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Time to Get Started

Writer's picture: Ryan ReedRyan Reed

Marching band audition season is here. We have 8th graders coming up wanting to playing snare drum. Vibraphone players just hoping to move up to a marimba spot. A lot of excitement comes with this time of year. Something new is always more exciting than something that has been going on. But where do we (students and instructors) start? The real answer is anywhere that will keep you going. I said this in a previous post, but bad practice is better than no practice. I believe that doing something is better than doing nothing. You are at least building hand strength and endurance by playing anything. The only wrong thing is if something injures you.


So where do you start Ryan? I am glad you asked. I start with two simple tools -



Yes, the drum pad and drum sticks with all the percussionist. "But my keyboard players don't need to be able to play drums." CORRECT...they don't have to be able to play drums, but they need to be able to make great sounds on their instruments. So why not just play more scales then?


Scales are amazing to work on keyboard familiarity and pattern recognition. They are also a good way to work on expectation. Can you, or your students, play with the scales with no wrong notes at a certain tempo? That is actually harder than you think. However, scales are not going to help you get the best sounds out of your hands.


This is were the drum pad ends up excelling. First...there is no pitch to a drum pad. This makes it more freeing to play on because you don't have to worry about playing a wrong note. The biggest thing that holds back a front ensemble from sounding great is wrong notes, and the next thing is unbalanced sounds. So when we start with the drum pad we start with how do our hands move. I break down how to hold a stick, what height the pad should be at, and where we should feel "pressure" or "firmness" in our hand. Then we just turn our wrist and play.


I am a BIG advocate for "monkey see, monkey do" teaching at the beginning of a season or school year. During COVID I almost always had an instrument or drum pad to demonstrate on. I learned how valuable having a demonstration is, and who better to demonstrate what I want than me. The same is true for you. We can break down which knuckle feels 99.67493% of the pressure in our grip, but everyone's hands are different. But if you start playing and just tell the students to match what they see and hear, you can watch them go through the learning process on their own. Again, this is how learning happens. All too often I think we (educators) confuse teaching with learning. 1) Just because you are "teaching" a topic doesn't mean the students are taking in the information. 2) Talking about something is not always "teaching."


Sometimes the classes, or rehearsals, that students learn the most are the ones where I talk the least. You ABSOLUTELY have to explain things, especially new information, to students. However, you don't have to explain it first all the time. I will use "monkey see, monkey do" to get students to try something before we even talk about it. This accomplishes one major thing...pushing students outside their comfort zone.


Again, I DO NOT subscribe to the "more reps" mentality if the students are not ready for the reps. More reps are great when the foundation is solid enough to have good reps, but this is where we can create habits...both good and bad.


So how do I use "monkey see, monkey do" on the drum pad? I start with just the dominant hand. This is because it is the hand that should be stronger to start with. I will start playing even eighth notes at a moderate tempo on the drum pad. I then tell the students to "join me when they are ready." This forces the students to engage before they play in listening. Once everyone is playing together, I will stop and start over again asking the student to now "match what they hear" from a rhythm standpoint and a sound standpoint. Will they match perfectly? Probably not. Not everyone has the same hand strength, or even just hand mass. However, I am engaging them right away in listening to something specific and thinking about it.


Next, I add in the non-dominant hand but at the same time as the dominant hand. This gets the students playing double stops and comparing their hands. They will not start off comparing their hands to each other. You will have to ask them to do that. I do that by saying "you should make your hands feel the exact same." This is why I start with the dominant hand. It gives every student the ability to start with their strong hand and make their weak hand match. So I will ask them if their hands felt the same. If they say no I ask them if they know what the difference is. It is totally fine if they don't right away. Again, we are engaging them physically by playing and mentally by making them think about these things.


Then I will have them drop their dominant hand out and ask if it feels the same when the dominant hand is not playing. This leads us to the first "exercise" we play. I don't have a fancy name for this as we are just trying to get our hands to match. So we start with 8 eighth notes on just our dominant hand, straight in to 8 eighth notes with both hands (double stops), straight into 8 eighth notes on just the non-dominant hand and finally 8 eighth notes with both hands again. Then we will do this on a loop. I usually like to go through it 3-5 times before stopping. I find this is long enough to get the hands going and long enough for them to compare their hands.


Most of the time we are doing this, I am playing along with them. Again, I am the model I am trying to get them to match. Once they feel comfortable with their hands matching, we start talking about the sound we want to achieve. This will be different for everyone based on what you want. For me, we talk about using a lot of energy when we play (some call it velocity) and transferring a lot of weight into the drum pad, and other instruments. We talk about how slower motions make darker sounds and faster motions make brighter sounds. We talk about how lighter contact makes thinner sounds and a heavier contact makes fuller sounds. Again, this conversation can be directed in a manner that gets you what you are looking for.


So we are having conversations about things I have been demonstrating to them for however long we have been rehearsing by this point in time. This is also how you engage your students both verbally through explanations and audibly through demonstrations.


After we match our hands, I will use this same "monkey see, monkey do" process for another skills we want. I will have my front ensemble students learn how to play double strokes on a drum pad. Not because I want them to be able to play a great double stroke roll (although that would be nice), but because good double strokes translate into good lateral strokes. Also, hand strength and endurance transcend any one instrument. This means that the drum pads stick around for a while as well, even after auditions are over.


So now that indoor percussion has wrapped up, I am really excited to get back to the drum pads and make sure our hands are doing what we really think they are doing.

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