingers (ring finger and little finger).. At the fast parts he hold the sticks in the "normal" way.. He said to work with the rebound at the lower part, so that the stick is some kind of swinging, will make your hits uncontrolled and it is quite harder then to do it like the way he does it.. I'm trying this technique now for about 3 weeks (i took lessons by him) and i see that the moeller technique is great and the stick grip of him gives really a better control..

He said a lot of guys can only play those fast tempos just because they are playing for about 10 years and that with the right technique, you dont need to play for about 10 years..

So, what are your thoughts about this?!.. Hope iit is not too much to read :D ..

Greetz..

Joined: 21 Dec 2006 Posts: 1744 Location: Sofia, Bulgaria

Hello there, welcome to the forums!

If I got you right, you want to play back beats and grooves better and you want to get faster? I strongly recommend you to check Jojo Mayer's DVD. There is everything you will ever need to know about hand technique and it's explained very well. I also recommend you not to worry much. In the first years of my drumming I was also not able to concentrate very much on practicing, it will come in time, when you figure out what music do you wanna play with real people (a band) it will all come in place, trust me.

About the speed, it's not only "speed", Derek talked about this a lot of times. It's being able to do this speed no matter the situation, being solid, tight and balanced in that speed, having a feel/groove and on top of that - to be innovative with it in some way. THIS takes 10 years! The human body is designed to be able to do this stuff, right... so EVERYBODY can learn to crank fast singles or whatever. I haven't practiced double bass and blasts for the past 3 weeks, cause I've been too busy trying to play tight on slow tempos with feel, now that's hard!

Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 476

The thing about some teachers that you have to be careful of is their "holier than thou" attitude about their method being the one and only one.

There are many methods that bring results but sometimes it is trial and error to find one that is the most comfortable for yourself. A teacher is there to guide you and make sure you don't get into bad habits as well, not necessarily if you are playing the perfect "moeller stroke". Not every person who is fast learned the Moeller stroke concept. Some drummers actually do it and they don't even know it because their body is adapting to it when trying to go faster. Same thing with the swivel "technique". Nobody I know tried to swivel "slowly" or noticed this swivel happening before playing faster. Once most people got the basics of double bass down and attained some speed did they begin to notice this swivel happening as the body began trying to adapt to the faster speed.

It also takes patience. A lot of teachers leave that word out of their teaching regiment and would rather skip the basics because they are actually bored of teaching those or don't know how to. They would rather throw around more advanced concepts before students tackle the most basic of concepts.

A seasoned teacher will realize that not every student learns at the same pace so they will adjust their teaching style to fit each student. Trying to explain the Moeller method to a six year old student is not the same as doing that with an older student. Speed is unique to each individual and attaining speed as well as progress does not happen in a linear and predictable fashion.

Joined: 20 Oct 2005 Posts: 1250

I would recommend Jim Chapin's video, Speed Power and Endurance. He goes over many hand exercise that deal with Moeller and more. Too bad he died. I also recommend hooking up with Joe Morello in NYC is possible.

There are many grips, no one is better for everything, and there are no shortcuts.

Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 1774

I've got a great idea. How about you play as fast as you can, and within 6 months you'll play cannibal blasts at 300bpm...

and then you get a synovial cyst in your wrist which basically prevents you from playing german grip that fast EVER AGAIN.

Anyone who is going to blow smoke up your arse is unlikely to be a good teacher, just a good salesman. The only way you can get genuine speed is long, hard sessions to slowly build the endurance and muscles. Arnold didn't win Mr Universe after a year of lifting. And you won't be able to play drums at 250bpm in a year either. James King was playing Longstreth's parts after two years of drumming, but I don't think there is any doubt that John is a much better drummer. Drum machines play fast too. No one wants to hear that.

You're 18. You probably don't even have the nervous system developed to play 250bpm effectively yet. There is a reason most of the world's best runners are 25+. Build your chops, learn stick control, and get good.

Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 10:39 am

I think some of you got me wrong. I still want to get faster, but I don't want to play blast beats and stuff above 250 bpm (later maybe^^). My first goal is to have groove and to play good, simple music. I'm learning this handtechnique to do drumrolls with accents and stuff.. like paradiddle, double stroke rolls, triplets and so on. An Exemple:

RLR LRL RLR LRL

The Big letters are the accents. I tried this for a long time. I was only able to do this... hm.. maybe 130-140 bpm.. now, 3 weeks of learning moeller technique: 160-170.. (CLEAN!!!!!)

realize something?! ..

Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 476

dead_pool wrote:

I think some of you got me wrong. I still want to get faster, but I don't want to play blast beats and stuff above 250 bpm (later maybe^^). My first goal is to have groove and to play good, simple music. I'm learning this handtechnique to do drumrolls with accents and stuff.. like paradiddle, double stroke rolls, triplets and so on. An Exemple:

RLR LRL RLR LRL

The Big letters are the accents. I tried this for a long time. I was only able to do this... hm.. maybe 130-140 bpm.. now, 3 weeks of learning moeller technique: 160-170.. (CLEAN!!!!!)

realize something?! ..

That is called beginner's gains. When you are new at something, the learning curve can (not always) come with quick gains. Once you become more advanced, those gains tend to to slow down especially when working on speed; this where some people try to look for a quick fix technique to overcome those plateaus. Technique is not always the answer, hard work is. And some teachers miss that very important point. Yes technique is important to some degree, but not everyone who is fast plays the exact same way. Buddy Rich was fast but does that mean we all have to play with traditional grip in order to be fast? Not at all.

Technique also develops with time as well.

Joined: 31 Oct 2005 Posts: 1319

dead_pool wrote:

RLR LRL RLR LRL

The Big letters are the accents. I tried this for a long time. I was only able to do this... hm.. maybe 130-140 bpm.. now, 3 weeks of learning moeller technique: 160-170.. (CLEAN!!!!!)

realize something?! ..

Moeller stroke is the technique for such accented triplets. It's the most natural way your hands and arms can move when performing such a pattern. Once you learn it, it's harder not to accent all your triplet rolls like that. It doesn't mean that all of a sudden all your playing problems will go away if you just practice Moeller some more. This is also where what Footsoldier88 wrote about comes into play.

Joined: 20 Oct 2005 Posts: 1250

dead_pool wrote:

I think some of you got me wrong. I still want to get faster, but I don't want to play blast beats and stuff above 250 bpm (later maybe^^). My first goal is to have groove and to play good, simple music. I'm learning this handtechnique to do drumrolls with accents and stuff.. like paradiddle, double stroke rolls, triplets and so on. An Exemple:

RLR LRL RLR LRL

The Big letters are the accents. I tried this for a long time. I was only able to do this... hm.. maybe 130-140 bpm.. now, 3 weeks of learning moeller technique: 160-170.. (CLEAN!!!!!)

realize something?! ..

3 weeks of practicing an alternating accent. Bound to do something. I hardly think it's the technique, it's just cause you practiced it.

Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 1774

And this is something you don't really understand until you've been practicing music for a LONG time. 10 years... I have my limits on guitar. What I never really appreciated before was that most players have a couple tricks to lead into a certain pattern and this makes most of the difference between my noodling and a great player's soloing. Of course, if I sit down and learn those tricks, bang. I sound a lot better. It takes a long time to psychologically cope with the idea of practice and hard work. Young guys normally don't have it. Nothing against em. Just makes the challenge twice as hard.

Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2010 11:01 am

Okay.. I think it was also a motivation problem. I practised these accented triplets more than I did before. Maybe.. But my thought was that it was easier to practise this things with moeller technique. As I said, I practised this before, too, but I didn't become better. With Moeller technique, I become better in this case. And that was my thought. But okay.. I think you all answered my question.. thanks..

Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 1774

If you need a teacher to kick your butt out of neutral and into first gear, then its worth the money and effort. End of the day, our advice, your decision.