“I’m not happy with my sound at all. I wish I sounded like Art Blakey or Elvin Jones. You have to be born with a certain feel or touch. Blakey had that African sound. It was so physical. Art played on my old Slingerland drums once at Minton’s Playhouse, and they were tuned tight like Max’s. But Art managed to capture his own deep sound on my drums. That’s when I realized it’s really physical.”
“I try to practice lightly. I played so loud and hard with Miles, and even on some of the gigs I did with Sonny. That’s what they wanted. But now I’m going back to the ’60s, approaching things in a much lighter way. I just don’t think you have to bash. You can get the same intensity without bashing. Billy Higgins proved that. You could feel the tune building with each chorus when he played. You could feel the fire getting hotter without the volume getting louder. That’s what I’m trying to get back to.”
- Al Foster, 2003 Modern Drummer interview by Ken Micallef
Combining two different posts I was working on, because they overlap, and are fairly inextricable: developing good touch on the drums, and developing some physical grace in playing. Sounding and looking like a musician and not an animal. As drummers it can be hard to get respect for our musicianship, and you can help people give it to you by telegraphing it visually. A few people will notice when you get a good sound and not a bangy sound.
Lift Play like a timpanist and follow through— play the end of the stroke as much as you do the attack. A lot of us emphasize the down part of the stroke, not so much the up part of it.
This is not the same thing as the popular stick-bounce thing— this is about a deliberate motion created by you, not by physics. Some teachers will talk about “drawing the sound out of the drum” or “playing off the drum”— phrases I hate, but maybe they're helpful.
Get some timpani lessons from someone who doesn't downstroke and doesn't bounce the mallet. There are a lot of timpani technique videos I don't agree with, but here's a good example of the type of stroke I'm talking about:
A good exercise— I got from Jeff Falcone, another student at USC, who got it from Ed Soph— is practice your jazz cymbal rhythm at around 40 bpm, using exactly that stroke.
Don't hit A lot of people whack the drum with a kind of aggressive muscular snap. Instead of that, think in terms of a quick hand motion— down and back up— hitting something doesn't enter into it. The surface isn't important. This doesn't mean you can never play loud or never downstroke or dig in, we just want to get away from always kinetically battering the drums.
Relaxed grip When I talk about technique, I advocate a pretty controlled grip— mainly because my usual grip, which is quite relaxed, is not good for everything. I work on a controlled grip so it's there when I need it, like if I have to play quieter than I would want, which is often. When I'm free to play the way I want, my grip looks a lot like Rakalam Bob Moses's grip:
It's the difference between an execution mindset and a playing mindset. Execution mindset means you're focused on correctly playing a part or playing a setting— that may not be real natural for you. Hence the more controlled grip. A playing mindset means you're focused on playing the way you play.
Inner Leopold To an extent you can telegraph what you're playing, promoting cohesion in the ensemble, almost like you're conducting with the sticks. Almost. You're still playing what you're playing. Sometimes you actually conduct, like on an ending, an improvised riff, a free/rubato section, maybe on a ballad.
Easy, Baryshnikov Just don't overdo it, or it starts looking contrived. It's a little bit of BSing. Like you've heard Mickey Roker play a cymbal beat, but now I, the musician am here to play it with proper respect and seriousness. Take a look at anybody great, they mostly don't seem to be doing that much. Usually their technique looks ordinary and economical.
But you also can't be afraid of ever looking ridiculous. Being relentlessly ridiculous earns a certain kind of respect. People's initial response is is this guy kidding, and they soon learn the answer no, he's f*g not. Find your own balance.
The first thing is always what you play. What you play. Thinking about your movements can be helpful in puts you in a certain frame of mind about it, but our product is auditory.
Don't confuse good touch with playing like a wuss The musical goal of creating energy has not changed— we still want an exciting sound, high energy sound. I do, anyway. But separate musical intensity from physical intensity— or from hitting energy, hitting harder. Channel your physical energy into a more lithe kind of intensity.
