I had a gig last night. Another gig. That's 8 since starting this US tour just over a week ago, and about 70 since the beginning of this year. There are some songs which we've played at every gig. That's a lot of practice, and yet there are still things that I struggle with and have to make mental notes to work on when I get back in the practice room. Sometimes I start trying to change my technique mid gig. On occasions it seems to help, other times it just makes me more confused. Last night I started thinking about playing more from the elbow. When playing the hi-hat, for example, I was thinking about playing the quarter note using my whole forearm. My wrist is loose so I get a kind of whipping motion, and the stick is allowed to move fairly freely. Indeed, it looks a little like cracking a whip. An important point here is that I was consciously making sure that my fingers pretty much stayed in contact with the butt of the stick. I'm beginning to think that that's where the control is. The tough part is making sure they can move out of the way enough to let that stick fly back. There's one song where I play a pretty square 8th note groove. It's quite slow and rigid. I tried to throw in the odd 16th note between hi-hat notes and realised that I didn't have a technique for that and it came out sounding weak and unconsidered. It's strange that such simple things throw me off track. Try it. Play 1 and 3 on the kick, 2 and 4 on the snare and strong 8th notes on the hi-hat. Keep that going for a while, then throw in the 'a' of 4, or the 'e' of 1, or another lone 16th note. Play them with your right hand (i.e. don't use the snare hand to add them.) There are decisions you have to make. How loud is this extra note going to be in comparison to the 8th note pulse? Try and make them the same volume as the 8th note pulse. If you were playing the 8th notes with your whole forearm it's going to be weird to suddenly double that motion. At faster tempos it would be very difficult to do that. So you have to decide whether you're going to play it from your wrist, and how you'll get back to the forearm motion for the following stroke, and whether the velocity or timing of that next stroke will be affected. It's humbling to realise how difficult it can be to add one extra intended note and have it sound the way you want it. Before you even consider the technical aspects you need to actually decide HOW you want it to sound. Maybe you hadn't even considered that. It's like a painter telling his hand "I want more paint there." The hand can put more paint there but unless he decides how much, and what colour, he'll probably be disappointed with the result. There's plenty of scope with the above example to occupy hours, if not days, of practice time. I recently saw a Peter Erskine interview and, when asked what he practiced, he said he mainly focused on playing time and basic rudimental technique. We added a new song to the set called 'Open Road.' I found the chorus of this song a lot harder to play than I anticipated. It's basically 4 on the floor with the kick and hi-hat, an off beat 8th note ride, and a back beat on 2 and 4 on the snare. Something about having both of your feet and your left hand all playing at the same time is quite difficult to nail. I'm also trying to add some interesting syncopation on the ride bell (a little like the outro of 'Cocaine' - .) It's things like this that take me by surprise. I never would have thought something like this would give me trouble, but at the moment it's the most difficult part of the set to play, so every night I'm re-thinking how to approach it technically. In fact, after listening to that version of 'Cocaine', I think tonight I'll try it with just 1 and 3 on the kick. So, that's the kind of thing that goes through my head on a night to night basis. It's always a quest to pick holes in my playing and gradually begin to fill them in. I'm aiming for a gig where, if you played me back a recording, I could say that I was happy with every note I played. I think it's still a fair way off, but it's the sense of achievement that comes with filling in these pot holes that keeps the gigs interesting. If I can get to the end of a set and feel like I've learned just one thing about my playing then I consider it a good gig - even if I didn't feel like I played well.
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