May - 1st Issue, 2006

Welcome to the first May issue of Big Drum for 2006!

ANNOUNCEMENTS.

1) AMAZING STICK TRICKS.

Filming is well underway for the new product, Amazing Stick Tricks. This is a lot of fun, I'm busy documenting all the different ways you can back stick, spin your sticks, click them and more. It's amazing what you can come up with! The good news is most of this stuff is really, really easy. You'll freak when you see how to do the one hand roll!

This week I did the first ebook on Stick Hitting, check out this vid of what's in store for this part..

2) BEWARE OF IMITATIONS!

It appears there is a drum lesson site out now that is, shall we say "very similar" to Icanplaydrums.com. Everything from the headline to the video speech and more. You've all seen my homepage, you know my headline and my instant video. I must say I laughed aloud when I saw this site, yet I'm bewildered that someone would actually do that. If anyone else wants a giggle, email me and I'll tell you the URL :) bigdrum@icanplaydrums.com
 

FEEDBACK.

Subscribers can you please do me a quick favor? Because I have a dedicated server, I can now offer future products as 100% downloadable packages, rather than CDROM's. And this is what I'm thinking of doing for Amazing Stick Tricks when it's released. I want to see how many of my members this is viable for, as for you it depends on how fast your connection speed is and how much download traffic you're allowed per month.

Amazing Stick Tricks will be around 400-500MB - can you please enter your email into either of the boxes below once to indicate your preference? This way I can decide what's the better option - Download, or CDROM? The advantage of download is there is zero waiting time, and I'd prefer to do that if it's viable for you.

Remember those of you with a slow connection, you wouldn't have to download every ebook straight away. There would not be a 24 hour timer.

JACK IS COMING TO AMERICA - PROBABLY.

I'm probably heading off to the USA for a quick holiday in a couple months (don't worry Icanplaydrums.com will still run as normal). Since many of you live in the US, would you mind dropping me an email and letting me know what the sites to see are? At this stage I am thinking East Coast - New York, maybe Boston and Chicago, and hopefully down to Miami etc. It sure adds up quick though! If you could drop a line to bigdrum@icanplaydrums.com I'd really appreciate any feedback! :)

AND NOW ON WITH THE SHOW!

1) Fast Latin Grooves using the Cow Bell!

Here's a beat I heard Art Blakey play on "A Night In Tunisia" (The Jazz Messengers).

It's played at a roaring tempo, but you just need to break it down first and learn each limb individually. Let's learn the RH first..

The LH plays on the +a of each of the 4 beats between the high and low tom..

And here's the pattern up to speed..

At this point, you can add other patterns with the feet, such as off beats with the hihat, or a full out samba ostinato pattern..

2) Overcoming "Compensated Time".

One thing that happens to all of us at some stage in playing or practicing, is the inevitable speeding up and slowing down. Even if it's just in micro amounts. I call this compensated time. You play, you speed up, you realize you've sped up, you compensate by slowing down. Or, you play, you slow down, you realize, you speed up etc.

You want to IRON OUT compensated time so that your time feel is always solid and never moves around. To develop this time feel you must practice to a metronome!

Here's How: make sure when you practice with a metronome that you are so in time with it that you cannot hear it. Not to be confused with playing so loud and out of time that you also cannot hear it. For instance if you're playing 1/4 notes, land smack on the click every time and then you will know you are in perfect sync with it.

3) Fill Of The Month!

This is a neat little "quick burst" fill you can put around the kit. It sounds good because it goes from high tom all the way around and ends on the bass drum. So it has a descending melodic thing about it. Check it out..

And finally this is just a little vid of me jamming today!

Anything you want to see in Big Drum, as always drop me a line at bigdrum@icanplaydrums.com

Take care,
 

Jack Bennett
Icanplaydrums.com