hands like secrets are the hardest thing to keep from you;

While I'm in a posting mood:

A few weeks back after finishing my first Rogaine, I knew my legs were in trouble. The last few times I had been for a run, I had finished with a sore knee. Not used to knee problems, I kind of ignored it. Bad move.

So I've been going to the physio and getting back on track. I can run 2km 3 x a week now, so definitely an improvement, after having a week banned from running.

I'm signed up for the City 2 Surf in Sydney in August, so must be able to do 14km by then :) Good to have something to work towards.

My theory is that with the lack of weights the past 6 months, I've lost a lot of the leg muscle mass I previously had (and the running would have stripped a bit of it too), and there's not enough support to keep my running style in check.

So I've got myself back into the weights, and with Aaron, have been trying out some Creatine. After completing the loading phase, and then doing my first workout, I must say, I'm very impressed. The night before workout, I was out drinking for 12 hours, then had 4 hours sleep (not something I'm condoning). I got up, ate some poached eggs (the first time I've ever poached an egg mind you, great success!

I started my work out, by adding 5kg to my dumbells, 10kg to my bar, and 10kg to my leg weights. I then did my usual routine, and it was bordering on easy. Obviously still a good workout, but I was able to push through when normally you would hit muscle failure. I'm very happy with that. Will be good to see the outcome of this! As a plus it should help my legs too.

Back to drums I suppose. I'm meant to be having a jam session with a couple of guys (one I know). It's been cancelled the last few weeks, but it's really motivated me to practice and spend some serious time behind the kit. I'm enjoying trying to learn actual songs. Hard work though!

i'm so excited, and i just can't hide it

First single Tarantula.

oh, good morning mr. tyler; going.. down?

In today's tale of good vs evil...


going up: Possibly the coolest, most intriguing album launch ever. Especially in the age of digital media

going down: RIAA has no idea

so don't go worrying about me; it's not like I think about this constantly

Today was the Bridges Fun Run (10km). Mark, Em, Aaron, Jack and myself all went along, and finished quite well. I plodded along slowly (compared to the others) with Em for most of it, the others are much faster than us. But we still made a pretty good time and beat last week's effort, both in fitness, pain, time & distance. Go us! I think I'm going to build up to a half-marathon in the next few months and have a crack at that. Why not :)

In drums, I'm now doing some triplet stuff with shuffle beats underneath. Getting pretty tricky now. Last week I didn't get much practice in, so I kind of stumbled my way through the lesson, learning as I went. Kind of like uni I guess ;) But of course it worked enough to look like I'd progressed. This week I'll try and find more time!

These three songs are in/on(?) my wavelength this week:

Nine Inch Nails: Terrible Lie

You made me throw it all away
My morals left to decay (terrible lie)
How many you betray
You've taken everything (terrible lie)

Dire Straits: Telegraph Road

You know I’d sooner forget but I remember those nights
When life was just a bet on a race between the lights
You had your head on my shoulder you had your hand in my hair
Now you act a little colder like you don’t seem to care

Fall Out Boy: Don't You Know Who I Think I Am?

Penny for your thoughts but a dollar for your insights
Or a fortune for your disaster
I’m just a painter and I’m drawing a blank

i'm on my hands and knees; i want so much, to believe;

So, Emma. Hope this makes you happy :P

It's been a long time since last post. I'm now on to a new book, and really enjoying it.



Learning double bass, but in an interesting and creative way, apart form just hammering at it, like any schmo can do. Hard work, and it has certainly tested my endurance. Legs needed a lot of work, now I can practice double bass for about half an hour. Which isn't long enough. Because i'm worn out at the end of my lesson, and it all falls apart hehe.

Either way, I'm really enjoying it, and one of these days I'm going to cave in and buy:

a) a bass amp that I can run my v-drums through.
b) an acoustic drum kit, so i can annoy neighbours.

Stay tuned for more regular updates :)

i spilled the ink across the page, trying to spell your name

a) Mastering the samba is hard work. I've got the hands down, but getting the foot pattern underneath is really not working for me. So this week, I've got some exercises to use over the troublesome foot pattern, so hopefully it will become second nature. Basically involves a few of the rudiments i know, and simple 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 and 1/32 notes, with various accents. So far it's helping.

b) So I bought a new frypan. Scanpan. So far, it's a superb addition to the kitchen. Got a $60 wok in the same deal (RRP $299), so was happy with that. I've used that too, and so far very impressed. Good to get back into cooking some tasty treats.

c) As a side note I've decided to give myself 10 weeks to build up to running 10km. (At the moment I can run about 1km comfortably).

d) Another side note, I bought a DVD-Recorder with a HDD for recording TV shows. Apparently it will play divx movies through a USB port, but I'm waiting to see if that is actually the case.

e) I pick up Sago, my new kitten on Wednesday. Can't wait!

f) Oops, I wandered outside of the beat/chef boundary.

g) Really digging Angus & Julia Stone's Chocolates & Cigarettes EP at the moment.

listen to the sound of me spillin' my heart through this pen

These last few weeks I've been learning all sorts of world beats and variations. Some real interesting stuff. Very challenging too, but getting there. I'm finding it easy to sit down for 30-40 minutes and just improvise. Going to try and master the Samba this week. It's a bit harder on my electronic kit to distinguish the accents, but I don't have a choice for now. We'll see what happens.

hello, here i am

So time flies. The paradiddle medley is but a shadow of yesteryear.

I'm just finishing up some rhythms with odd changes (beats that you would never use in a song, but are good practice). Then I properly begin the latin chapter of the book, from then we experiment all sorts of latin, afro-cuban & other south american inspired rhythms. It's meant to be the best part of the book and I'm finally there which is cool :)

Frank (my teacher), was impressed with the things I've figured out on my own, which is great news. Sometimes a week goes by and I feel like I haven't achieved anything, but he seems to notice things.

Actually next week I'm taking a diversion into different grips, rudiments etc that I've never really learnt. Will be good to get some of those down, and start to develop those skills also.

Onward!

On a food related note, I ate a homemade chicken pie yesterday from the Jamie Oliver cookbook. I didn't make it, but I think I will have to. It's delicious!

we are the fossils, relics of our time

Finally something worth posting about... I was set some homework last week. Trying to learn the paradiddle medley. A single paradiddle is just constant sticking on the snare, in the form RLRR LRLL (and repeat). The medley uses single, double and triple paradiddles, as well as constant hihat on the 1 of each beat, but the bass drum on each accent (first note of paradiddle). Seems ok, except the double paradiddle changes the time signature and screws with your bass foot. I couldn't do it at the lesson, and that was a bit frustrating. Took me an hour of practice at home, but now it makes sense, and I can blast the medley from quite slow to a reasonable pace. I really feel like I am learning again, which is nice. It's strange to be "learning" at this age. I guess we are learning every day, but when it's so obvious, it's kind of unusual.

Medley looks like this:

count (1 e & a 2 e & a etc)
hihat foot on 1, 2 etc
accents in bold (play the accent on the bass drum and the cymbal (instead of snare)
RLRR LRLL RLRL RRLR LRLL RLRL RLRR LRLR LRLL

rinse and repeat

Also, I have been immersing myself in all things drum related this week and last week. I watched my DVD's of the Modern Drummer magazine 2005 festival. Have been practicing some things learnt from there, and it is interesting to be exposed to such different styles of drumming, all in the one DVD (or 4).

One thing it has done has got me back into different styles of music. Everyone says to listen to all types of music, and learn to appreciate them. Now I have always had a varied music collection, but lately I've been listening to very similar stuff. So I've been sourcing out a bunch of stuff that covers the spectrum again. There's so much good stuff out there. It's amazing just what you hear when you're focusing on 1 instrument as well. Some people just rule out a style of music based on 1 element that they hear. I guess the reasons I like the same styles is because I'm listening to the other elements, and that's what makes you realise just how good a particular artist is. Of course there's bad musicians, and there always will be.

Reading an article with Stewart Copeland (drummer for The Police back in the day), he mentioned the same thing, and says he still listens to Lamb Of God, Slayer and Slipknot. 2 of which are fairly extreme metal. This is a 50 yr old, well dressed, film score composing gent. That is what it's about for me. How can you ever be good if you don't expose yourself to as much music as possible.

I guess you can liken that to travelling. People who have never left the city they live in imagine that's all there is. What happens when they discover the other 90% of the world?

So there you go, something semi-worthwhile to write about.

And FYI, the music I have absorbed in the last couple of weeks, 6 of which I had never listened to before:

Tapes n Tapes
Danielson
Rogue Traders
Lamb of God
Rebel Meets Rebel
Shadows Fall
Donald Fagen (Steely Dan)
Dashboard Confessional
Phil Collins

and isn't this exactly where you'd like me

I'm now doing shuffle feel with the ride bell. It feels weird actually needing to hit the cymbal in an exact place. I'm so used to just bashing it wherever (The bell is the part of the cymbal in the middle where it is held in place, it makes a different sound). Last page of exercises before contemporary funk consumes me. Beware, I'll be funking it up from then on.

Gee these weeks are going by fast, I've been doing lessons for nearly 3 months.

on and on, reckless abandon

I've finally done it! My lesson was a success, and I've moved on to "shuffle feel". Next week I'll be into latin rhythms. Now it starts to get harder :) It's interesting how once something just makes sense to your brain, that you can do it with much more ease. That's something that I really notice with the drums. Once I "get" it, it's easy to do. I guess that applies to everything, but I really notice it when focusing on an instrument.

On a side note, I went for a 2 hour ride on the weekend, that involved riding around the river, carrying my bike up to kings park, carrying it down jacob's ladder, and riding home. I was surprisingly energetic afterwards, which to me says my fitness is finally improving. I'm going to credit some of that to playing the drums for 30 mins every day. That, and a regular weights plan has really helped. Now I actually feel like riding around! Yay for motivation :)

fancy footwork

Finally, my foot is behaving itself. I have finally mastered (well enough), the sixteenth note triplet, so I can progress further along in my original book.

2 more weeks, and I'm on to latin and funk drumming. I'm looking forward to that :)

I'll still be using the "Bass Drum Control" book at the same time, but I can just practice the exercises in that to keep my foot skills developing.

bass drop

Oh yeah, updating. That's right.

I bought this new Pearl bass pedal (P-1002). Now I have a double pedal, so I can develop those skills when the time comes, and enjoy learning on a better quality pedal in the mean time, while developing my right foot.

It takes a lot of work, but I'm getting there. I'ts starting to behave and do what I tell it to do :)

Training the ankle to do something it's not used to doing takes quite a while!

Here we go again

Well, still progressing at a reasonable rate. Onto 12/8 feel now, with sixteenth notes on the bass, snare and ride. There's a lot going on when that's happening. Once I get my way past this, it's on to funk rhythms. Exciting!

I've got my 10th lesson tomorrow. I wonder what I'll be like after another 10.

Those crazy japanese

And I guess it's time for the first food related post to make it's way in here.

I bought some new cooking books, to inspire me when I move into my own place again in a couple of weeks. One of them is 15 minute meals, another is 4-ingredient meals (meals you can make with only buying 4 ingredients. There's some quite tasty stuff in there. The other night I made Peppered shark, with a greek salad and lemon potatoes. And the other night I made teriyaki beef (that was one of the 4-ingredient ones).

I also bought a Japanese cookbook though, and can't wait to start serving up some delights from that one.

Mmm food.

Syncopation of the nation

Another week gone, another lesson down. Progressing rather smoothly now, playing along with the 1-2 minute tracks and only making 1 or 2 mistakes at the most, so happy with that.

Moving on to some tricky syncopated stuff now, telling the left hand to do what I want when I want is a bit annoying, but I've got some snare exercises to even it out. Starting to get into some 4-way independence stuff too (not in the book, but my instructor wants me to practice), basically adding extra bits over the examples in the book, so each limb is doing something different.

Once I get better at that, I should progress quite steadily I think! In a couple of weeks, I'll be into funk drumming. Looking forward to that.

Calling all bass players

My lesson went great too. My ABC of drumming book is completed and signed. I can file that away now.

I can now work through my Rhythm Section Drumming book. It has a cd to play along with, and I'm allowed to do the first track. I play along with the bass part, so if I knew a bass player, I could say "Hit it" and jam away. Time to get busy!

Snared one

So, I went to my drum lesson early, keen to purchase the previously mentioned snare drum. They didn't have any in stock, but they had the next model up (a bigger one). The guy said they were about to go on sale anyway, so would you like it for half price?

Would I? hehe :)

It was down from $949 to $465. Bargain of the year! Probably cheaper than the one I wanted anyway. I paid for my kick drum also, but that won't be here for a week or two.

Deluxe.

Keep walking

Thanks to Matt, I now have a CD Walkman. Old school you might think, but it will serve a great purpose.

Music books come with CD's to play along. My drum kit takes an auxiliary input for a CD player, or MP3 player (I use my iPod too). This enables you to play along with backing music through the headphones. A CD Walkman should make my practicing much easier. And save me having to rip all the cd's to mp3. And since it has Shock protection, I may be able to mount it on my kit, and not worry about skipping. We shall see if that works :)

99 bottles of beer on the wall

I have 99 preset drum kits on my electronic kit. Obviously some of them are of not much use to me, but even after I've been using the same kit for a long time, suddenly another one sounds better. I guess it really depends what type of music you are playing. I can see about 20 probably which I may want to use regularly, so I need to move them all to the beginning of the preset numbers, so it's easy to flip between them.

Maybe I shall do that on the weekend.

Renegades of funk

I've started flipping through the Rhythm Section Drumming book for my next lesson tomorrow. Lots of goodness in there, and a backing CD so I can be ultra cool. Looks like a very comprehensive book, I think it will take at least 3 months to finish that one. There's lots to practice. I recognised one of the beats in the first section as the beat from Faith No More's, "We care alot". Ace.

New kids on the block

Here's the snare drum and kick drum I was talking about before. I can just replace the snare pad with this one, and immediately I have a snare with a proper mesh head. The kick drum also allows for two pedals, and should feel a bit more realistic then the one I have at the moment.

The wedding singer

I can now officially play at weddings for money. Well that's what my instructor told me. Now that I've got these beats in my repertoire:

Waltz, Swing, Shuffle, Polka, Tarantella, Cha Cha, Rhumba, Beguine, Bossa Nova, Mambo & Samba.

That's tabtastic

MXtabs is back up again. After the RIAA went on a spree of shutting down music tablature sites (reason: tabs are breaking copyright and deprive the artists of sheet music money), there was almost nowhere to find drum tabs for my favourite bands.

Now they are back up, with this letter:

...The entire purpose of Mxtabs was to aid musicians in learning their instruments. Simple guitar, bass, and drum tabs, even if inaccurate, are invaluable in helping people to learn the rudiments of their instrument. In no way was the site designed to circumvent copyrights, in fact, Mxtabs has linked to Sheetmusicplus from its inception, asking users to buy the official sheet music (when available). By December 2005, Mxtabs accounted for over $3000 in sheet music sales monthly, via affiliate links to Sheet Music Plus....

Rhythm & Gangsta

I have just purchased this book entitled "Rhythm Section Drumming" for my next few lessons. It's 138 pages, so may take a while to get through and cover everything.

I feel like a newborn

With my lessons, I wanted to start from the very basics again, and work my way up from there, hoping to do everything the right way this time :) Even simple things like reading music, counting, time signatures etc I had not really ever done. My first book (pictured left), went through all this and more. I learnt/relearnt note values, practising simple rudiments, quarter notes, eighth notes, eighth note triplets and sixteenth notes. I have just finished it and have now learnt a bunch of beats at the end. Now I feel like I'm getting somewhere!

4th birthday

After 3 or 4 years of self taught on and off drumming, I decided to take lessons to improve at an increased rate. 5 lessons/weeks in, and I feel like I am at least twice as good already.

I own a Roland V-Club electronic drum kit (pictured left). I plan to modify this with a new snare, and kick drum, and double pedal setup over the next few weeks. That should see me through my advancements in skill for the next year or two. I'll post photos of the additions soon.