Fundamentals Week Four

This week it is Swingtown (and, obstensibly 32nd notes, though ironically there aren't any of those in Swingtown).

I've been trying to learn to play this song literally for years.

Here's a former Berklee student pulling it off quite well


There are two hard things in this song for me.

The main riff:

The 2nd bass note is on an off beat so to speak, which makes it a real independence issue. Beyond that...this is pretty fast...and goes on forever. It's a long time for me anyway...five minutes of a strenuous pattern for me.

The fills:

I probably can get this. I'm just not used to playing fills at all and the "ruff" and triplet figure isn't something I'm used to.

This is the kind of song that makes me want to cry. At the moment I can play the main riff at about 60% speed. If I drop the "off" bass note...I can play the riff full speed...but it is exhausting. I know that these things just take practice...but it feels like it takes me longer than it should. It literally feels like my right foot is retarded and acting on its own. The control is all over the place.

I am who I am and I am where I am and all I can do is keep trying. I think that my fear and shame makes me avoid practicing...and that's why these things take so long. And I have to remember that I've only been at this for 6 years...and as an adult with obligations. I don't have the benefit of endless hours of being a teen with a drum kit. Patience. Persistance. And in the end...it is progress to value, not perfection.

Playalong Books

On the heels of yesterday's post, here's an inventory and wishlist of my playalong books:

Have
From Alfred Publishing
Rush
Green Day

From Hal Leonard
Pop Rock
Classic Rock
Hard Rock
Modern Rock
Funk
80s Rock
Jimi Hendrix
Nirvana

Other Publishers
Led Zeppelin


Want
From Alfred Publishing
Journey
Rolling Stones
Pink Floyd (compare with below for best)
Commandments of R&B Drumming

From Hal Leonard
90s rock
Punk rock
Police
Steely dan
Doors
Weezer
Pink Floyd(compare with above for best)
Lennon/McCartney

Additional Week Three Reflections

In addition to all of this my week three thoughts are this...

1. Structure in learning is good
2. Accountability in learning is good
3. Going at your own pace...but with a deadline...is good
4. Working on things on your own...before you have to show an instructor...is good
5. Instructor feedback is good...but really most things you can critique yourself if you take a video and watch it back.
6. My method of listen...read (or write and then read)...practice slow...is totally legit and I should keep up with it. Screw those guys who seem to pull shit out of their asses.
7. It is good to have a defined time to work on something...say a week...and then to give up. Otherwise you spend forever trying to make it perfect and get demoralized. Making it an assignment with a start date and an end date is good.
8. This class, while super great and perhaps worth the value, is over priced

So where does that lead me?

I think that I really, really hate private lessons. I don't like being put on the spot in a lesson (do it now!) and I never practice between lessons, making them essentially useless. So lessons are kind of out unless I come to a place where I have something specific that I want to work on and can't do it without feedback.

I think that...once this class is over...I should do the following.

1. Pull out all of my playalong books. Might want to try to find a Latin playalong book...and maybe a Jazz one...cause I'm missing those key genres.
2. Develop a "syllabus" that is basically that I will work on one song per week. Mix up the genres so that it is a different book each week...Nirvana one week, Jimi Hendrix the next, then Funk...etc
3. Start the "lesson" on Monday (or Sunday)...do the song for a week...video tape at the end of the week...review the video. At the end of the week...lesson over...start next song.
4. Throughout the week...use any online resources or recordings to help learn the part...just like I would for any song
5. Treat the whole thing just like I'm paying for a class. If I find that I need it...I MIGHT even be able to hire an advanced drummer to watch the videos online each week and give me a critique (perhaps half the cost of a traditional lesson?)...but I don't know that I need this...and certainly not right away.

Can I hold myself to this? Who knows? But it seems like trying for a while is worth the $1200 I'd pay Berklee? Right?

So that's where my head is going at the moment. We'll see how I feel in 9 more weeks.

Fundamentals Week Three

This week is Cold Sweat by James Brown (Clyde Stubblefield on drums) with a "fat back" beat (the back beat is displaced sometimes to the "and of 4" rather than being always on 2 and 4)...ghost notes, 8th and 16th notes, and some marginally strange hi hat opens.

Here's the Cold Sweat riff:


At first blush I thought I'd get this right away...but the placement of the ghost notes and the bass and hi hat foot ended up being just counterintuitive enough to give me a fit. I nearly learned the riff wrong...but then realized what I was doing. It didn't help that, in the video demo, the instructor added about 3 more sets of ghost notes. My instinct is to do that too...and maybe Clyde did also...but I thought this was not really a very nice thing to do in the video. He's adding things that aren't on the written page and he didn't warn us that he was going to do that. I don't think this is a useful way to teach reading. Reading means playing what is on the page. Step one. The NEXT step is adding extras.

This touches on my general feeling about the course...is that they are a bit careless sometimes. They don't make sure that what is on the videos is what is on the page...in the case of the first week etude he's playing a different song than we were given! This is just sloppy prep work on the part of the organizers. And while I feel like I can adjust to these mistakes...it just makes the learning process harder. Especially if you were new to reading...and SUPPOSEDLY this class is in part to teach you to read (though I'd say that if you couldn't read prior to taking this course you would not be able to make it through). The pre-req for the class is one year of playing. Shit...after one year of playing I would NOT have had the skills to do this stuff. They really are expecting way more experience and/or training.

Second point, they don't tell you when the chats are with enough lead time to plan. And the chats aren't very useful.

Third point, your interaction with the instructor is minimal here. That's kind of what sells the course...that you are going to get this individual feedback...but it is pretty generic.

Overall, it is VERY apparent that this course runs on auto-pilot and that we aren't much of a priority to the instructor (if he's even really the one on the other end).

That said, the course is fine. I really like the format of short video...printed material. The pacing of the videos are pretty good too...though a hair advanced (he doesn't slow down much).

They used to require you to buy Playalong books and don't anymore...which is nice from a cost perspective...but I've really benefitted from having the Amazing Slow Downer cds that have both the track with drums and without. I think that in their recommended resources they should recommend that you either buy the Playalong books...or get the Amazing Slow Downer program. I keep debating if I should buy it. It's like 50 bucks...but works, in theory, on all mp3s. They have a free version, but you only get the first 30 seconds of the song or the first few songs of a cd.

Anyway...back to Cold Sweat. I was pretty discouraged by Tuesday morning. I'd worked on it a bit Sunday (before the assignment was given, but I had the Playalong version) and on Monday and then on Tuesday while I was waiting for my oil to be changed. I avoided practicing on Tuesday night and actually went to bed at 8:30pm because I was so depressed. On Wednesday morning I was avoiding it to...then decided that I really ought to try to play it once. I put the Slow Downer on 50% and, to my surprise, got the part. Then did 70%...80%...90%...and 100%. I got it. I was shocked. I REALLY had thought I was going to have to rewrite the part and apologize to him and say that my skills weren't up to the challenge and that I just couldn't get it. In that way that things happen...if I can keep the pattern in my head and hands/feet over the next few days...it'll seem easy by Sunday when I record. I might even record on Friday or Saturday and start the next lesson on Saturday/Sunday (next week is Swingtown...a song that I've been trying to learn to play and failing for at least two years now).

It's just a weird thing. To be totally convinced that you'll never get something at 7am in the morning...and 30 minutes later to have conquored it. I'm supposed to pause and pat myself on the back now...because...really wow. I don't know if it'll always fall into place in a week...but I guess that I should have faith that if you slow something down enough...break it down...and go over and over it...eventually you WILL get it. We'll see how Swingtown goes...it has been sticking its tongue out at me for a while now.

Martin Atkins

I totally neglected to mention that last weekend RS, CT, and I went to a one-on-one coaching session with Martin Atkins at Madison Media Institute. We went to talk to him about next steps for td and cj.

Synopsis:
-after our album release show, td should record an ep every three or four months and have a party/gig where we give them away
-cj ought to learn to screen print and sell a bunch of shit. He wasn't sure of copy right issues with our logo (offered to make us part of his new book as a case study) but RS did some online research and it seems that if your logo is an obvious parody of another logo (and effectively promotes the original thing) than its aok. And that's totally what ours is.
-cj could record an album of Pixies songs and sell them so long as we pay licensing fees...which turn out to be quite affordable if you are doing a run of less than 500 copies.
-cj could and should book shows in Milwaukee, Chicago, and other regional cities. We shouldn't overlook places like Sun Prairie, Middleton...really close but not Madison proper. The suburbs, it turns out, have people in them. He and the gal with him gave us some ideas for places in Milwaukee and Chicago (he said we could name drop him).
-cj doesn't need to fall over itself to prove our value. But basically just need to not suck (we don't) and the concept sells itself. We ought to be able to book anywhere that books cover/tribute bands and doesn't have some super specific focus (like metal or country or whatever)
-td will have to work harder to book in other cities, but it isn't impossible. But we should be more proactive in building an email list and really engaging those folks. He even suggested that we send fans in other cities gas cards to come watch us in Madison!

I think that for sure the experience reassured us that there is a market for CJ and that we just need to put in the minimum work to grow. It lit a fire under us for sure. We'll see if that translates to action. I think the guys are excited about the screen printing. I think that they did all of that for The Escapists and Faghat back in the day and just got tired of all the work with no pay-back. But I think with CJ there WILL BE payback. We'll make a little money...get a little love. It will be worth it. So hopefully we'll go for it.

With respect to td, I guess I feel like that's really j's band...so lots depends on him.

SSW, 1/19/2012, Mr. Roberts

Played another Distortion Thursday at Mr. Roberts with Futebol and Brian Maiden. The Treejasons were supposed to also make their debut, but the show started late, I'd wager that Brian Maiden ran long...and well suddenly we found ourselves at 1:30am playing our last song and the bartender shutting down the show. Whoops. Though I don't feel like the show going short was our fault. Usually we are the ones who get screwed in such a situation, so it was nice at least that it wasn't the case this time.

Futebol I THINK is a novelty act. It really isn't clear. I think you'd either love them or hate them. It was like watching two Nick Murphys perform in the middle of their worst drunk EVER. That's all I can think to compare it to. Brian Maiden was fucking great. I don't know Iron Maiden, but it seemed like they nailed it. Very well performed and the audience loved them.

It was a good crowd. I'd encouraged JG to book bands that we'd never played with...and maybe some newish bands. For your first gig every friend you have comes out to watch. It's a great way to build an audience...by catching folks while they buy their buddies a beer after their first gig. It's a theory I'm operating under at the moment anyway...and it did seem to pan out last night, though I don't know for sure who the people were there for.

We didn't take the stage until well after midnight. I was awake, but was coughing alot. Probably a combo of the zero degree air outside and the poorly filtered heated air inside. Seems to have resolved this morning. I managed to get my vocals out well between coughing fits. My playing was really good for the first several songs, but I got fatigued quickly...especially my right foot. Also, as always, the stage at Mr. Roberts is 1,000 degrees. I really felt sick by the end of the show...a little like puking. By the Suspect Device I wasn't really able to get my bass doubles out very well and switched to "two beats" (bass on 1 and 3)...which is ironically what we are studying in my Berklee class this week. I also thought about Berklee because my practice setup since Blondie is different than my show setup...so I have to reorchestrate on the fly. I think that's actually good for my brain, though it kind of defeats the purpose of learning parts a certain way.

I punked out on the 2nd drum "solo" on Everybody's Happy. Just played it straight. Unless you really know the song you'd never notice and it keeps the beat better. I'd like to get back to playing it the right way (it's simple and is just a matter of independence issues), but I also kind of let it go. I'm working on doing that more often.

Had to loan out some mics and cables as per usual, but since we were there to the end of the show it didn't really matter.

I didn't drink at all (and have only drank on two nights since early November in general) and had a large late lunch of Chinese food. Brought two of my own (disposable) water bottles up on stage (stashed them in my cymbal bag)...I think that is a good practice for the future, screw trying to get water from the bartender. Forgot to bring cough drops and that was a mistake. Thought I had them in my bag but didn't. I felt pretty well rested and alert before the show started.

Setlist:
Everybody's Happy Nowadays (R)
Hate & War (D)
I Hate Rich (J)
Mr Suit (R)
Helicopter (D)
Fable (J)
I Am a Cliché (D)
New Rose ®
You Drive Me Ape (J)
Teenaged Kicks (D)
One Track Mind ®
Too Drunk (J)
Suspect Device ®
Two Pints ®
That’s How I Escaped (J)
Warsaw (D)
We Are the Ones (R)
Fucked Up (J)

Breathing and Singing

I keep remembering that I'm not doing breathing exercises and then promptly forgetting again. Really this would help my singing and my emotional life...so I ought to fucking just do it. Seriously, it takes less than 5 minutes a day.

I've noticed more so than lack of power that my voice waivers. I can't hold a note on pitch...it sounds weak and variable. The breathing thing (especially if I used a note on the exhales) would fix that.