We're stuck indoors for at least a few weeks.
If we're healthy enough to be bored, we've got an opportunity: get a head start on the drums.
This week's video is "how to stop sounding like a beginner", but that's a misnomer.
At every point up to the present, I could use the material in this video. After graduating from music school, when I was playing professionally, throughout my teaching arc. The basics never get less important.
But what are the basics?
Maybe it's stick control and coordination exercises. And if you've got years to inch your way up the skill ladder, those resources are great.
But what if we used the quarantine as a "forcing function"? What if we "parkinsoned" ourselves?
(Parkinson's law states that a task will swell in size and complexity to fill the time you allot to it.)
Short deadlines focus the mind. If you've got only 90 days to set fire to your "beginner" ships, and chart a new course, you now no longer have the luxury of focusing on the trivial many things. You have to choose the highest-leverage few.
I've been like a broken record about this, but I believe those few are playing clean (or kit control), feel (which includes time), and improvisation.
Those are the "necessary and sufficient" skills of "high level drummers".
They're necessary, because you don't find any greats without them.
They're sufficient because they're the only skills greats have in common.
(Try telling me Will Champion and Tony Royster play the same type of solo. Or that either of them isn't great.)
Great - so we focus on those 3 things. But how?
Please enjoy:)