speeding tips

[skaman]

hi! this is a question for all the drummers!

what practice do you do to increase your hands and feet speed. i drum for about a year, and now im little frustrated, couse my speed improvement has somehow stopped! i dont want to force the speed out of me, couse it sounds like a crap.

so i please you for some basic tips!

thanks to all the drummers!

p.s.: i woud also like to have some basic tips on jazz and swing and some triplet beats!

[A GUY NAMED JON]

I'm a guitarist and drums are just a hobbie for me. But I believe the trick is to learn the new method. Start slow and build from there, try to incorperate it in your playing that way your playing the song a practicing at the same time. I'm working on building my single stroke rolls and I just practice on pillows because the sticks don't bounce, and so it doesn't drive my family crazy.

[fldrummer]

Vicfirth has some good stuff to check out

http://www.vicfirth.com/education/dr...mfamularo.html JIM CHAPIN stuff is pretty good.

http://www.vicfirth.com/education/te...e/wessels.html

http://www.vicfirth.com/features.html "EDUCATIONAL FEATURES"

[MichaelM]

Practice rudiments!
You can find them in tab(ish) form here:

http://www.tabarchive.co.uk/drumtabs.php?area=rudiments

or in score form on the vic firth website. Also just start playing harder songs than what you are playing now. Also that speed is only part of technique and you will be much better if you work on technique as well as speed.

[juststartingout]

Originally Posted by MichaelM

Practice rudiments!
You can find them in tab(ish) form here:

http://www.tabarchive.co.uk/drumtabs.php?area=rudiments

or in score form on the vic firth website. Also just start playing harder songs than what you are playing now. Also that speed is only part of technique and you will be much better if you work on technique as well as speed.

Agreed!!!

Rudiments are the key to speed!!! Practiced correctly!!!

Practice them for 20 minutes or so a day, then work them into your fills.

[skaman]

thanks everyone for this great collection of exercises! i gotta say that i found some mistakes in my technique in first minute and im playing for a year now.

thanks again!

[darkdeciet]

how do you read that kind of tablature

[skaman]

i never read any tab for drums in my one year drumming career. i only read real music notes!

[MichaelM]

The rudiments on that page aren't actual drum tabs. Basically if you see an R you hit with your right hand, and with an L you hit with your left. The rudiments are read left to right, one line at a time. Most of the rudiments there have 2 or more lines..

[foreverain4]

you do not practice speed, practice accuracy. speed will be the natural result.

[lordwud]

if you're looking for brute speed over techinical speed then you just have to play as fast as you possibly can while still being in time, and do it till it hurts. then just keep doing it. it took me a few years to build up speed but once you get it, you can do it without breaking a sweat.

[rweiss]

I dunno I've been playing for 7 years now and started out with old rock like zeppelin, etc, then just kept experimented, i never really covered songs or learned songs, except for a few, but just did my own stuff. Over time I started getting into punk but by the time i was playing really fast beats i had good technique down and whatnot and could go reasonably fast while staying clean and tight... the only problem was those fast fills, but I've got them down near perfectly now. ...anyone, just practice more, and rudiments help to sound good and play more smoothly over the entire set after you get some of them down.

[track one]

For your hands, slow to fast rudiments for your feet try tap danceing classes and you will be amazed.

[TripleJ]

The trick to speed as someone mentioned before is through accuracy. Practising your rudiments is an absolutely excellent idea. If your just going for straight rolls I would suggest practising single and double strokes. Don't worry about your accents.

If you want an excercise to increase speed here is what I would do.

1) Find a tempo that you are comfortable with. 120 should be fine.

2) Play straight sixteenths while keeping time with your hi-hat on quarter notes. Do this for 5 minutes straight - making sure not to stray from the click.

3) Up the tempo 5bpm and repeat step 2.

4) Keep doing this until you find you can't keep up. Then drop the tempo back a little bit and stay there.

The idea of this excercise is to find your speed threshold. Once you've found it - stay there. Keep playing making sure you are keeping time. Now hopefully if you keep this up your fingers and wrists will relax. This relaxation is what allows you to boost the tempo.

The problem with most people is that when trying to go faster they lock their wrists and fingers up and forget their technique - which is exactly the opposite of what you want to occur!