What confirms that your lessons are is the real shit is how much you yourself have improved over the years watching you. Like damn those licks are so clean and tasteful
I had to go find the Brian Blade solo immediately after watching this. I'd almost forgotten how amazing the man was, thanks for reminding me. And great lesson too.
I'm a guitarist, but I find that a lot of your advice applies equally to guitar and drums since you're expressing general principles instead of specific rules. Nice job! Keep it up!
Your videos are the most informative on the net. I love the way you deliver and the concepts are so logical the way you explain them. I eagerly check my phone every day to see if you have posted something new. In this episode the way you described the “buffering” and keeping the brain ahead of the hands and feet reminds me of something Wayne Shorter said on a U.K. Documentary. He was explaining that when he is improvising it’s like flying through a cave at speed whilst trying to avoid bumping into stalagmites and stalactites that grow from the floor or ceiling! Please keep on your videos. A new post is the highlight of my week!
Great video🤘 I agree 100% on the "b.s. fast and fast with a purpose" I was guilty of just trying to play fast to sound cool, but once I learned control and placing everything in the subdivision grid. I was really blown away from how much faster and better everything sounded! Thanks for the videos you post
You could even combine those two methods of chop building, and add a particular sticking or rudiment to your constraints. Thanks for the brain food, as always.
Thanks so much for this! In college, Icame upon a similar concept in learning how to improvise jazz on vibraphone. Your metaphors and explanation helped me to view it from a different perspective. A tremendous help THAAAANKs
thanks Nate, very insightful ideas, awesome awesome! in classical piano circles, where speed with incredible precision are a constant pursuit (and necessity), it's well known that one can pull off the illusion of speed by instead playing just below super-fast, but with excellent articulation / clarity. I strongly believe that applies to drumming, and if we learn how to play singles/doubles across the kit with evenness and control, it will appear to be much faster than it actually is
I'm certainly not a drummer by any means (see the profile pic) but this concept, along with a lot of the other stuff on your channel, isn't just good for drums, it's good for practicing pretty much ANY musical instrument. E.g. where you have drums or cymbals I have individual notes/scales; the concept and practice transfer quite well. Love your channel Nate, keep the videos going!
MAN, you are BRILLIANT! Just noticed that you've been using the same exact configuration for quite a while, does this help you to practice with constraints as it could? Also, maybe making a NON standardized instrument into a standardized one might be a really good idea for practicing! It's like when I practice guitar, I don't completely rearrange the strings, or when I practice piano, I don't reverse the black keys and the white. LOL!!!
I wish I found a drum video that said, “How to play slower and better rather than faster and lousier.” Too many people are hung up on “playing fast.” Give me a beautiful drum beat coupled with a skilled blues guitarist playing at a mere 45-55 bpm and that’s where magic happens.
We gotta be able to hit our target at a slow speed and then faster speeds, otherwise anyone will get tripped up. Dude, loved the “be conscious without being conscious” thing. Very similar to something Stanley Randolph has said, you have to play the drums with care but you gotta not care.
5 THUMBS UP !!! ... such a SHAME that you do still not have at least 1 Mio subscribers - gibven the quality, informativity and stimulation of the videos - just don't get it ...
falschnehmung he doesn’t have a million subscribers because his videos aren’t interesting or informative. Drumming (as with other similar crafts) are MUSICAL. wtf is musical about anything in this video? It’s just pretentious nonsense. If you want to learn how to chop and lick, LISTEN to music and simply make up some beats in singles that fit certain parts of the song. That is the foundation. Then accent some of those singles to make that pattern pop. Add replace some of the other singles with doubles. Move that shit around the kit and keep to time. Just go watch Vinnie Colaiuta and listen to what he is playing and in his 9000 rpm rolls you will ALWAYS pick out a beat. But to get there, it takes drilling both hands on the pads to get your hands smooth and up to speed, but most importantly - LISTEN TO MUSIC AND JUST ENJOY THE MUSIC. this video is utter garbage.
In reply ta da bx . It almost sounds like you are giving us your thoughts on how to be a better drummer. My advice to you is just listen to some noise and hit stuff with sticks, you will pick it up eventually. Personally i disagree with your simplifying the way to get better to just listening and playing, while it is a great way to learn It is great to hear Nate's thoughts and ideas on all aspects of drumming and it is a great way to find new things to explore. I love the way he writes, films a delivers his content all with a super dry wit that i like. I would listen to him talking about all sorts of things as i think he would uncover some interesting things about it.
I Don't know how he has tuned it, but I have my 14" to a point that it sounds like a 16". Low tuned batter head, coated 2ply-head, 1.6mm triple flanged hoops and a kind of moongel on it.
Interesting topic. I know from my experience that constraints do help with playing faster. However, they only seem to help one play faster within a particular constraint. What I see when I watch the pro drummers in your video is flow around the kit. That comes from a high level of stick control, hand/finger development and efficiency of motion. Exhibit A, Joe Morello soloing, ua-cam.com/video/7Kx1GVYPOos/v-deo.html I think it was JoJo Mayer, but I might be mistaken, who said many drummers ask him why they can play fast on a pad but not on the kit. His response was is because we can only play as fast as we can think. My take on it is the better or hands and feet are developed the more processing power we have for flowing through a solo.
Not good taking an analogy, and assuming it's how the brain works. Might be worth reading the work of Daniel Kahnemam who has actually researched perceptual systems. Unfortunately what you're doing is purely speculative.
Bro, hope all is well and you are fine. Just a thought. You never talk about rhythm. No offense...but....Like most younger players from the west and ... UA-cam guys, i think you are missing out on the most important thing about music and drumming. The study of rhythm. This over intellectualizing comes from the lack of connection to rhythm. You should really make a journey to India. Also South America and anywhere there is a super strong drumming culture. It will change your life. It will help you find your own voice and end the senseless search for views and life on youtube. I really feel your pain and i think what you are trying to do is ok. Sending many greetings to you.
I checked out your channel, and you play excellently. I don't know why you feel you have to criticize other drummers in public. End of the day I'm just trying to play better, same as you. Do my efforts not seem sincere?
Wow. I'm really disappointed at Phil's input. This lesson was spot on. Nate, keep up the good work, I say. I've been playing and teaching lontine, and I love your insights. Phil, I have one of your books, and it's excellent. Both of you guys are great drummers. Thank you both for your contributions, and, Nate, I LOVE YOU!
this is almost the perfect analogue of how to play fast lines on a melodic instrument: know all the changes to the tune, know where the chord tones are (especially the root) for each change, always and easily, and know what you are playing in reference to them. its the same feeling of stepping off an ice rink and on to cement when you start to do this. coming from guitar, where the fretboard is an absolute mess, figuring out how to simplify it and then applying this kind of strict approach is where its at imho.
Good to see more jazz guitarists hip to Nate... dang Nate, you forgot to talk about a vital element: LISTENING to yourself and knowing what fast SOUNDS like--IE your relation to the form changes (it goes by faster), your relationship to the phrase changes (it goes by... slower? You start thinking in bigger chunks... mmm, ice cream), and you might start thinking MACRO--Nate, when are you gonna talk more about the world of Macro time with us neophytes? Also, you just visited Oregon. Man, you gotta give us Washingtonians some love to. I know it ain't Brooklyn, but it sure is pretty--and the musicians here are top notch (don't worry, they play more than just grunge here--the jazz musos, yeooow!) To respond to handdancin, yes the fretboard is a mess on the guitar. But, how about another approach? How about approaching the fretboard sonic-ally, and using your ear? I find that I can navigate changes MUCH better if I can hear better. How do you put limitations on your hearing to hear better? You sing all those roots, guide-tones, and chord tones. I sing everything while pedaling the root of the key every now and then to ground it all. Then, after 40 minutes or so of singing (I'm a horrible singer, but I get the pitches right) THEN you go back to the guitar and practice playing what you sang. Any position, doesn't matter. But focus on prehearing it first. This work helped me tremendously, because it gave me control of the notes. You tend to hear differently playing fast than you do playing slow. I think it's the same for drums. That said, more Macro Time videos--brother man. You come up to Seattle and I'll buy you a brew, and I won't use my crappy GPS to find you and call for directions (remember me?)
"Speed is a function of control" Thomas Lang, MD Interview I look at it this way: You n'eed the bandwidth for relevant, poignant expression, not for ensuring that you 'make' some vainglorious clinic-ready drumfill or maintain gravity drive blast beats over grid-perfect foot paradiddles at inhuman tempo for the entire section of a piece. I'm willing to even shake a finger at the brilliant mathmetal grooves in every possible permutation of every possible time signature. Sure, you need the tools, but a solo is not about mere demonstration of skill; we often forget that, yes, there is in fact a _musical piece_ being performed, and there should be _no_ tension, especially with standard stage pressure threatening to brake any process, at any level (mostly the mental ones). There's nothing wrong with using adrenaline to climax a performance but plenty wrong with relying upon it to initiate or sustain a meaningful time feel. Just my thoughts, peace.
What confirms that your lessons are is the real shit is how much you yourself have improved over the years watching you. Like damn those licks are so clean and tasteful
I had to go find the Brian Blade solo immediately after watching this. I'd almost forgotten how amazing the man was, thanks for reminding me. And great lesson too.
I'm a guitarist, but I find that a lot of your advice applies equally to guitar and drums since you're expressing general principles instead of specific rules. Nice job! Keep it up!
Your videos are the most informative on the net. I love the way you deliver and the concepts are so logical the way you explain them. I eagerly check my phone every day to see if you have posted something new. In this episode the way you described the “buffering” and keeping the brain ahead of the hands and feet reminds me of something Wayne Shorter said on a U.K. Documentary. He was explaining that when he is improvising it’s like flying through a cave at speed whilst trying to avoid bumping into stalagmites and stalactites that grow from the floor or ceiling! Please keep on your videos. A new post is the highlight of my week!
I've copyrighted Buffering Error for my personal brand. Legally you are permitted to use Guffering Cherror or Bospel Bops.
BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Great video🤘 I agree 100% on the "b.s. fast and fast with a purpose" I was guilty of just trying to play fast to sound cool, but once I learned control and placing everything in the subdivision grid. I was really blown away from how much faster and better everything sounded! Thanks for the videos you post
You could even combine those two methods of chop building, and add a particular sticking or rudiment to your constraints.
Thanks for the brain food, as always.
Your videos are always a journey that I just can’t stop watching! You got the funk!
Great lesson man! From the Philippines here! 🇵🇭
buffering the phrasing is my main difficulty, but I couldn't put it in to words hjahahaha dope analogy... gone work on that!
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Great video, Nate!
Yo. You should really look into the conjugate method for weightlifting. A lot of your ideas mirror the philosophy within that method.
That internet analogy is a very good analogy nice one :D
Your videos help me soo much with violin and BJJ.
Thanks so much for this! In college, Icame upon a similar concept in learning how to improvise jazz on vibraphone. Your metaphors and explanation helped me to view it from a different perspective. A tremendous help THAAAANKs
thanks Nate, very insightful ideas, awesome awesome!
in classical piano circles, where speed with incredible precision are a constant pursuit (and necessity), it's well known that one can pull off the illusion of speed by instead playing just below super-fast, but with excellent articulation / clarity. I strongly believe that applies to drumming, and if we learn how to play singles/doubles across the kit with evenness and control, it will appear to be much faster than it actually is
Loved this one man!!! Thanks for sharing!
I'm certainly not a drummer by any means (see the profile pic) but this concept, along with a lot of the other stuff on your channel, isn't just good for drums, it's good for practicing pretty much ANY musical instrument. E.g. where you have drums or cymbals I have individual notes/scales; the concept and practice transfer quite well. Love your channel Nate, keep the videos going!
I love this guy. he's so goofy
MAN, you are BRILLIANT! Just noticed that you've been using the same exact configuration for quite a while, does this help you to practice with constraints as it could? Also, maybe making a NON standardized instrument into a standardized one might be a really good idea for practicing! It's like when I practice guitar, I don't completely rearrange the strings, or when I practice piano, I don't reverse the black keys and the white. LOL!!!
It's not how fast you play, it's what you say! ( Ginger Baker)
I wish I found a drum video that said, “How to play slower and better rather than faster and lousier.”
Too many people are hung up on “playing fast.” Give me a beautiful drum beat coupled with a skilled blues guitarist playing at a mere 45-55 bpm and that’s where magic happens.
John Smith Learning to play @ very low volumes is where the shit happens. That is where one learns touch
Can you do a video on Zach Hill?
We gotta be able to hit our target at a slow speed and then faster speeds, otherwise anyone will get tripped up.
Dude, loved the “be conscious without being conscious” thing. Very similar to something Stanley Randolph has said, you have to play the drums with care but you gotta not care.
I would like to suggest a drum video titled, “The hippest yet simplest of fills or a drum part.” Minimalism in the vein of Mr. Levon Helm.
Dude this is like the best lesson ever!!!! Thx.
This video is the first time i've actually seen you play fast.
5 THUMBS UP !!! ... such a SHAME that you do still not have at least 1 Mio subscribers - gibven the quality, informativity and stimulation of the videos - just don't get it ...
Who's Mio?
A million subs is coming. He has gone up 4 thousand in a couple of months.
falschnehmung he doesn’t have a million subscribers because his videos aren’t interesting or informative. Drumming (as with other similar crafts) are MUSICAL. wtf is musical about anything in this video? It’s just pretentious nonsense.
If you want to learn how to chop and lick, LISTEN to music and simply make up some beats in singles that fit certain parts of the song. That is the foundation.
Then accent some of those singles to make that pattern pop.
Add replace some of the other singles with doubles.
Move that shit around the kit and keep to time.
Just go watch Vinnie Colaiuta and listen to what he is playing and in his 9000 rpm rolls you will ALWAYS pick out a beat.
But to get there, it takes drilling both hands on the pads to get your hands smooth and up to speed, but most importantly - LISTEN TO MUSIC AND JUST ENJOY THE MUSIC.
this video is utter garbage.
In reply ta da bx . It almost sounds like you are giving us your thoughts on how to be a better drummer. My advice to you is just listen to some noise and hit stuff with sticks, you will pick it up eventually. Personally i disagree with your simplifying the way to get better to just listening and playing, while it is a great way to learn It is great to hear Nate's thoughts and ideas on all aspects of drumming and it is a great way to find new things to explore. I love the way he writes, films a delivers his content all with a super dry wit that i like. I would listen to him talking about all sorts of things as i think he would uncover some interesting things about it.
@@Doublebasist Lol! Aptly replied.
shotouts from brazil eh!!
This was so. good.
I love your videos Nate! What is the opening tune for a lot of your videos? It’s such a groove.
6:04 Lewis Hamilton in a drum lesson video lol
Btw you can’t see your drum set during ur examples!
TE AMO!
yes....Elise. He's Elizingly invisible...other than BST and all his incredible busking videos.
This is brilliant stuff. Thank you..
How do you tune your floor Tom? It sounds massive
I Don't know how he has tuned it, but I have my 14" to a point that it sounds like a 16". Low tuned batter head, coated 2ply-head, 1.6mm triple flanged hoops and a kind of moongel on it.
Interesting topic. I know from my experience that constraints do help with playing faster. However, they only seem to help one play faster within a particular constraint.
What I see when I watch the pro drummers in your video is flow around the kit. That comes from a high level of stick control, hand/finger development and efficiency of motion. Exhibit A, Joe Morello soloing, ua-cam.com/video/7Kx1GVYPOos/v-deo.html
I think it was JoJo Mayer, but I might be mistaken, who said many drummers ask him why they can play fast on a pad but not on the kit.
His response was is because we can only play as fast as we can think. My take on it is the better or hands and feet are developed the more processing power we have for flowing through a solo.
Mike Connors super astute my brother. It’s not your hands that are the obstacle, it’s your brain. (Well, not yours specifically but “ours”)
Taron Lockett!!!
Why did I watch this? I don't even play drums.
AiRPoDS??? Wtf dude
Zoom out a little huh
Not good taking an analogy, and assuming it's how the brain works. Might be worth reading the work of Daniel Kahnemam who has actually researched perceptual systems. Unfortunately what you're doing is purely speculative.
Mr Bean??👍🏻
Bro, hope all is well and you are fine. Just a thought. You never talk about rhythm. No offense...but....Like most younger players from the west and ... UA-cam guys, i think you are missing out on the most important thing about music and drumming. The study of rhythm. This over intellectualizing comes from the lack of connection to rhythm. You should really make a journey to India. Also South America and anywhere there is a super strong drumming culture. It will change your life. It will help you find your own voice and end the senseless search for views and life on youtube. I really feel your pain and i think what you are trying to do is ok. Sending many greetings to you.
I checked out your channel, and you play excellently. I don't know why you feel you have to criticize other drummers in public. End of the day I'm just trying to play better, same as you. Do my efforts not seem sincere?
@@8020drummer Hey big fan Nate, but I gotta say, at 7:02 ...
Wow. I'm really disappointed at Phil's input. This lesson was spot on. Nate, keep up the good work, I say. I've been playing and teaching lontine, and I love your insights. Phil, I have one of your books, and it's excellent. Both of you guys are great drummers. Thank you both for your contributions, and, Nate, I LOVE YOU!
this is almost the perfect analogue of how to play fast lines on a melodic instrument: know all the changes to the tune, know where the chord tones are (especially the root) for each change, always and easily, and know what you are playing in reference to them. its the same feeling of stepping off an ice rink and on to cement when you start to do this. coming from guitar, where the fretboard is an absolute mess, figuring out how to simplify it and then applying this kind of strict approach is where its at imho.
Good to see more jazz guitarists hip to Nate... dang Nate, you forgot to talk about a vital element: LISTENING to yourself and knowing what fast SOUNDS like--IE your relation to the form changes (it goes by faster), your relationship to the phrase changes (it goes by... slower? You start thinking in bigger chunks... mmm, ice cream), and you might start thinking MACRO--Nate, when are you gonna talk more about the world of Macro time with us neophytes? Also, you just visited Oregon. Man, you gotta give us Washingtonians some love to. I know it ain't Brooklyn, but it sure is pretty--and the musicians here are top notch (don't worry, they play more than just grunge here--the jazz musos, yeooow!)
To respond to handdancin, yes the fretboard is a mess on the guitar. But, how about another approach? How about approaching the fretboard sonic-ally, and using your ear? I find that I can navigate changes MUCH better if I can hear better. How do you put limitations on your hearing to hear better? You sing all those roots, guide-tones, and chord tones. I sing everything while pedaling the root of the key every now and then to ground it all. Then, after 40 minutes or so of singing (I'm a horrible singer, but I get the pitches right) THEN you go back to the guitar and practice playing what you sang. Any position, doesn't matter. But focus on prehearing it first.
This work helped me tremendously, because it gave me control of the notes. You tend to hear differently playing fast than you do playing slow. I think it's the same for drums.
That said, more Macro Time videos--brother man. You come up to Seattle and I'll buy you a brew, and I won't use my crappy GPS to find you and call for directions (remember me?)
I love this guy. he's so goofy
Glad to see Louis Cole is in the auto-fill list! That guy is something else.
Love your videos, but this one especially.
"Speed is a function of control" Thomas Lang, MD Interview
I look at it this way: You n'eed the bandwidth for relevant, poignant expression, not for ensuring that you 'make' some vainglorious clinic-ready drumfill or maintain gravity drive blast beats over grid-perfect foot paradiddles at inhuman tempo for the entire section of a piece. I'm willing to even shake a finger at the brilliant mathmetal grooves in every possible permutation of every possible time signature. Sure, you need the tools, but a solo is not about mere demonstration of skill; we often forget that, yes, there is in fact a _musical piece_ being performed, and there should be _no_ tension, especially with standard stage pressure threatening to brake any process, at any level (mostly the mental ones). There's nothing wrong with using adrenaline to climax a performance but plenty wrong with relying upon it to initiate or sustain a meaningful time feel. Just my thoughts, peace.
thoughtful.
If you can play it slow you can play it fast.
I was hoping to find your face at 6:10
Love your videos man
excellent!
I love this guy. he's so goofy
Very useful and a conclusion I was coming to... now confirmed
I love this guy. he's so goofy
You need to relax mate and breathe.Your drums are chocked like your playing.Easy mate,let go.Enjoy life.