Friday, February 10, 2017

Han Bennink practice tips

Not a lot of action on the other drumming blogs these days, but Ted Warren of Trap'd has this amazing thing for us, courtesy of Jon McCaslin of Four On The Floor, courtesy of some guy who saw Han Bennink do a workshop, and wrote it down. I figure the more people reblog this kind of thing, the more it becomes a set part of the literature of drumming.

These are Bennink's suggestions for practicing the drums:

“Play as fast as you can for 5 minutes without repeating yourself.

Same thing goes for slow, loud, soft and any combination of them.

Play one piece of your drumkit for 5 minutes and try to keep it interesting, do this untill you have played all pieces.

Repeat the same beat for 5 minutes and try to keep it interesting.

Play a crescendo lasting 5 minutes ending as loud as possible.

Play solid time for 5 minutes, check with metrone before and after, repeat untill your time is really solid.

Play completely free for 5 minutes, no time is allowed.

When you think you have become good at these exercises extend them by 5 minutes each. etc. These exercises should last you a lifetime.”

1 comment:

sen said...

Always good advice from Han

I tried number 1 really tough, my arms nearly fell off !

only playing one part of kit is good for tonal variety

the crescendo idea is good, I've used that in playing