Posted by fiddlepogo on Monday, December 30, 2013
My in-laws asked if there was anything they could get us for Christmas- Joy couldn't think of anything, and neither could I, except:
violin strings! Now that I'm using synthetics, I need them more often, and I'd really pushed the old ones way longer than I should have.
And I use them at gigs, so they are a tool for work... so Joy was agreeable and so were the in-laws. So I've got two sets of Pirastro Tonicas on the way, and two Prim Lisa E's. HOPEFULLY this will inspire more practice, which Joy enjoys, and so will the members of the audiences! I chose Tonicas because they are doing well on "Carthy", the one I have tuned down, and I'm hoping "Booker", the one I keep tuned standard will sound good with them too.
I also noticed something about "Stinky".... it occurred to me that with the synthetic strings and Stinky's short scale, maybe some of the nasal sound was because I need to use my lightest bows with Stinky... so I tried them, and sure enough, Stinky needs a lighter bow or it goes nasal.
Sundays I often go to the store where they have a drum expert on staff in the afternoons. There was another experienced drummer showing him a customized drum. It was fun to listen to them talk about stuff. I got up the nerve to try one of the drum kits while they were talking. After the other drummer left, I asked the drummer-clerk how he thought I was doing on drums, and he said "Whatever you're doing is working, keep it up!" One of the key things that gave me the confidence was that I finally got the paradiddle working confidently on the whole drum kit, and it's really cool how it sounds spread out over different drums and cymbals. Another plus- just this last week I decided to use a mixed pair of sticks.... a more aggressive stick with the weaker left hand and a lighter stick to tone down the right to match the left.
3 comments on “New Strings on the Way, and Drums get an A-OK!”
fiddleiphile Says:
Tuesday, December 31, 2013 @8:57:51 AM
On to the ratamaques!
fiddlepogo Says:
Tuesday, December 31, 2013 @12:50:00 PM
Well, I was also asking the drum guy about "What next?" thinking maybe he'd suggest something like ratamacues, and he said he thought I should stick with what I have:
It's actually not JUST paradiddles-
I have some "drags" that I like to put on accented notes, especially to fancy up single stroking, and I can now do them with both sticks which turns them into a bounced Double Roll.... I think.
I also have a "Broken Paradiddle" , an Inverse Paradiddle, and a Reverse Paradiddle, and a couple of my own variants of a Broken Paradiddle. But the Single Paradiddle is the main one to have made it onto the drum kit in a big way.
BUT I saw a video of Steve Gadd spreading ratamacues over the drumset in a cool way so... MAYBE...
fiddleiphile Says:
Wednesday, January 1, 2014 @5:43:03 PM
All, in due time. Like everything else.
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