Ok so as you can probably tell just by looking at my avatar here, I used to be very much into drumming and I kind of fell off the page. I got into college with my chops alone, and I can still play pretty nasty compared to most drummers. The thing is, I don't know what to practice right now.

I don't want to start playing on cheeses and whatnot again, because although I can do them, I fear my technique may be suffering by playing hard things. I can start on paradiddles...but that's pretty damn lame practice for me you know?

I've been off for about 2 years. I've still hit the pad like 2 or 3 times a month, along with the occasional drumset jams.

What would you guys recommend? I want my speed to get back up, as well as my dexterity. I don't watch my stick heights anymore. I know I should. Where would you start? I know this is drumlines.org but I'm definitely headed towards kit playing. Of course, my greatest advantage on a drumset is my rudimental playing.

While off, I've also gotten pretty good at counting and feeling odd times, so take that into consideration with your recommendations. I've been slowly working through Stick Control again, but it's getting quite the boring.

Also I have my realfeel pad, a gelpad (absorbs like ALL the bounce), and two generic remo pads that can be tuned. Should I ditch the gelpad for now? Should I have seperate practice time on it just for the sake of speed and power? Should I keep playing with marching sticks for the same reasons? I definitely need to develop a good touch with jazz/combo sticks so I've been using these oldschool weckyls.


Tell me what you think please!
Thanks a lot in advance!

The best thing to do, as obvious as it may seem, is just practice.

What you practice and HOW you practice will affect different parts of your playing, that's an obvious thing. But playing ANYTHING will make you a better player; I don't care what you say. If you play 8's for 2 hours straight, then good for you! You've worked on your legato strokes, and I can guarantee you that it wasn't by any means destructive on your chops. As far as doing things that are interesting, check out the Wilcoxen Snare Book, you may be able to find some pretty good rudimental solos out of there. Just look for things that are new if you're trying to maintain an interest in playing.



No, to be honest, I don't know. I think this is kind of an ignorant way to look at it. Basic rudiments are applicable to your playing, no matter how good you are. So, playing a rudimental piece that works things like paradiddles and flam accents may be "lame" at a glance, but it will still make you a better player when you try to attack the more difficult stuff. Try just playing your basic double triple exercise, then when you play the triple, play the accent on the third partial.

If you're worried about your technique, then break down different things. I play a flam accent break down and have turned it into a flam drag breakdown and have used it to work on my cheeses, too.

Here's an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQUmr-9rIRk

if you add in diddles, then you can work on other things.

From there, check out different hybrid rudiments, just reach out and have some fun, no matter what you're doing, if you're practicing, it's beneficial. Happy drumming!

To add on to what has been said already:

At first it is kind of lame. You must not want to, but just go over your foundations thoroughly before you get too choppy. You've obviously thought it intelligently by stating that you don't want to ram things that might be a little bit too difficult for where your starting again. Just take a slow approach and go over all your basics and standards before getting out of control with swiss cheese flam drags and whatever else you feel like ramming. Think of it like a house, would you build a multi million dollar mansion on a shaky foundation? The answer would be no, you'd like to survey the land before you build, right? Go over your standards and make sure your confident in your technique, approach, grip, touch, and strokes before anything else. Don't take a chance that something might not be 100 percent correct, and then take time and frustration fixing it later.
As for what to practice, basics straight up. Have fun with it however! I'm kit challenged however, so most of my advice would really lean more towards a rudimental thing, but it's still might help. Put on some music for what your doing, that way your not just hacking 8's, you adding in a eighth note pulse in your favorite jams! Or extend out some sort of thing to change up what your doing. All in all though, have fun and do it well!
-Darnell
P.S.
Check out this article, it's dope. It could give you a few ideas too.
http://www.vicfirth.com/education/articles/Gusseck.html

I feel like i am going through the same thing you are. I used to be real intense with drum line in high school and was always challenging myself with rudimentally hard pieces but ever since college started i have been busy and what not and haven't had much time to play. The thing that helps me a lot is to pull out my old warmups and rudimental exercises because it keeps my chops up and maintains technique because the difficulty level is not hard. However, jumping right back into the challenging things i used to be able to read and play rather quickly is much harder now. I would suggest that you definitely don't look at simple exercises as 'lame' because they are the most important in maintain good chops with good form and technique at the same time. A rudimental solo's book i would suggest is called Ziggidabuzz which is composed of 15 solo pieces. It starts with easy solos and also has pretty hard stuff towards the end. I would suggest after a good warmup, to find a piece of music you would like to play and just practice it slowly and not only worry about playing the right notes but being able to play the right notes while maintaing correct technique which is a lot harder then playing the music itself. Hope that helped a little bit.