One of the things that make the marimba a very engaging instrument is the fact that you are not physically touching the instrument at any time. This is also true for the drums, but you don’t need as much precision as you need on the marimba. To make things more “engaging”, the marimba is very [...]
Coming from a drumming background, it’s fairly easy for me to play with mallets, do the rolls, and coordinate the two hands. However, it needs a bit of learning and training to get used to holding two mallets in each hand. It is of course very important to be able to play each mallet independently [...]
Your elbows… This is definitely not a descriptive post about the details of the Moeller method, but one of the most important things I realized about it, is that (although this is a bit controversial) the elbow movement is what creates the effect. If you move your elbows in the proper way, you can cause [...]
When people say,”back to basics” it sounds as if you are going to the elementary stuff, and that you are not progressing but going back. Actually, it doesn’t sound that way, people explicitly say it! I strongly believe that practicing the basics is in no way going “back”, on the contrary you are going forward, [...]
Playing more than one beat at the same time, is one of the richest experiences in drumming, especially when other musicians are playing each to a different beat. It can be very confusing and complicated to learn, especially with more than two beats. Several approaches exist to learn and master polyrhythms, and I’m using three [...]
One of the key skills each drummer must develop and master is the ability to independently play different things with each of his/her limbs at the same time. Ultimately that means playing complex polyrhythms easily and effortlessly. The usual approach when learning a new beat, is to understand what each hand and foot does, master [...]
