And a one and a two and a one two three four

Shelby
Originally uploaded by aimbly.

So LAST week - the one I missed (sorry), I was doing odd bass drum beats.
Which as you can imagine I was rubbish at.
Although THIS week we re-covered it a bit and instead of only playing eighth notes on the hi-hat I was playing 16ths on the ride, which made the bass drum almost easier when it was on the notes next to each other.

Have I explained the counting?

Right, so to count a bar for most music it's:
1, 2, 3, 4.

Simple enough.

But to keep beat I'm using the high hat usually on the eighth.

So I count:

I and 2 and 3 and 4 and.

Again. Simple enough.

But sometime you need to be ultra quick.
And then we do 16ths.
Which go:

1 e and a, 2 e and a, 3 e and a, 4 e and a.

Which is a lot of hitting.
Especially with one hand.
Although I was counting it as 'one e oh a' for ages mistakenly.
That's what I get for not listening properly.

So bass drum was with high hat on eighths last week and snare drum on the '2'.
And then where the bass drum varied on what number exercise I was doing.

I was rubbish.
And then I did all right when I got home last week until I tried to play 16th notes on the bass drum and 8th notes on the high hat, whereupon all my coordination left me and I turned into a frustrated wreak who was very angry at everything.
But that's no surprise really.

Unfortunately then work went pair shaped and I started suffering from RSI again.
Had a mini relapse - which just means that I get the burning sensation half way up my forearm on the underside (just up from the bottom of the watch strap) and my hand (especially the palm) starts cramping up and aching.
Which is when I know to stop using my hand immediately for anything and ice it if I can.
Unfortunately I was at work so there was no ice to be had.
I did put on the wrist support the hospital gave me though - which is like the wrist protectors roller bladers etc wear so that if they fall they don't break their wrist - with the hard piece of plastic down the palm and down the forearm.
But it then continued to play up for a few days, which meant I was wary about playing drums.
I did give it a little go and actually, it did seem to make it feel BETTER, which is surprising.
Just goes to show I obviously use completely different tendons for work than I do for drumming.
Anyway, I still thought it was sensible to stop playing for a few days till it stopped being so inflamed.
So no more practice for last week especially as I went to see some proper drummers play on Wednesday.

And I would have done some today except I had to blog about all the stuff I'd been unable to blog about because I had RSI.
And that's made it flame up again.
Oh the irony.

So yeah, apart from that, not much going on.
I have been offered a drum kit which is for sale.
I'm not entirely sure it's a bargain at the moment.
If any of you who drum wants to hear the specs, price etc and tell me if it's a good deal or not, I'd be most happy for your advice.
Cheers.

Take me to the fantastic(k) place (Marillion, Marbles album)

This week I was playing a piece to music - handily supplied on a CD.

I sucked.
If I sucked any more than I already sucked I would have caused a vacuum in the surrounding vicinity and my own lameness would have been the first thing to be eaten by the black hole of my own suckiness.

In short, it didn't go well.

First up it was an odd bass drum beat.
It started on the one and then was on the 'and' of the three but then changed in the second bar to being on the one, and of the three and and of the four.
Do you realise how difficult all this is without diagrams?
I should download some sheet music so I can illustrate it.

Anyway, so I have this trouble in practice where I can do the bass drum eventually on it's own after some practice but as soon as I try adding in a high hat and snare it all goes tits up.
I think this is a counting emphasis problem.
If the bass is on it's own I can think
"ONE and two and three AND four AND"
but as soon as I have the other noises, because I'm usually hitting things on the emphasis, I'm confusing myself and getting it all wrong.
It also doesn't work when you think about things too hard, I found.

So then it says to repeat a bar six times and because I'm doing this
ONE and two and three AND four AND
business, I am having trouble counting to six when it comes to the bars.
I think I've only ever counted four before, so I'm getting confused.

And then there's this bit - and I didn't even make it all the way through the song, I should point out - at the end of verse one which has you hitting the snare drum twice - on the two and three and then immediately hitting the bass drum and cymbal together, then a rest then back to the bass drum and snare immediately afterwards - and this rest and then back to what it was before totally throws me every single time.

Urgh.
So I wasn't really having much fun, I was just getting frustrated because my limbs wouldn't do what I needed them to and I was too impatient most of the time with the bass foot.

He did give up in the end and just asked me to play along to it however I liked, but spontaneity freaks me out and I still don't feel like I have any natural feel for where cymbals should be hit or fills added so I just said there wasn't any point, because I'd either just try to do what was on the sheet music anyway or revert back to something I could do - which is futile and against the point because I'm not pushing myself to learn if I just go back to the comfy place of things I can already just about do.

I have considered advertising for some other complete beginners to practice with but I think I'm going to leave it for a bit until I have some more of the basics under my belt, so I can at least keep a beat for a song and fill in the right sounding places.
But the idea of all learning together as a mess-about group appeals more at the moment than me trying to join a band where everyone can already play properly at some later point. Largely because I doubt I'll ever feel 'good enough' to join a proper band, whereas if I form a mess about 'all complete beginners, learn as we go' band then there's no pressure on any of us to be any good, so we can experiment away and just be silly.
Really I should be looking up practice rooms to play drums in too because I really need a proper bass drum to practice on. My practice kit at home is hard to hear on the bass drum side of things especially and I'm finding it endlessly infuriating because the bass drum pedal keeps detaching itself or sliding to one side - so I'm forever on my knees trying to push it back into place.
Which just puts me in a bad mood.
Which isn't good.
Although at least I have something to hit infront of me, I suppose as opposed to my leg, which is what usually gets a thumping if I'm annoyed (old habit from getting frustrated playing computer games).

In other news, I've been spending money again.
On Sunday I popped to my local electronic shop and purchased a portable CD player and some large headphones.
This was because I don't have a CD player in the drums room, so I couldn't previously listen along to a CD and play along. Which was fine when I was just banging away to whatever came on the iShuffle, but was no use for the actual lessons as he gives me CDs - and of course magazines like Rhythm give away CDs too, so it just made sense to have a CD player in there to hand.
The box almost had me gnashing my teeth and shaking my fist at it. WHY do they plastic mould these bloody things and make them fucking impossible to open??
The headphones were the slightly larger kind which could sit over my ears. I bought these so I could still wear my earplugs under them, although I can't hear the CD clicks with the earplugs in, so that's a bit crap. It does work OK with a metronome though.

And on Saturday I had intended to go purchase a new set of drumsticks.
Mine haven't quite fallen to pieces yet, although it's plain to see I've been hitting the hi hat in ALL the wrong places because it's the top of the sticks that are shagged, not the neck as such.
But the theory to purchasing some new sticks was:
1) I had a spare set in case mine did break
2) I had a spare set to leave in the room where I sit and watch TV, so at least then I'm tempted to pick up the sticks and practice on a practice pad whilst watching telly, thus increasing practice I'm squeezing in.
3) I wanted to try out other makes, to see if I could see any marked difference.

So I had intended to walk up to Chamberlains music shop.
For some reason I was convinced I knew roughly where it was and didn't think to bring an address or A-Z or map or anything helpful like that.
So I spent hours wandering around not finding any music shops at all.
And I had foolishly worn new shoes which were rubbing like mad.
I am a moron.

Eventually I gave up and wandered back to Tottenham Court Road, deciding that I would relent and do back to the Drum Company on Tin Pan Alley, even though they hadn't been very nice to me before.
Thankfully, as I arrived on Denmark Street I noticed a small sign that said 'Drum shop. Friendly service.' with an arrow pointing down a small alleyway.
Well, they had me at the 'friendly service' bit, so I made my way down a very Victorian London feeling alleyway and lowered myself down the wooden stairs into the basement shop called Andy's.
It was a very small place but the gentleman was very kind to me and advised me on the differences between the drum sticks and what he recommended (Vater) and showed me the stick bag I said I was thinking of buying and showed me his collection of practice pads, as I wanted a more portable one to carry to work.

And then that was £50 gone.
I bought a pair of Vater drumsticks, 5A Hickory, wood tip standard. £8
A 'Head' stick bag which was far too big really but was the only one they had in stock (£25).
And a 7" Apprentice HQ practice pad, mountable on cymbal stand. £17

I haven't really noticed that much difference with the Vater sticks really apart from they are a lot smoother to hold but then I haven't been wanting to bash them up on the high hat so I've been keeping them for use with the practice pad at the moment.
The practice pad is MUCH nicer than the Stagg one I bought. It's significantly quieter and just feels better to hit than the other one. Also the smallness means I should be able to take it to work and have a play at lunchtime in the summer.

Other than that I've been looking up real drum kits and wondering if I should sod the measly savings I have or risk the credit card and just buy a proper one.
Of course the big question is what to get.
I've found some cheap ones for around £160-200 but most people on forums (I'm not registered, I just read the older postings - I dare not log on as a 'newbie' and be humiliated and berated for not reading the older postings) suggest that you invest in a decent kit because at least then if and when you sell it, at least you'll be able to get something for it - plus of course if you DO get good enough to play in a band live or whatever, at least you've got a decent sounding kit.
Of course the problem is a decent-ish kit is going to cost me £300-£500 quid or so.
And unless I get it on a monthly payment plan, that ain't gonna happen.

There are also the other considerations of
* Neighbours
* Is this just a flash in the pan hobby
* Room to fit a real kit in (which wouldn't be a problem if I bit the bullet and got rid of the futon but I'm still reluctant to let it go)

I'm going to have to leave it for this month at least though.
I have to pay for another set of lessons, so...
Still not sure if this tutor is ideal for me but maybe I need to be torn away from the theory of a subject like this and pushed into things to improve my confidence and spontaneity. It's probably a thin line. But I thought I'd give it another 6 lessons and see how I get on. If it's not working out I'll go hunting for something more school-like and traditional.

Practice time is still a main issue. When it shouldn't be. I have the time but often I'm just not in the right mood or can't stick with it for long before I lose all concentration and start flailing wildly or flagging. After work I know I'm especially tired and hungry and it's trying to goad myself into doing 15/30/45 minutes before I start to make dinner or do anything else which is giving me the trouble.
Weekends should be easy but there's always something that stops me.
I tell myself I have all this time on my hands but it turns out I don't, what with blogging and pets and cleaning and cooking and what little personal life I have.
I need better time management.
Although that probably goes for my drum timekeeping as well as my organisational skills...

[pic is Kim Urhahn from off this website. I thought she looked cool and she came up in a google images search for Vater drumsticks.]

More tap than Bonnie Langford (nearly)

I was small and musical
Originally uploaded by Queen o' Hearts.

So this week I was doing.. er, well I'm not sure what to call it.
Hitting.
Largely.

It was technique.
Stick and wrist technique.

The principal was to teach control and to learn some handy little 'ghost beats', as my tutor called them.

So we started off with standard beats on the snare drum and we covered what was considered a 'down' beat (which is where you beat the drum but the stick stays close to the skin) and 'up' beat (which is a slight tap as you move your wrist up and the stick down slightly as you raise the stick up for the next beat - I covered this the other day slightly on the high hat (and was miserable at it)).
Then we did 'taps' which is when the stick starts close to the skin and is a beat and stays close to the skin of the drum.

Then it was all about combinations. Both one hand and two hands.
Such as (one hand):
Down Up
Down Tap Up
Full Down Tap Up

Two hands (alternative - so the left is always playing the second word - which is the taps for example):
Full Tap Down Tap Tap Tap Up Tap
Down Tap Up Tap (this sounds like a stereotypical Red Indian beat type thing)

The Ups and the Taps tend to be less hard than the full (aka normal) strokes and the downs, so you get more emphasis on the full and down strokes and then the others are 'ghost' beats - in that you don't really notice they're there but they flesh out a sound.
Or that's the theory, anyway.
Whether that is actually what it sounds like when I play it, is another matter.

Much slower lesson this week. Far more lethargic feel to it.
We talked about buying a full kit online and how much that would cost and stuff.
And he said I should try and find a band to play with (ha!).

To be honest I still feel really self conscious when I'm given a task because it often takes me a while to get into it and get the feel of what I'm going, then I'm busy correcting things as I go along and I can't HELP but be ultra aware that this must be REALLY boring for him sitting there.
So I tend to kind of fob things off.

He's also obsessed with getting me to play along with CDs/music.
I mean I do - especially on weekends but at the moment I'm ultra aware that I'm not even on the beat when I'm on the metronome (I'm trying to stick at 100 at the moment for most things).
And I just don't feel 'ready'.
I had this problem before in other hobbies. When I did karate my sensei wanted me to go for my belt and I just didn't feel ready, you know?
Maybe I'm a bit of a perfectionist, in which case I'll never feel like I'm good enough regardless but I still think it's important to feel comfortable and have belief in your abilities before jumping into things.
Even if that's something as small as playing along and feeling confident that I can do that to a suitable level.

Maybe guys have it a bit easier because they don't care and are happy to hit away and sound shit.
Maybe that's not just a gender thing.
I'm not much of a spontaneous type and I am well aware that this does not make me a good musician.
In fact it doesn't make me a good anything.
But it would be easier if I had a certain level of self confidence in my own abilities which would then lead to feel more comfortable behind some drums.

I find the heart but then I hit the wall. Crash! Boom! Bang!

cymbalmonkey
Originally uploaded by thermion7.

I was on the high hat this week.
I was playing that like it was a snare drum with both sticks.
Then I had to hit the snare with the right stick on the two beat and then back to the high hat quarter notes.
Bass drum was on 1 and 3 beats.
And he threw in high hat pedal on the 4 and then got me doing some fills and a crash cymbal too.
I took longer to get it this week. Especially when he started throwing in high hat on the 3rd quarter note along with an odd bass drum beat - and even now, after a week of trying to do it, I still can't even start.
I can't even build it up.
My bass drum foot just does not like that off beat and my left foot is a spazz when I actually have to count the place to put it.

In sort, I was rubbish this week.

At home I've been trying to make sure my left hand particularly is palm down because I seem to be doing a more half and half thumb up, sideways hand hold most of the time, which isn't helping me keep the downstroke straight.

And I've been trying to work on keeping up with the metronome and especially trying to keep my left hand in time with that.

I do find the hour lesson goes too fast.
And sometimes I think he's moving me along too fast.
But I appreciate he's trying to keep it interesting for both of us.

Finding suitable practice time is difficult.
Today was the first time in days I've actually managed to squeeze in an hour's practice.
I don't think I'll be joining a band any time soon.

He said my bass drum was still off, and that's been hard to adjust because at home I can't hear the bass drum very clearly, so it's hard to know when I'm off the beat.

I should work more on my bass drum foot really, especially as it was only last week that I worked out I've been doing it all wrong.
Instead of pushing up from my ankle and toes and using my calf muscle to beat the bass drum, I was lifting it from my hip. Which doesn't sound too bad until you try and keep it up for a few minutes.
I had wondered why my groin was aching so much and why I was toppling off my stool constantly. Turns out my butt was off the seat a lot because of it - hence my toppling off the stool/balance issues.
I still catch myself doing it. Especially when I've got double bass drum beats or odd ones, so I've got to watch that.
It's just all a bit much for one small brain to cope with.
Seemingly I have a tendency to hit the high hat a bit too hard, which is true - I get carried away and it gets loud and drowns out everything else.
And that's funny because I STILL balk when I hit a proper crash cymbal.
Maybe I'm too used to my tiny splash one but I find the suddenness and volume of it and then the length of reverb completely puts me off whatever I am supposed to be doing after hitting it and I stop.
Obviously I'm not good with other noise and keeping the beat at the moment - which means I'd be rubbish with other musicians around.

Still, mustn't try running before I can walk.
I actually turned the beat down on the metronome. I had been attempting to play at 120 but I lowered it to 85/90 and have only really got up to 100 comfortably. 110 freaks me out. 120 is just asking a bit too much with all this high hat switching business.
Still, practice makes perfect, if I can get the time to bloody practice!

[picture of cymbal monkey stolen off thermion7's photostream at flickr after doing a search on 'cymbal' in tags]
[post title is from the lyrics to the Roxette song, Crash! Boom! Bang!]

Hit me with your rhythm stick

Last week I was learning accentuated hits on the high hat and cymbal.
That meant I had to hit the hi-hat quite hard and then instead of lifting the wrist to tap in the same way, you flop your wrist so that the end drops and hits the hi-hat lighter, so you hear a TAP tap TAP tap TAP tap TAP tap (if you do it right).

I was having trouble with this.
But then that was hardly surprising considering it looks like I've been holding the stick all wrong anyway. And if I'm not hitting the drums with the right hold and the right wrist action then naturally, everything else isn't going to be working right either.

We lowered the hi-hat for me and I've still not found the place where I don't feel like I'm toppling over when I'm playing. But of course since I was used to a higher hi hat, I'm now clunking into my left hand which is playing the snare more.

But yeah, I'm finding the wrist drop hard because it tends to just merge into a sawing movement and I'm finding it hard to hear whether it's accented or all sounding the same.

Seemingly my bass drum needs working on (everything needs working on - I'm a beginner!).
It's not strong enough and seemingly I'm not on the beat frequently.
I'm finding it hard to practice without a real bass drum though as my practice pad doesn't make enough noise (ironically) - especially if you've got the metronome earplugs in and are hitting a real high hat and cymbals etc.
Maybe it's time to ring that bloke who said he potentially could get me a real drumkit for £50....
(Although I personally thought it was just 'one of those things people say').

And anyway, my neighbours have done something to piss me off so I'm a lot less bothered about making horrendous amounts of noise.
Bah ha ha ha.
This is why you shouldn't fuck off your neighbours.

So. So I've been trying to work on my fills - just 4 basic ones to improve my timing and get me used to stopping and changing the beats etc and then re-starting the groove again. Which is actually really hard - I'll get it once or twice but then I'll lose it. I doubt I'd be able to keep it up for a song length at the moment.
No wonder all the best pop songs are so short - they wanted them over before they started doing them wrong...

And it took me a while to work out why I was only doing three bars of groove and then filling on the fourth - because the songs I was listening to didn't seem to conform to that formula.
But maybe music doesn't have a formula anyway.
I just assumed drums would be less 'do what the hell you like/what you feel you should be doing'.

My teacher is obviously cottoning onto the fact that I am square and like the structure though because he gave me a handout on drumming and how to hold the sticks.
But with a lot of these things it's hard to describe unless you have pictures and someone sitting there saying 'no, here, you should be doing it like THIS'.

Thankfully there was no 'play along to this song' this time (let's face it - if I can't keep up a groove with just a metronome then there's not much point in me trying to play along to a song I've never heard before).
I was having terrible trouble finding time to practice last week. When I got home it was often late and I was starving, and by the time I'd finished making and eating dinner it was too late to be hitting things. I started trying to squeeze in 15 minutes in the morning after the neighbours leave for work but again, sometimes I'm running late so I can't spare that 15 minutes.
And there is always that thought in the back of my head saying 'if you were a neighbour of this you'd go spare'.
But then I keep telling myself that they do just as worse things and don't even have the consideration to not do them after 9pm.
It's just reassuring myself that it's OK to make a bit of noise.
But yeah, whenever you think it will be OK to make some noise, like the weekend, you never get the time to actually make the noise.
And even when I practice for an hour, it's hard to know if you're getting any better.
I was thinking of using an old dictaphone to play back so I can hear if I'm off etc.

But what's a good metronome speed to be practising at?

Plus, I keep licking my lips or something because after each drum session they feel like I've been licking at them for ages.
It is possible it's the vibrations making me lick them - or maybe I'm just concentrating and biting them a lot or something but I'm not aware of it.
This could be that classic 'drummer's face' you see all the time. That look of concentration....

We've got a metronome and we're going to use it.

Drum lesson on Thursday was a bit of a disaster.
I don't think I'm cut out for music, you know.
I have no 'feel' for it.
Oh sure, I can bang in the right places if I'm told to but when they say 'make it up' I can't.
He put on a Green Day track and told me to play along but I couldn't.
My spontaneity triggers in the wrong places, my brain is trying to concentrate on keeping time and it all just ends up sounding rubbish.
Plus I keep missing the cymbal when I go to hit that as well as frequently finding myself hitting the bottom of the high hat by accident.

I'm very disheartened by the whole process.

Maybe I need more direction.
More structure.
We aren't following a curriculum as such and I'm beginning to think I'm the sort of person who needs one.
I'd like some basic exercises to do for starters.
And warm ups.
Things I could run through first to get me in the frame of mind.
Oh yes, so anyway. I'm probably not cut out for music.
But then you'd think I'd remember that from my refusal to practice when I used to play the piano.

We spent most of last week's lesson trying to get the set up right on the drumkit.
Lowering the seat, moving the snare and high hat.
All in an attempt to stop my back hurting.
But I think I just need to build up one big buttock on the right side to balance it out.

The 'heel up' technique is going reasonably better than I expected but I think my teacher is annoyed that I'm not much better.
I shouldn't have practised that first week before starting, obviously.
Now he expects me to speed along and be a proper drummer in no time.
When in reality he's going to realise that he shouldn't have tried to show me to use a high hat to keep a beat.
When I tried, it sounded like a dog running with cymbals on its feet.
Only with less rhythm.

Fills are still my main downfall.
I have no clue what to hit and when.
With piano lessons it's there - there is sheet music and you play it.
It's simple.
Once you learn the patterns you can put some personality into it and make it yours.
Whereas I'm just being told to improvise in the places where I think it needs it.
But I have no clue.
I keep wondering if there's a science to it.
And I keep trying to find it.
Cymbal on the 1. High hat on the '4 and'.
But I know people will say that's music by numbers and not giving it 'soul'.
But frankly I'd like to learn some basics before having to deal with the soul of music.
Basics before the complicated matters.
Maths before religion.

I never was any good at practical subjects.

[Today's picture is of Tina from Fuzzbox aka 'We've Got A Fuzzbox and We're Going To Use It']

Tittitus - ringing of the boobs (or 'reasons to buy a sports bra when doing energetic drumming')

Drumming is frustrating.
I spent a good few hours (on and off) banging away today but as I get tired I find it harder to get the parts of my body to do what I want them to.

My right hand has very quick movement - but then I knew that anyway *cough*
My left hand is good at keeping a rhythm up as long as it's not TOO stupidly fast.
It does need some work, I will confess.

My bass drum playing right foot DEFIES my every wish.
It will play along only if it's doing a 4 beat bar or playing on the one and three beats.
It will happily start a double beat but will soon just revert to a 4 beat bar when I'm not paying attention.
It need a bloody great slap, that's what it needs.

My left foot is no better.
It taps away on the high hat like it's playing another tune entirely and gets bored easily so does its own thing,

My fills are atrocious.
My cymbal hitting is worse than if I was having an epileptic fit amongst a room of cymbal stands.
And I'm very hesitant still, not really knowing what to hit in fills or when to hit cymbals - I pause before hitting cymbals and it annoys me.
My left hand is a bit more confident, thanks to smak smak smaking away to Elastica and Transvision Vamp (sweet Jesus, that was hard going! - I was playing to The Only One and it was very energetic).
Melissa Etheridge is my new friend as I can keep a simple groove up during some of her songs. Yay!
(Still can't improv the fills though).

Unfortunately, obviously my body is not designed for this amount of abuse though, because my right wrist aches today and I was getting some strange twitches in my left earlier.
My right foot (bottom of shin area) still kills.
And I discovered a bad side effect to plastic covers on your drum chair.
You SWEAT!
Playing drums (especially to the more energetic songs) is hard going and my socks are slick by the end of an hour.
Eww.
I know.
Sorry.
But that makes it difficult enough to stop my bass drum foot from sliding up and nesting in the drum itself (why does it keep doing that??)
And I'm 'glowing' afterwards (actually read 'sweating like a piggie')
Oh, and I'm having trouble staying balancing on the chair when using both right drum leg and high hat leg.
Is there a technique to that?
How do you stop yourself from toppling over?
(Or getting a sore bum)?
Seriously. How do you balance when both feet are in the air at the same time?
Is it all about the back?
I think I'm slumping occasionally. I do keep catching myself and correcting it.
But I can't imagine that helps.

Of course it's probably all good for me.
But my arms are still killing me today.
I'm going to have biceps like bricks in no time.
Of course that could have nothing to do with the drumming and everything to do with carrying home heavy shopping earlier today!
It's the inside of the elbows that hurt today.
Look at me - finding muscles where no woman needs to have any.
I know, it's only a matter of time before I'm wearing wifebeaters and looking like Pink or something.
Actually, that would be quite good.
*mmm, wanders off into a daydream about Pink in the Family Portrait video*

All this drumming does mean I do walk around tapping constantly now though.
At traffic lights and crossings I'm the worst. I think I scare little old ladies now.
Oh wait.
I did before...
Ok, but NOW I'm looking like a mental. Not just a big butch lezza.

Those odd bass drum beats were winding me up again today.
I tried it without the metronome, hoping that if I went slower I might be able to pick it up but no, my right leg refused to play along.
I tried clapping it - which I could do.
But then applying that to foot was another matter.
And once I HAD applied it to the foot, it all went pear shaped when I combined it with right hand and left hand tappings.

I'm going to end up breaking something into tiny pieces before I get it right. I just know it.
And the high hat totally wreaks your drumsticks.
Or maybe I'm just playing it wrong.

PS: *note to self - you bought earplugs USE them or you'll have ringing ears and end up deaf, stupid*

Matchstick men and matchstick cats and dogs (by Michael Coleman and Brian Burke)

The top of my foot hurts.
I assume this is where I'm tapping it and it's building up muscle.
Well I hope it hurries up about it because a sore foot is no good to me.
Although it is encouraging me to try the heel up technique for the bass drum so I don't suppose it's all bad.

Can I just say I am LOVING having a little set up in my flat.
I just want to hit the splash cymbal every time I walk past (even though it's not very easy to do so). Still, having it in a prime location means I'm more likely to play it. Although I'm having to restrain myself at the moment because I'm wanting to sit down and bang away at all times of the day and night and we all know that's a one way trip to the environmental health complaints department.
*sigh*
You forget how easy learning is with guitars. You can make them quiet and use an electric and just plug in headphones.
And while I could re-mortgage my house and try and buy some electric drums I think that's taking it a bit too far at the moment.
And anyway, that would probably still make noise - just as the practice kit does.
Not that the neighbours can tell over their headboard banging, mind but something tells me that they'd have more of a case with me playing drums than I would with their 3 minute noisy sex, should any of us complain to the council.

I'm getting better at the high hat and cymbal usage. But the odd bass drum rhythms are throwing me.
You know, the hitting it on the 'one and' as a double and then also on the 'and' of the 3 and then on the four. I'm OK once I start off verbalising it - I can speak the rhythm but my foot acts independently to my mouth and head and goes off and does its own thing, the cheeky limb.
I was very proud as I tapped away to some Melissa Etheridge (I know, I'm such a stereotype) yesterday but obviously I'm still not using the ride cymbal so it will all go to pot in the next lesson, for sure.

And I should try and find a practice room this week really too.
Oh it's all go.
And my upper body, particularly my arms and shoulders feel huge and 'pumped' like they belong to a male body builder today, after carrying all the stuff home.

I am beginning to suspect that the reason drummers have buff upper-bodies actually has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual drumming side of their craft.
In fact, I'd wager it has more to do with having to lug all that heavy drum equipment everywhere every time they have a gig (presumably before they get big enough to have things like roadies to do all that for them).