Rebounding Surfaces

In order to maximize time, I practice a lot of singles in my car driving on my steering wheel--good rebounding surface--and on my old Ludwig pad watching the tube.
I can get a real groove happening, especially on the pad, yet when moving to the snare the "groove and control" don't transfer like I would have hoped for.

At work, in my car, and at home during evening hours the snare drum itself isn't a reality due to volume concerns, so I opt for the pad or another rebounding surface like the mouse pad at work.

Can practicing on non-drum surfaces actually have a negative effect to a drum's rebound?

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ May 22, 2003 01:58 AM: Message edited by: PocketPlayer ]</font>

You need to build up the snap up control of the rebound, your used to the rebound of the pad. Snap ups are are something you need to practice a motion of,

RLRL RLRL
DUDU DUDU

So the R would go down and then the next stroke would be snapped up using the folcrum (index finger/thumb). But to get the motion down first use the wrist. You canreverse the motion also, U D.

I don't know is this helps, but if there's not a pad, pillow or a drumset around, I usually practice on my knees/legs when sitting down... The rebound is similar to that of a pillow so you'll have to work a bit harder to get the stroke happening...

Downside is: Your knees might get sore after a while, although I'm pretty used to it... [img]smile.gif[/img]

And after playing a lot on surfaces with no rebound, you kind of develop the feel for what kind of stroke you need to be doing when going back to a pad...at least in my experience...

Joe Morello told me first-hand that it's actually dangerous to practice on a pillow. It's apparently easy to hurt one's self. There's always gonna be a difference between the feels of a practice pad and an actual drum head. I don't think it's real wise to actually apply the idea of physically lifting the stick back into position after executing a stroke. Such a concept flies in the face of the whole rebound approach. The stick should simply bounce back into position. To compensate for the drum head's apparent loss of rebound, simply throw the stick down a little harder with the wrist to create a better rebound and make sure your grip doesn't impede anything. I hope you dudes don't think I'm discounting any of your opinions. I value everthing everyone says on this forum for the most part. Just throwing in my two cents.

My approach comes directly from Joe Porcaro, it's taught at both PIT and LAMA. (percussion institute. LA Music Academy)

I seem to remember Dennis saying that he practiced on pillows. It would follow that as you will get no help whatsoever from a pillow as far as rebounds go, if you do manage to gain strength and snap in your wrists when practicing on a pillow or cusion, when you transfer this technique to the kit, you will be like Buddy!! - I guess that's the theory anyway. Personally I go with 'accepting the rebound' of the stick and letting the stick do the work as if bouncing a ball. I use wrists and fingers to help the stick, but as much as possible, I try to let the stick 'dance' on it's own. I also use Down, Up, Taps, where the Down stroke is the accented and main stroke and the up and taps are played pp.

Randy,

It sounds as if maybe you were irritated about my contradictory statements. I'm not out to disprove anyone. However, Joe Morello is THE guy for hand development. He knows his shit better than anyone on the planet. Joe Porcaro would probably agree.

Pocket...are you using a Real Feel wheel. Just wondering? [img]smile.gif[/img]

Think of it like this: When you need to send men into space and they neeed to get used to weightlessness then what do they use? Something that has the SAME effect/feel as the REAL deal.

All that pillow talk is bull-shit (imho). If you take the principal described as a Bouncing ball which is what weckl is NOW preaching and, is the CORRECT way because... you are letting the stick NOT YOURSELF do the work for you. It stands to reason that DIFFERENT muscles MUST be involved on non rebound surfaces.

I wonder....Do the Harlem globe trotters Deflate their balls to practice for non bounce against bounce? I'd be surprised if they weren't all at the correct pressure. The way they're supposed to be used.
But then....i could be wrong [img]frown.gif[/img]

So, we have a handful of variables here; the rebound of the surface and the choice of allowing the stick to rebound or to actively pick-up the stick. Your technique must change with the playing surface, not just when moving from pillow to pad or to snare but also when moving from snare to toms (unless your toms have the same tension as your snare!). Using the rebound method is great on the snare and pad. However, once you move to a surface with less rebound you must move into more of a "snap-it-up" mode. It's not all or none but usually somewhere in between.

good point me2.

i think people should just do whatever they feel comfortable with and whatever works best for them.

jeff porcaro uses snap ups...
weckl uses all rebound...
dennis practiced on pillows...
lang uses all wrists...
vinnie uses everything...