Thursday Aug 31th

Today in Lesson me and dave warmed up with the lift stroke, then he began to show me its application on the kit. When he started talking about the whole already being lifted for the next following stroke on the next drum, it all started to click for me in my mind. He taught me the 1-2-3 excercise, whcih at first seemed simple, but it frustrated me when i couldn't get it right away. He assigned Solo #1 out of the Lathem book - I'm now happy that i worked out of that book for a lot of the summer, because im' expecting to recognize a lot of the rhythms and such things.

x

Tuesday August 28th

Todays practice was almost identical to yesterdays. I'm really starting to enjoy the lift stroke, and see some of its benefit around the kit. Its almost like i've freed up something that was holding me back as far as going drum to drum. I'm also really having a blast right now working on these jazz interdependence excercises. I'm thinking about working something up for performance seminar - we'll see how it works out though.

Wes

Monday August 27th

Today during practice i warmed up with the lift stroke excercises again. I then started in with my bass drum warm ups. I'm still hitting my roof at 80 bpm, and its frustrating. However, i've already noticed a difference in my bass drum technique - it doesn't feel lke i'm straining to get stuff out as much - tahts encouraging. After this I went to my interdependence excercises and worked on some of those. Today i was able to add in a hihat splash pattern over top of it all, and it was really exciting. I worked on this a while, then i started playing groove, and just working on my speed around the kit. My hands have come a long way - i'm really starting to get fast around the kit, and more free.

Wes

Saturday August 25th

Today I practiced on my practice pad. I warmed up with the lift excercises, 1, 2, 4.. and so on. Then i began working on rudiments, and to be honest.. it just kinda turned into just playing heat after a while. Though i did get to work on my cheeses, and i did work on the lift some more - tried to incorporate it into what i'm doing already. I'm starting to see some benefit in it already, its cool.

Wes

Practice

Today I had my first lesson of the Year. Dave began showing me the lift stroke. Its really hard for me to grasp on to right now because i just spent hte whole summer learning the free stroke, and working up my finger technique to really get a lot faster. I feel like i'm starting all over - but hopefully with some practice it'll start feeling more natural.

In my practice time, i began with my bass drum drills. Followed by going through the lift stroke excercises, then i began working on some of my interdependence exercises i've been working up lately. Its been pretty awesome so far.

Wes

Wed. August 23rd

Today practicing was a lot of fun. I began by warming up for ten minutes (approx.) by working on my bass drum technique, mostly in the area of singles. Of all my areas of technique, I really think this is one of my weakest, so i'm really trying to build some good muscle on my calfs, and teach those muscles good technique. After warm up I spent about 15 minutes working on some jazz excersises while keeping the standard jazz pattern on my ride, and doing some practice rhythms with my left hand while keeping 2 and 4 with my hi-hat foot. Then i began doing the same patterns as with my left hand now with my bass drum foot, followed by switching off the same pattern from hand to foot to hand, and so on. After word I just played some heat, and worked on my singles around the kit - I noticed that my left hand gets a little crazy when i turn to my floor tom, so i began working on my technique around the kit some, and will continue to work on that until i clean it up. After all this, i played some more heat, and then called it a day.