Practice Pad

I'm staying with family for a couple of nights so I don't have access to my keyboard at the moment. I did however bring my trusty R-Tom practice pad so I spent a couple of longish sessions using it yesterday. The first hour I ran through Alan Dawson's Rudimental Ritual at a moderate tempo. For those who don't know Alan Dawson was a drummer/teacher in the Boston area who played with many greats including Booker Ervin and Dave Brubeck. He was a very well respected educator having taught Tony Williams before going on to instruct at Berklee for a Loooong time teaching others including Vinnie Colaiuta, Steve Smith, John J R Robinson etc etc. The Ritual is essentially a technique exercise using many many drum rudiments constructed in four bar phrases. It is a great workout and exactly what I need to get my hands back in shape right now.

In addition to the Ritual I spent quite a bit of time playing single strokes and double strokes along to the metronome holding the rolls for a long time (a hundred minim counts) and gradually working up the metronome.

I found it interesting to observe my body while I was playing. I certainly found myself doing a little breath-holding and occasionally tensing up - things which I tend not to do when practising piano. I also considered how one dimensional this kind of pure technique practising really is.

All my idols from Tony Williams to Vinnie Colaiuta and beyond have very good physical skills and this is one thing I have always wanted to achieve for myself. I've always spent a large portion of my practice time working on my hand technique. Having limited access to an actual drum kit I've always been of the opinion that I'd rather spend eight hours working out on a pad than not do anything at all. Recently though I've found myself really aching to spend more and more time just playing on an acoustic set and trying to address all the other important areas of creating music: Time playing, improvisation, motivic development, soloing, interacting with others, reading, coordination, IDEAS etc etc etc. Whilst I am always captivated by performances like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhLXm4LiODQ

... I am usually (well always) bored by performances where the physical performance is superior but the other elements are lacking.

I'm not sure how exactly to remedy this in the immediate future but the comparison with my piano practice has definitely given me some food for thought.

Piano wise: I think I'll pick up the old Grade One piano book today and I may actually get myself a book like the Alfred Adult Beginner Course. Although these books start a little too simply they are a way of getting from A to B in very small, easy to digest steps. The Grade Pieces are very well selected and arranged but the Grade system is an assessment tool and not a curriculum.