# Anyone out there drum and play guitar?



## Blexican (May 10, 2007)

I just got a kit a couple days ago and I must say, it's extremely fun to play on! It belongs to my buddy Muder (the guy that recorded that video of me scaring people on the street with my 7 string (http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/off-topic/27736-drunk-madness.html)). It's a 5-piece Birch Mapex kit, painted in this sparkly orange finish, with 6 cymbals, and T3H UBER DOUBLE-BASS P3DAL FROM HeLlZoRs!!11!1!1MCRIBBBQ I don't know anything about drums, but I actually caught on fast and actually pulled off a legitimate blast-beat! I'm sorry, I'm just really excited that I can jam out with drummers and/or guitarists in my own house now.

Here's some pics:












T3H UBER DOUBLE-BASS P3DAL FROM HeLlZoRs!!11!1!1MCRIBBBQ:






My Alter ego:





The obligatory "scare the ladies away" pic:


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## Shawn (May 10, 2007)

That last pic. Cool kit! I play drums every now and then enough to keep a beat. My drummer plays guitar enough to strum some chords and some riffs too. Fun stuff.


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## DeL07 (May 10, 2007)

I've been playing drums for 3 and a half years now!  Guitar for 1...


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## Popsyche (May 10, 2007)

I have been hacking away at them for about 32 years. I started as a field drummer, and actually did some drumline instructing.


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## Oogadee Boogadee (May 10, 2007)

me


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## Heavy Ed (May 11, 2007)

me too! love playing the drums.


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## Blexican (May 11, 2007)

Oogadee Boogadee said:


> me



Well I knew you'd show up on here   You'd probably slay me on the guitar, too.

I've always been interested in becoming a well-rounded musician, and hopefully I'll get my foot in the door as far as the Drum world goes. Keep the responses comin', guys!


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## Drew (May 11, 2007)

I'm an absolutely shitty drummer, but I started picking it up a few months ago. It's a blast - I look forward to the day where I can eventually set up a basement home studio and buy a kit of my own, and begin practicing in earnest. I use drum loops while recording for convenience, but there's absolutely no substitute for live drums.






My roommate's kit set up in my room while I was working on a demo.


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## eleven59 (May 11, 2007)

I've been known to drum. At band practice when the drummer was cool with it, or in the studio during some down time. I love it, I pick it up pretty quick, but I'm not a very fast/flashy drummer. I'd love to get a kit of my own so I could practice and get better and drum on my own solo stuff.


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## The Dark Wolf (May 11, 2007)

I'm not a bad drummer. Been playing for 15 years. Only problem is, it's inconsistently. When I have 3-4 months to get in the groove, I'm pretty decent. But lately, since I haven't played much in about a year, I'm bleah. 

Cool setup, fellows.


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## Oogadee Boogadee (May 11, 2007)

TheBlexican3 said:


> Well I knew you'd show up on here   You'd probably slay me on the guitar, too.
> 
> I've always been interested in becoming a well-rounded musician, and hopefully I'll get my foot in the door as far as the Drum world goes. Keep the responses comin', guys!



hehe. i've been dorking around with guitar off and on since about 98.... a few months here, a couple there..... Here and there with drums since about 92, till I joined Division of course - then it became regular.

My guitar playing is pretty basic. I'd say my drumming is too. I get agressive a lot, but I find ways to play a pattern in a way that doesn't require any 'physical thinking'. I dumb it down not by eliminating notes, but by making the notes (percussive notes, i guess) with the right combination of hands/feet to make shit a lot easier. And i just stick with what I do best, an only focus on improvements in tempo and relaxing - which is my way of pacing out the set. I don't ease up, I just take a deep breath and relax while I try to hit hard from the opening minute to the last.

my guitar playing is the same thing - i try to get creative and don't worry about practicing technical shit. I realized there was only one Vai, one Friedman, etc. a lonnnng time ago!

i got a song on the ss member jukebox that you can check out... my riffing got ahead of the beat a little, here and there, but oh well. i think the only live drumming clip i have is me playing Greed on the Division myspace site....


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## SevenDeadly (May 11, 2007)

I played drums before guitar. It helps to understand rythms and synchopy


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## theunforgiven246 (May 22, 2007)

I play (or did before i moved into an apartment), I'm not that good but good enough to be in a band, not a super heavy one but just a regular rock band or something.


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## Blexican (May 23, 2007)

theunforgiven246 said:


> I play (or did before i moved into an apartment), I'm not that good but good enough to be in a band, not a super heavy one but just a regular rock band or something.



+1 to that. I've only been drumming for a couple weeks, but I'm confident enough to join a hard rock or radio rock band. I just raised the height of my bass drum beaters and brought the actual foot pedals down a couple inches, in preparation for learning faster double-bass technique.


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## Shaman (May 23, 2007)

I have been playing the drums "seriously" for about 4 years now, and I love it! It is such a feel-good thing for me. 

With drums, my style is very groove oriented with some jazzy tricks here and there, or at least that's how I try to play  

My favourite drummer is Martin Lopez. I love his snare stuff. Gene Hoglan is awesome as well  

I play a PDP CX (Onyx White) kit with Iron Cobra pedals.


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## Ancestor (May 28, 2007)

I work on playing a little here and there. It's a really physically demanding instrument. I'm out of gas about ten minutes into practice. 

As Shaman mentioned above, it's all about the groove and tempo. Not easy.


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## Blexican (May 28, 2007)

Ancestor said:


> I work on playing a little here and there. It's a really physically demanding instrument. I'm out of gas about ten minutes into practice.
> 
> As Shaman mentioned above, it's all about the groove and tempo. Not easy.



Yeah, it is pretty hard to stay on the beat for extended periods of time. I don't think I can drum for long enough to actually complete a 4 or 5 minute song yet, and even after going for 2 minutes, I'm covered in sweat. Jogging and other types of cardiac exercise may be in order eventually. 

You know what is a pain in the ass? Trying to coordinate your hands to alternate between snare/high hat hits while splitting the action of your feet to keep up with the high hat hits during a blast beat. My feet always want to keep up with my hands, and my pedal just isn't that reactive...it ends up sounding like total muffed crappage.  I'm already using the little red chain retainer thingies, which are supposed to give the shortest response time between the pedal and beater, and I think the pedal's height is as low as it can get, but I wanna get it to the point where the lightest possible hits will still sound the drum.

Sorry for ramblin' on, I'm supposed to be in bed and stuff, and my mind is just spewing out random information like it does before it's ready to power down.


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## Stitch (May 29, 2007)

TheBlexican3 said:


> You know what is a pain in the ass? Trying to coordinate your hands to alternate between snare/high hat hits while splitting the action of your feet to keep up with the high hat hits during a blast beat. My feet always want to keep up with my hands, and my pedal just isn't that reactive...it ends up sounding like total muffed crappage.  I'm already using the little red chain retainer thingies, which are supposed to give the shortest response time between the pedal and beater, and I think the pedal's height is as low as it can get, but I wanna get it to the point where the lightest possible hits will still sound the drum.



Sounds like someone needs triggers.  Or Axis LB's 


I take it you were describing the Pearl(?) red cams for the chain drive that have the fastest 'attack'? Like how they have the blacks and yellows etc....?


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## Oogadee Boogadee (May 29, 2007)

i'd say screw the cardio. Gene Hoglan isn't a world record miler, so we don't have to be. when i quit weight lifting, i improved. when i went from running to biking, i improved. when i went from biking to nothing - i REALLY improved.

also, if you want the lightest smallest strokes to sound a megamean kick sound.... you might as well hook a trigger up to a door mat and just tap the floor. if you do this, i'll make fun of you.

relax and dont' tighten up and twitch out.... the masters who started all this (like sandoval and hoglan) played rickety Camcos w/o the fancy interchangable cams and beater angle adjustments.....


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## Blexican (May 29, 2007)

stitch216 said:


> Sounds like someone needs triggers.  Or Axis LB's
> 
> 
> I take it you were describing the Pearl(?) red cams for the chain drive that have the fastest 'attack'? Like how they have the blacks and yellows etc....?



Yep, maybe I do. My room isn't exactly a practice space, though...plus, I'd have to get some kind of a PA setup to broadcast the triggers through, which will cost me a bit. Yeah, I was talking about the red cams, too. I think most importantly, I should work on my technique.



Oogadee Boogadee said:


> i'd say screw the cardio. Gene Hoglan isn't a world record miler, so we don't have to be. when i quit weight lifting, i improved. when i went from running to biking, i improved. when i went from biking to nothing - i REALLY improved.
> 
> also, if you want the lightest smallest strokes to sound a megamean kick sound.... you might as well hook a trigger up to a door mat and just tap the floor. if you do this, i'll make fun of you.
> 
> relax and dont' tighten up and twitch out.... the masters who started all this (like sandoval and hoglan) played rickety Camcos w/o the fancy interchangable cams and beater angle adjustments.....



True...and maybe I shouldn't kid myself about the cardio, either.


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## Grom (May 29, 2007)

Oogadee Boogadee said:


> i'd say screw the cardio. Gene Hoglan isn't a world record miler, so we don't have to be. when i quit weight lifting, i improved. when i went from running to biking, i improved. when i went from biking to nothing - i REALLY improved.
> 
> also, if you want the lightest smallest strokes to sound a megamean kick sound.... you might as well hook a trigger up to a door mat and just tap the floor. if you do this, i'll make fun of you.
> 
> relax and dont' tighten up and twitch out.... the masters who started all this (like sandoval and hoglan) played rickety Camcos w/o the fancy interchangable cams and beater angle adjustments.....



I believe in everything you said, but I just don't see the relation between stopping the cardio and improving. If you are physically fitter, you'll be more regular on extended periods of time.

Stopping the cardio maybe gave you more time to practise. That's all.

My drummer in my brutal death project completely benefited from his cardio training and swimming-pool training. This is more logical to me than the contrary !


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## Oogadee Boogadee (May 29, 2007)

who knows, i guess. it's all personal.

i can only speak for myself. i've always been a cardio-beast. My max VO2 was in the high 60s, untrained. I had a mile time under 430 in high school, and just 2 years ago was running half miles around 2:06 (i'm 28 now)... after taking about 9 years off of running! anyway, enough bragging....... 

i guess i don't have to do cardio, b/c i'm just naturally way above average in cardiovascular fitness for the inactive individual.... i guess i can get away with no exercising.

but i do believe in the point of only training just to supplement your drumming and not the opposite. your muscles have to be 100% recovered to drum well w/o crapping out and losing control and twitching out. 

it's amazing how unrelated exercises movements are from drumming movements, in terms of the types of muscular contractions (large muscles vs small, ballistic contractions vs smooth and flowing, large joint movements vs small, anaerobic vs aerobic, etc). don't put all your apples into training.... especially if recovery times starts to overlap rehearsal time. i can't tell you how many Division rehearsals i wasted b/c i crapped out on teh pedals b/c of a 7 mile run i did 3 days prior, which I thought was good for me!!!!!

Bottom line is, the weak link is your rate-limiter. If you're out of breath and it's causing you to stop playing way too early, then like you mentioned, cardio vascular fitness may be the weak link to focus on.... Just remember that there is only ONE reason why you're out of breath after playing.

You're muscles have to exchange CO2 for O2.

1) you're making them demand too much oxygen much harder than required (playing too hard - technique... or "demand").... or making them create too much waste gas (c02).... same diff
2) you're killing their supply by not breathing enough, while suffocating them with waste gas (holding your breath... "supply")
3) you're cardiovascularly out of shape - your body's ability to transport O2 and remove C02 sucks (out of shape.... "supply")
4) all of the above


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## MerlinTKD (May 31, 2007)

I'm actually a drummer, who picked up the guitar... found I needed *some* skills to compose, and feeling the need to front my own stuff, but beyond that.. I'm no lead player, for sure! Dave Grohl is my hero...  

I found myself agreeing with what you said, Oogadee, but also with Grom.... I've found, the better my personal fitness, the better I play - BUT! Like you said, if I'm not well-rested and recovered, then I play like crap! It's a balancing act, enough but not too much. If I don't have time to exercise AND recover, I'm much better off using practice AS exercise.

And yeah... there are no drummer exercises except practicing... though I've found I can practice my foot techniques on the floor a lot better than my hand techniques in the air - I get fewer crazy looks, too! 

www.myspace.com/merlintkd - there's a pic of my kit there, though it's a couple years old... Tama Starclassic Maple, now with Sabian Paragons!  

www.myspace.com/kavish13 - my band!


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