i must've asked this question a thousand times, a thousand different ways, on numerous forums, but i'll ask again, coz i've never been happy with the answers...


i know we have rudiments. i know those rudiments revolve around specific sticking patterns.


but in the grand scheme, does it really matter if you play those stickings exactly as they are written, if WHAT you play ends up sounding the same as the standard sticking itself?


as an example, i was watching a video where a drummer was playing a cascara pattern on one of those plastic jam block gizmos. i saw the pattern he was playing, and at one point there is a double [or, he repeats a hit twice using the same stick and same hand].

i repeated the phrase he played, but did not play it with the double. i used alternating single strokes instead. the phrase still sounded the same.


i can see where there might be a subtle sonic nuance by playing it exactly as he did [maybe the double hit gave more of an accented feel], but if i paid attention to my dynamics, the phrase really sounded the same to me.



i always wonder about this, because i know we are always told rudiments are there to help us build our finesse/chops, but i'm always torn as to whether we're "supposed" to play them faithfully back as notated.


i mean, i know a paradiddle is a paradiddle is a paradiddle, but if you play 4 sixteenth notes, who the hell cares if you play them with 1 stick hitting four times, 2 sticks alternating, 1 stick hitting twice, etc?


what this really means, i guess, is: do rudiments really have an audible quality to them that comes from playing them exactly as they are notated? [eg RLRR, vs. RRRR]



i kinda answered my own question, but i want to hear from the knowledgable pool of drummers at the cafe. it's not that i don't want to understand or learn rudiments, it's that since i haven't had lessons in a while, i've been working on just being more free behind the kit. like, i'll think less of what i'm actually doing, but will think along the lines of "ok, play 16th notes around the toms, and turn some of them into doubles." then again, other times i'll think "play a 6-stroke roll around any combination of toms, using the traditional sticking patterns you've been taught."



i'm just trying to get hip to which method works more "in the real world."




hope my question makes sense.

Mister Acrolite covered this very well.

The only thing that I would add, in regards to the way stickings sound, is that this is REALLY used a lot when it comes to orchestral music.

An example, if the brass section is double-tonguing a figure, it fits quite nicely to also double stroke the figures that you are playing with them. The some goes for triple-tonguing, use triple strokes. One snare drum excerpt that comes to mind is from Rimsky-Korsakov's Scherazade.

On drums, the sticking you choose can not only affect the overall sound of the figure you are playing, but is a real tool in helping you accomplish what you want on this one-man orchestra we call the drumkit.

You can certainly learn to play the drumset without mastering rudiments, but they are great tools to help develop stick control.  Other "non-standard" patterns can also be used to accomplish the same thing.

Some rudiments/patterns are more useful than others on the drumset.  The ones I'd suggest learning are:

1) single-stroke roll
2) double-stroke roll
3) single paradiddle
4) flam
5) basic triplett pattern RLR LRL
6) four-stroke roll rlrL

Yeah, I agree, sticking patterns cause the same figure to sound different, sometimes very different.

Until one masters the various hand combinations and sees/hears how it modulates the sound, it is hard to explain, particularly to a youngster that will say, "Hey I can play the same thing this way and it is easier".

That is the thing, it is easier at first to use what feels natural, usually a single stroke. But by doing so exclusively you lose the chance to become fluid with your hands and feet.

Attempting more complicated sticking forces one to face their limitations, and may even set one back for a while in that it is clumsy at first. But in the end, IT SETS YOU FREE.

I no longer even think about it, I just play what I feel, my hands do what they need to do. But for warm ups I still go back to the basics.

I look at stickings as knowing a vocabulary. I can have a basic conversation with you with limited wordes(singles, doubles), but if I know many words (stickings) I can say anything I want to you in anyway I want. Stickings need to be learnt, only so you don't have to think about them when you want to use them.

Off-topic mini-rant...

Not to be a complete pill...but I really wish we could retire that expression.  

Back to the thread at hand...



And the GOOD teachers will show you how to find YOUR right way(s).

Sorry, that's a sore spot for me - "my way is THE way" teachers.  I had to vent...

Back to the topic at hand...

Unless you're doing "rudimental drumming" specifically, I wouldn't get one's panties in a knot over following "rudimental" stickings exactly.  Things all boil down to a few basic "rudiments" anyway - double strokes, single strokes, buzz strokes, and (according to some who count them as different) flams.  Those 7, or 13, or 26, or 40 or (has PAS added any more rudiments lately?) are all just variations on the building blocks.  Cool stuff to be sure, and good for technique and as a starting point for creating some fills and grooves, but in the larger scheme of things, if it sounds the same, use whatever sticking you like.

The thing is, it doesn't always sound the same with different stickings...

man, that was awesome guys. this place is the best. I should send each one of you a twenty dollar bill.

thanks
ox

"I hope I wont be corrected..." Gonna be hard to learn anything with that attitude.


I am coming at this from the standpoint of a non-drummer, but basically ANY technical approach to the instrument (as Mr.A so eloquently points out) exists so that the instrument does not become an impediment to getting the sounds you hear in your head out into the world.

It shouldn't be "well now I'm gonna play a double ramatamaflamacue" but "here's where my hands are, here's what I'm hearing, how do I get that out". And depending on how you do get it out, how simply and elegantly you were able to execute what you were hearing, well that defines what you need to work on. If it was hard and awkward, well, what was hard and awkward about it? Work on that.

As a bass player, if I put the work in, I could play everything I wanted to play with one finger on one string. But that's not the easiest, most elegant solution to getting the notes out. So you practice everything, in every position starting with every finger. So that having my second finger of the fingerboard hand on a Db and having my second finger on the plucking hand ready to go does NOT make getting the idea out hard.

Any idea, in any part of the bar, with any finger. That's what yuo are trying to get to.

Technique serves your creativity and (as I have found through bitter, personal experience) if you skate on building a good foundation (whether in technique, understanding or conception) you hit a brick wall somewhere down the line.

You are right. Techniqe is only a way to play that thing, that you want to play and you feel. It does not matter, what do you use - paradiddles, doubles or singles - that must sound great. This is music, and not sport. But in our time techniqe is a very importand thing ...
   (this is very primitive, but this is my opinion)

After reading these postings alone, I'll have to agree that this is the best internet forum(not just drums) I've ever seen.
And after reading these postings, my weird brain said to me,... why not try to make LRRR sound like RLRR, to fool people into thinking I was using a certain sticking when I wasn't,.... then I told me to shut up.