Hey Scott,

You're kinda talkin' to me like I'm some big teacher or something, when I'm still an idiot kid with alot to learn. I don't know how much I can actually say to you except that you might be concentrating too much on my hand. I think wierd things might look like there goin' on because I'm playing at high speeds at fortissimo volume.

I think these speeds are really about the strength you develop in your wrists. Thats where almost all of my concentration is.

Yeah I know alot of WFD guys who are heavy into their fingers, but to me that produces that tiny sound that all the WFD haters always use to push their issues. If you want to make your speed gigworthy IMO the wrists are the key.

As to the other stuff, I'm beginning to see that teachers are necessary of course, but you have to adapt their lessons to certain things for yourself, because we are all different.

Thanks for your kind words.

  Matt, we're ALL idiot kids with a lot to learn.  

Mr. A's right, too, by the way.  

But I've seen your video clips, and buddy, I gotta break it to ya---you got GREAT hands!    So, it doesn't matter if you're Freddy Gruber or a four year old, with hands like that, I'm inclined to pick your brain.  

Anyway, I've been playing for almost 20 years, continue to study with teachers to this day, and I'm still looking to improve.  After seeing your hands working in your videos, I saw something being executed that I've never been able to get working for me.  I've studied with some really good and patient teachers as well, and there's something I'm just not getting.  I appreciate your advice.  It DOES help!

Glad to see you here at the Café!

PS -- I actually meant "16th note singles at quarter note equal to 200 BPM and up" in my previous post.    

Nice stuff.  Well played.

Matt, do you remember the days when you were at a "slow" 800 singles in a minute?  How long did it take you to get 900 and then a 1000?

I have heard from Tiger Bill and Joe Stronsic that there are two kinds muscles people have- fast twitch and slow twitch (endurance type) and one is born with a certain % of each... so really some drummers have the potential to be faster than others.  Although we can all improve on both aspects through isolated practice.

Scott says Matt uses his thumb and Art Verdi uses index finger
I don't think it really matters what finger one uses
The bottom line of success is what matters
Art Verdi said in the Modern Drummer magazine last summer that Buddy Rich mobilizes the stick using his thumb  but Art Verdi's left hand is the closest I've seen to Buddy Rich's left hand
If one can get that stick moving fast and accurate
That's what matters

I am finding that if I work out with the drumometer every day/every other day for about 20-30 minutes it take me 2 weeks to go up about 5 bpm.  It's killing me.

BUT my forearms are starting to get rock hard.  I'm getting some wicked little guns.  Ego is pretty much decimated, traditional grip is working for me (never used to) I'm very pleased I went down this path.

Just buy one.  I got mine for 140 dollars.

I disagree. Mastery of single strokes is about the development of endurance and stamina.
It also applies directly to building a foundation for rudiment study in general, which seems to lead to everything else we do as drummers.

I've never been hired because I can play fast.  I get hired because I keep steady time, listen to what's going on around me and play tastefully.  So I'm told.

Well if my math is right that is 800 which is respectable for sure, remember also, that alot of those guys are not clean, especially up in the high numbers. 800 clean is worth more than 1100 sloppy, just my $.02

EDIT: I should have stated when I refer to "those guys" in the WFD I'm not referring to guys like Art verdi, Tiger Bill and the like.

I've not heard of Psycroptic and their website didn't seem to have any audio up there so I can't comment on Mr. Hayley's musicality. If it is Speed, or Death, or whatever metal,  I don't dismiss that genre or the players who play it, I think takes a pretty good amount of skill and hard work to get to a level to play that fast with such endurance. BUT I will say that most of what I hear from those drummers is pretty one dimensional where most of the emphasis is on pure speed (Now, I'm not putting Mr. Hayley in this group because I've never heard his playing).

I see a lot of drummers today on YouTube, Google, in music stores and even at gigs just trying to  blast through everything at 300bpm but I hear little else in their playing that says anything. I also notice that when a lot of players like that slow down to a normal tempo they have absolutley no feel, or groove, it all sounds flat.

We drummers are spoiled today, there are literally tons of videos we can simply dial up on the internet to watch, and I've done a ton of watching over the past year.

In particular, I recently viewed solos by Mike Mangini and Vinnie Colaiuta and what struck me was the difference in the depths of their playing.

I've got nothing against Mike M. but his solo was really, really, fast and had the usual complement of polyrhythmic and flashy things but it lacked dimension to me. Vinnie C. on the other hand was really, really fast, had some polyrhythmic stuff going on but he was doing so much more with it. Speed was not the sole emphasis of his playing. He not only has fast singles but he uses a lot of intricate stickings and breaks up the patterns into different permutations for some really multidimensional sounds.

Mike M. is no slouch and I'm betting he has a faster single stroke roll than Vinnie but (in my opinion) players who approach things like Vinnie make better use of the multiple tools available to them.

On other drum forums, (and even here, but less so) I see posts from younger drummers whose sole criteria for judging their favorite drummers is how fast they can play or how "monster" a guys chops are. I like it when a drummer has great chops, and I'm not always from the "less is more" school, but I like it best when the drummer:

* Can keep time
* Plays in a groove with a great feel. That is terribly overlooked today.
* Has a signature sound: Gadd, Garibaldi, Bozzio, Vinnie C, Keltner, Porcaro, Tony Williams all do or did.
* Plays with taste but knows when and where to blow things open now and then.
* Plays musically for the song.

So circling back around to the subject of the post, being fast is good, but it is only one factor of playing. There are plenty of monster drummers around who don't play really fast. (I don't think Zigaboo Modeliste ever played anything like a fast single stroke roll but his groove was so deep you didn't care about anything else).

So if being fast is the only thing in your bag of tricks it gets old quickly.

Ok, I'm off my soapbox and back to work