Lessons, Week 39

He wanted to go over the triplet exercises he gave me last week, but I told him I hadn't worked on them much because I took a step back and really focused on my high hat foot last week. Basically I've been playing 1, 2, 3, 4 on the bass and 2, 4 on the high hat all week...with various things over the top. Fast...slow. With metronome. It sounds really easy, but my left foot really is just lacking because I never use it. So that's what we did in the lesson.

All was going just fine until he introduced this variation:
2, 4 on high hat and +3, +1 on bass drum. This totally messed me up. I couldn't do it at lesson even though we worked on it for probably 20 minutes. When I got home I slowed it way down and did eventually get it, though I'm still pretty shakey.

Over the top he did single stroke eighth notes, triplets, and paradiddles. He told me to add double paradiddles eventually. He played all of these around the kit, sometimes switching drums in the middle of the figure.

I think these are all really useful exercises even though they are simple. I think they are the kind of thing that doesn't seem like it matters, but it is quietly, secretly completely changing the landscape.