Dynamics training HELP

[gymmy]

Hello everyone. I was curious how most of you practice dynamics. I'm only familiar with a few dynamics exercises, one being playing a straight swing beat (or any repeating phrase) and raising and lowering the volume in individual limbs separately while maintaining a constant volume in the remaining three limbs. Accent and ghost note exercises also fall into this catagory which are all very important, but I really want to dive deeper into this subject matter but I'm at a loss as to others ways of aproaching it while practicing. Any suggestions of exercises you may do would be greatly appreciated,

[Randy walker]

well in the rudiment practice routine you would take say a paradiddle

R L R R

and place an accent > over 1 stroke at a time.
>
R L R R

or
>
R L R R
so the other strokes would be softer or unaccented.
Using this would apply for getting better ghost notes say playing a shuffle.
Anyway, taking that and applying it to the kit.

[ed4644]

gymmy-

Check out a book called "future sounds" by David Garibaldi. His whole book is a funk book based on dynamics. The whole introduction gives a detailed description of how to understand dynamics.

[Vdrummer]

Practicing bucks is also helpful for dynamic control. Play a loud (high) note followed by a very soft note (very low) over and over again.

L s L s L s L s

You have to keep the stick from rebounding after the loud stroke. This isolates the down and upstroke. You can also play triplet bucks which are the similar but are played loud soft soft over and over again.

L s s L s s L s s L s s

The extremes of dynamics back and forth should help you learn to control your stick heights. Hope these help,

Brad

[gymmy]

Thanks a lot for the suggestions guys. I've heard that Garibaldi's book it quite good but I didn't know it concentrated on limb dynamics, so I definitely get it. I'm very interested it dynamic control exercises that may incorporate all 4 limbs. It'd be neat if we could collect a few new one's that may not be found books. I feel as though my drumming can be too black and white, it's definitely in need of a fuller range of contrast. A rock background can do this to you I suppose.
thanks guys

[Randy walker]

Garibaldi's book is all about what he calls' sound levels', watch his videos too.........

[XNavyDrummer]

I'm always impressed when someone has real control at painfully soft levels. A friend of mine with mind blowing chops used to take the Stone - Stick Control book and spend hours working through it at ppp levels. The result was amazing control and speed around the kit.

I saw Vinnie play at a very squashed dynamic range with Randy Waldman (thanks again Derek!). That is until the drum solo at the end of the night when his drums roared at a ffff level. What control that guy has to keep it swinging, groovin' and creative at such a low volume...impressive!

[FuseU1]

Yeah...DeJohnette said that it's "Harder to play something like a sngl-strk roll at even, ppp levels [in time]" than fff...so he'd pract at ppp much...

So practice your rudiments & stikg patts at ppp levels, going back & forth to fff levels, & all points in between, for sure [duh [img]wink.gif[/img] ]... [img]cool.gif[/img]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ September 15, 2004 06:00 PM: Message edited by: FuseU1 ]</font>

[cjbdrm]

Here's some suggestions:

Play along to the radio or a CD through a boombox- no headphones. And NOT loud. It'll make you listen harder and play your drums softer to lock in.

Also do those stick control exercises(paradiddles or whatever), focusing on using fingers and not wrists. French grip(thumbs up) as opposed to German(palms down). Leave a space between the thumb and index finger. Play other music besides Rock, which may require more subtlety and a lighter 'touch'. Try using smaller sticks and tuning your drums higher...this will automatically make you play different...Try playing grooves with crosstick instead of snare, ride on snare rim instead of hi-hat, etc. Develop a vocabulary of lower dynamics grooves and ideas.

Hope this helps.