Upon returning from holiday I have decided to work with another student on his song and provide him with drums that can make the song have a strong, deep feeling to it. Due to being out of college for 2 weeks, I had to find either someone to make a song with, or struggle to make parts for my own piece.
Unfortunately, I had a lapse in judgement and have chosen a student who isn’t the most reliable for documentation, so I have struggled to get much work and evidence of our progress, despite us making a really beautiful song that just needs some structuring. This whole process has been a heavy load as I haven’t had the proper videos uploaded when I need them, either.
I can, however talk about my drums and what I think of them.
I have gone through trial and error of using a combination of two wooden drum sticks, to one stick and a brush, to just two brushes; all with their different features and flaws. When there’s two drum sticks, I can make the beat louder, I am more used to them so there’s more fluidity in motions – and I can hit the ride cymbal in the centre to make a distinctive ‘ping’-ing sound, which can be helpful in a song as a distinctive break in the usual sounds of a ride cymbal being hit on the edge, or the middle. Unfortunately, I can only control the dynamics of my sticks to a certain amount until it just stops sounding like drums and more like tapping on a desk, so it is simply too loud for the song.
I think I was on to something momentarily by deciding to use one stick and one brush, but as I came to realise, it was not as good; the fills I attempted sounded way off with one another as the dynamics were out of the loop, one hard and then soft snare did not sound good no matter what I tried, even with the brush doing ghost notes – I didn’t like what it had created. I tried using the stick on the ride cymbal and vice versa, but they still were not the same volume and I did not like that. What I did like though was the fact that I could use the crash cymbal and make it sound actually loud over the rest of the notes I was playing, making for a definitive and recognisable sound to change from verse to chorus, or chorus to verse.
When I attempted to use brushes for the first time I was lost. They felt like they had no weight to them and as such my first use of them was sloppy with alot of mistakes, but over time I have come to grow used to the focused point of weight in the handle – and they create the perfect sound. Because of that I will be using brushes only for the song now, even if I can’t have a louder crash cymbal.
6/12/23, I stayed back after required hours to record the drum beat for Cody so that he had something to work off – I played a beat that he could follow, and then add his own touch on top of later. We did roughly 6 run-throughs of the song with me doing different types of fills and notes, but the first one I did was the best one in my opinion.
11/12/23, upon coming back to college I found out that the recording of what I had wanted didn’t save, and I must at some point before the end of the week, do another demo. I believe that last week would have gone better if we had not been interrupted by other students coming into the live room as we were trying to record, throwing multiple run-throughs in the bin. Today me and Cody want to try and do a demo, but as level 3 extended are practicing for a gig that is important it becomes more likely that won’t be the case.
It is now 2PM and the extended students have left for their gig. I am ready to do a demo, but I need Cody for this, and maybe another student who is currently at said gig.
12/12/23 (birthday, yippee!), after the rush of trying to get a demo in yesterday once the other student returned, me and Cody came to realise at 5am that we should record the demo today and not worry about rushing it. I had to play with sticks only yesterday because the extended students took the brushes that I needed, so I couldn’t play my regular beat, as I am too heavy-handed. It is currently 10:30 and as Cody needs an hour and half to travel to college, I will have to wait a bit longer. Addendum; he’s lazy.
f I N A ll y