Ep. 4 - TIMING is #1, SOUND is #2

This episode breaks down the top two priorities in any percussion program—timing first, sound second—and why they matter more than anything else (even technique 👀). Doug, Patricia, and Zach share real classroom strategies, stories, and practical rehearsal ideas to help your students play in time and make better sounds. From mental reps and metronome work to teaching sound through modeling and listening, this one’s packed with takeaways you can use today.

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Transcript

UNKNOWN 0:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Salutation, friends, and welcome back to the Team Islas podcast, episode number four. My name is Doug Bush, and today I'm joined by

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Patricia

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Islas and Zach Sheer. And this is a podcast for anyone looking to better themselves in percussion education. Step one is timing. Step two is sound. Missy Sloss, why is timing step one? Why not technique or sound or something else?

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Great question. A number of reasons. The first, I would say, of all the elements we could observe or perform or using or skills that we might ask of our students to demonstrate, timing is quantifiable. It's not like technique where there might be various different approaches to technique or chops that might be more valuable or others, different rudiments or whatever. Timing is correct or it's not. And so it's very easy to assess of whether the players are doing it correctly or incorrectly. Very simple. Number two. It's one of the things that any audience will recognize if it's good or not, regardless of their experience with the instrument or the style of music. Grandma at the middle school percussion concert is going to know if everyone is playing together. She's going to notice that. But she might not notice if there's pinkies off the stick or maybe even if a wrong note is played on those practice marimbas on that little arrangement of Chucky Brown, right? She's not going to notice those things, but she will notice very easily if it's not together. And the same is true at your drumline contest or marching band competition. Adjudicators are going to be able to pay attention to that much easier than they are if there's a certain specific technique happening on the second row, on the third vibe, that's maybe a little incorrect or a little messy. It's something that's very accessible. And it's also something that allows us to make music to sound like music faster. If you get a piece for the first time, if timing is your most important skill that you value, then you can go from I don't know the piece to it sounds like a song very quickly if everyone in the ensemble has that ability. Number three, it's the experience of the player. If you've ever played in an ensemble yourself, you will remember that it's very difficult to concentrate on elements such as sound quality or technique or or reading the conductor, if the person next to you or another section in your ensemble is rushing or dragging. It's a thing that your brain has to spend time and energy processing that it cannot then give attention to those other things. So even if you as the individual player have steady time and have spent time effort cultivating that if there are other players in the section around you that struggle it's it's a thing so if your students are all equally concentrating on timing then um their experience is going to be easier they're going to be able to achieve more complex and uh more advanced literature easier and the time doing it will be more enjoyable

SPEAKER_01 3:46

yeah absolutely absolutely and it's so important that you establish this immediately and early on like as a uh if i was the basketball coach it's very binary I want the ball to go in the hoop ball goes in the hoop good ball doesn't bad right but unlike basketball what can be a challenge for some of the younger players is everyone in the room can tell that the ball went in immediately sometimes younger players with the Met on get so caught up in the technical aspects or any other type aspects, they might not even realize that they aren't necessarily perfectly in time with the Met. They have sped up or slowed down. So it's important that early in the process, you're teaching them the intentionality of playing with the Met and what that sounds like to be perfectly in time with the Met versus when they are speeding up or slowing down. And a big part of this is not just through demonstration, but is when you hear them getting out of time, stopping them and immediately asking them, did you speed up or slow down? Are you fast or are you slow? And helping train them to recognize what their tendencies are and the things that might get them to move one direction or another. I know that the way to approach timing early in the process has been really important to you, Mr. Shearer. How do you speak to this?

SPEAKER_02 5:07

Yeah, absolutely. So when I think about making timing number one, the first thing I think about is at the beginner level. So in my beginner percussion classroom, I'm going to say, yeah, timing is number one. I'm going to write it on the board. Timing is number one. If I could wear a shirt every day that said timing is number one, I would. But the thing that will really drive it home is not what you say, it's what you do, right? So every assessment I do, whether it's like the final of the whole year or just a weekly chair test, every single time there is an assessment at my beginner class, classroom, timing is going to be the thing that gets the most value. If I'm giving them specific, like if I'm giving them points, timing gets the most points. If we're doing chair tests, the person who has the best timing, I mean, obviously everything else can't be terrible, but the person who has the best timing is going to be first chair. So if student A plays with really, really excellent timing, maybe their they are going to score higher than a student who maybe does have a beautiful dynamic contrast, but it is not in time. So I think what you say to the students is great, but then what they're actually graded on and what they're assessed on is like what will really drive that home.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And if I could share a personal antidote from Coppell specifically, we were so fortunate a couple years ago to have Nate Smith, drummer extraordinaire, as a guest artist on our percussion concert, and he sent over a couple charts. We had about two weeks, I think, to put these charts together before he showed up, and I remember he came, did the rehearsal. You know, one of these tunes is in seven, maybe one of them was in 11, something like that, and we get done, and Mr. Smith is like, my gosh, these kids are tighter rhythmically than most of the professional musicians I played with back in Chicago. And that, That came down to the fact that you could have asked any of those kids, hey, what's the most important thing in percussion? And they universally would all say timing. It was a defined thing that had been there since the beginning, like Mr. Shearer said, and it's not a mystery, and the kids know it, and the kids can speak to that, right? Beautiful, okay, well, hey, step one is timing. Step two is sound. What is a good sound? Mr. Scheer, what's a good sound? How do you teach that?

SPEAKER_02 7:42

Great question, Mr. Bush. A great sound. Again, I think about most of the time I'm introducing sound, and specifically a new sound, it's at the beginner level. I envision myself in the room like, okay, probably it's coming up time for a Christmas concert, a holiday concert, and it's like, hey kids, this is a tambourine. This is a triangle, this is a bass drum. So, I first and foremost want to be sure, and this should start before that, this should start from day one, but I want to be sure that in my music classroom, I know this sounds obvious, but it's so easy to not focus on this. In my classroom here where we are teaching music, they first have an awareness of sound at all, right? And that starts on their practice pad. But then as I'm introducing, say, concert bass drum, the primary way I'm going to show my students what a good sound is, is I am going to demonstrate it I'm gonna describe to them, yes, what it should be, but then I'm also going to make sure they hear a deep, resonant, rich sound on a concert bass drum. And I'm probably gonna also demonstrate common mistakes. Like here, do you hear when I play over here? Or do you hear when I hit it this way? Does it sound, I might even just start with like, again, awareness. Does this, you know, here's option A, here's option B. Do they sound the same? No. Okay, good. That's step one. We got that. Now here's, and they might not know what's better or worse naturally, right? I don't know that I would expect them to know that, but I'll show them what is correct. Then I think over time, we're going to get them to understand why that's correct. I'm not sure they're going to understand that like on day one. But I'm going to help them be aware. And then, like I said, the primary way early on, they're going to learn what a good sound is by me demonstrating it.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Yeah, I think that's great. I liked you mentioning the demonstration part of it. I think this is something that we all know, but it's very easy to get out of habit of doing that. One of the things that I've maybe more recently tried to apply in my private lessons with students is especially at the middle school level where they're still learning what good sound even means is whatever they're working on have them play it and then I'll play the same segment and tell them not directly this needs to be louder play it like me or this needs to be softer or it sounds a little tense not give them any specific instructions to that but I will just play it and tell them to focus on how I sound and then allow them to play it again and then afterwards we discuss okay well what did you do differently the second time to sound more like me. So that they're having to analyze for themselves. I'm not giving them the answer. They're kind of analyzing it for themselves and giving themselves the answer. That seems to have more lasting effect for the next thing they're going to play or the next week that they're going to play. But one of the techniques that I use in a group setting that I have found very useful is to have individuals play and then there's a discussion around that. For me, an insightful moment in my education was when I went to the Lee Howard Stevens seminar that he does for four mallet technique. And I think I was just out of my freshman year of college. And so I was really excited. I'd already spent a lot of attention learning how to play with four mallets and his technique specifically. And it was a small group of us, about 30 students. And we spent a month with him and Shi-I Wu and a few other very highly skilled skilled educators and performers with regards to marimba playing. And one of my most favorite things about this seminar was we spent two weeks where each person would get up one at a time and Lee would correct technical mistakes, give suggestions to phrasing or sound quality devices that me getting to sit there and witness multiple people go up one at a time and have different sets of problems and him giving solutions was was eye-opening for me because I could see what the process was. Here is the problem, here's a solution to it, and then I could apply that to my own playing when I got home in the practice room. And so utilizing that same technique when I'm teaching a front ensemble, for example, I will demonstrate the sound that I'm wanting them to achieve, and then we will go through one player at a time and compare. Like, was that the same sound, a different sound, and why?

UNKNOWN 12:19

Or was that the same or different sound, If it's different, then what are some things that need to technically change to get it closer to the sound that we're all agreeing to?

SPEAKER_00 12:28

And for the students to go through time over and over and over and over again at solving those problems, it gives, empowers them to be able to solve them for themselves when they notice it in their own playing, whether it's as a group or especially in the practice room on their own. Instead of requiring me to tell them every single time I hear incorrectly, they can start to identify it in their own playing and they can start to identify it in their own playing. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

And I mean, fundamentally, so many great educators before us have said the same thing that if you yourself do not know what a good sound is, you cannot produce a good sound, right? And that's part of our responsibility is to educate, like, what is that sound, right? And so not just through our own demonstration, but I think the exposure to professionals, you know, more and more of our students nowadays aren't listening to as much music as they used to. music or the music they are listening to is heavily produced there isn't a lot of like acoustic performance on it and that's fine that's just you you need to just be aware that that's what that is but when I reflect on my own journey and I'm sure Mr. Sherman you could speak to so many of my greatest educators pointed me to specific albums and specific recordings and specific musicians to listen to I can remember Henry Oxdell you know sending me home with a Mac Croach thing and explaining to me you need to listen to this And just listen to the pianist. Don't listen to anyone else. Then listen to the tune again. Just listen to the upright bass, right? And do this process. And so this guided act of listening, I remember I then started to apply it not to Max Roach, but to Dream Theater. Because that's what I was listening to. And now all of a sudden, this song or this album I had been jamming for a year and a half, I thought I knew inside and out. I was hearing things I had never in my life heard before. I was hearing little calls and responses and conversations between Portnoy and Petrucci that were there the whole time, but because I never took time to actively dig into it. So again, your 14-year-old student isn't going to just know this. You have to kind of guide them to that, give them some recordings. I know that in the preparation for the all-region slash all-state process, the first thing that a cop hell student does when working on the snare piece is listen to rob knopper play de la clues one or nine that is the first thing because in the cop hell percussion program a lot of these students are very familiar with drumline and they go to drum corps shows they even march drum corps right they check out uh you know lots and things like that but they don't hear a lot of high-end orchestral snare drumming right and so If they only have 10 minutes to practice the snare piece, I want two minutes of that to be actively listening to the sound they are trying to replicate the next eight minutes, as opposed to just getting the music out and just playing on a pad and hoping it's going to sound good. And using that region process as a way to develop an awareness of sound or a good sound is something you were really familiar with, right, Mr. Scheer?

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Yeah, absolutely. Mr. Bush, I'm going to pause right there for just a second and ask you before I I talk about the Allstate process. Why sound number two? Why not technique number two? Because I know when you said this to me, I remember the day you said this to me, you were like, yeah, timing's number one, sound is number two. And I think I said right back to you, no, it's not. Technique is number two. And I was like, okay, we're talking about the Allstate process. Well, I think technique's pretty important in the Allstate process. You're talking about drumline. I think we need good technique for that, Mr. Bush. What, like... why are you right about that? I think technique is number two. Tell me why not.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

Yeah, absolutely, Mr. Scheer. So that was your response. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, which was great. And that was my response back. And correct me if I'm wrong, I think we kind of convinced you of the opposite and you try it and you play it. So I throw it right back at you. You tell me, Mr. Scheer, why sound number two instead of technique?

SPEAKER_02 16:34

So, okay, and this is why I brought this up at this moment because we're about to talk about the Allstate process. Sure. And I think the Allstate process demonstrates very clearly why technique is important. It's really important. And it's important as number three, bronze metal, right? Not gold and not silver. The Allstate process, if I'm trying to get my students to play at the absolute highest level as an individual on timpani, snare drum, and marimba, what we're trying to do is... play really well in time, and sound amazing in a blind audition. Nobody can see your technique, right? The technique doesn't get a score in the all-state audition. And it's because technique is a means to an end. Technique really only exists to serve timing and sound. So that's why that hierarchy exists. And to be honest, I think I... I think I kind of already thought that before we talked about it, but our conversation, and this is why it's so important to bring other people into your program, our conversation made me define it. And you saying it to me, I kind of had a gut reaction like, no, I don't think so. Then I was like, well, wait, what do I really think? And so talking about the Allstate process specifically and talking about teaching your students what an amazing sound is, how to be aware of it and how to make it I just think the Allstate process gives you a unique opportunity for a student to do that on an individual level. To spend, like, months on... A small amount of music, a snare drum etude, a timpani etude, and a marimba etude allows you to get notes and rhythms way out of the way, right? Like we've got that down, especially students that are going to make it to the end of the process where I think this sound idea comes in most. it allows them to go, okay, notes and rhythms, I've got that. Not that those aren't important, but I've got that. And now there's this whole other world, like what's next? I've still got a month left on this music, right? There's this whole other world for them to explore of sound. And so number one, they're doing it as an individual, which is important. Yes, ensemble sound, we can talk about that. But as an individual, what does it sound like when I play timpani? And then also, and I know outside of Texas, this might be different. I know for me and high school it was different but in Texas in most places in Texas in the actual all region or all state audition they're sitting in the room listening to everyone else play as well so that experience you know we get that experience as a judge but they also get that experience as a student to go okay wow I just heard 20 people play and again especially if you're later on in the process I just heard 20 high school percussionists play correct notes and rhythms on that timpani A2 and And everybody pretty much played the same tempo. There's some variance, but it's... And now... I, I, I, I also know that like out of those, everybody that played, we're going to be ranked first to last. Well, what are we using to rank? Uh, we all played right notes and rhythms. Well, after you sit there and listen to that, it's obvious sound is a huge, uh, decision maker and it really separates one player from another. So I just think that's a, such a unique process for a student to develop that at a high level.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Yeah. And I think where your gut reaction is a, is a very valid one, uh, for a to it's it's it's not we're not trying to say this is binary per se as much as like technique is a part a means to it right it's the way to communicate time and sound so its importance is is undeniable but i would also say uh it is significantly more tangible and easier for an educator to identify and teach i think even the three of us included if we took any percussion educator and it was like list technique things like keep pinky on the stick and have a good fulcrum and don't squeeze that list could be, but okay, now list how you teach sound. it's gonna be significantly shorter, because again, it's a more ambiguous thing. When I have that 12-year-old in the lesson or in class, and I say, you need to make a full, warm sound, they have no idea what that means. Even after I've demonstrated, they still don't. But if I say, the pinky should touch the stick, it's either on the stick or not on the stick, right? So we kinda confuse that sometimes with like, oh, but because I talk about technique so much, it must be the, and it's like, yes, it is absolutely important, but the whole point of talking about all this technique is just to facilitate them playing in time with a good sound, right? And speaking of which, maybe some more specific examples of exercises used for the development of sound. What are some things, Missy Sloss, you'd like to use?

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Yeah, I mean, I think we could all argue that any exercise is an opportunity to work on sound. But there are definitely some that I utilize for keyboard percussion, for example, that have opportunities presented to deal with challenges with regards to sound, but the exercise themselves is relatively simple. Sometimes when things get a little bit more complicated, then we have all these different factors to manage that muddy the waters. So a few examples of exercises that I like to use that can all be found in the book Momentum, which is my two-mallet book, one of which is an exercise called 8-4-2. Which, honestly, I most often teach on a pad with sticks or on a drum with sticks. It's a very simple exercise. It's basically an eight on a hand, four on a hand, two on a hand, eighth note-based exercise that then does the same thing in the second half with 16th notes. If you want to know more, look it up in the book. But it's a way to deal with constant motion, hand-to-hand techniques, but also a the types of sound quality that the students are achieving, especially when we do faster tempos, which can often add tension to the hands or stress in the body that can potentially alter the sound. Another exercise I really love is green. But a variation of green where we navigate different dynamic options. Crescendos, decrescendos, and a variety of different levels of dynamics. And the The very key factor there, I think, is the tempo that we choose to use. I try to find a tempo that is probably slower than most people would want to go, but at a tempo that is technically achievable for the player. The goal is to be able to navigate these different dynamics, but maintain a good quality of sound while doing so. And that can be really tricky if you go to tempos that are too fast. And then the third exercise that was actually a part of our drumline audition, I think maybe last year, is an exercise at the beginning of chapter six of Momentum called Bucks on Bars. And it's basically a bucks exercise, but it navigates tenudos as well at dynamics of piano, mezzo, piano, mezzo, forte, and forte. And the discussion is not necessarily about height differences as much as it is listening for the variations of sounds, sometimes at a really subtle level if you're at the piano or mezzo piano starting dynamic. So those are all three that I feel like all of my students need to go through and spend some quality time with.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Yeah, absolutely. Something that we've slowly modified and improved on over the years that is applicable in maybe your drumline situation is let's say it's fairly early in the season, you're rehearsing a phrase, you're going to do 10 reps of a phrase, right? Early in my career, I think we would have just played those 10 reps and, you know, given some technique comments and clarity comments in between a couple of them or whatever. But nowadays, if we have those 10 reps, the first rep is what we call a mental rep, which means the mech comes on, but no one is touching a drum. They can air stick or they can kind of use their fingers or maybe the basses can kind of lightly play on the rim, but they're auditing, which is kind of like visualization for music. They're singing in their head the exact quality of sound they want before they touch the instrument, right? So we're trying to get that mindfulness of I'm thinking before I speak. I'm thinking of the sound I want. Then rep two, the only people that are actually touching the drum are the center snare and the center quad. This way, as the rest of the line is all you dating the process, what they are hearing is the sounds that we are wanting them to model. I want you to all sound like the center snare and to sound like the center quad. And then from that point on, we'll slowly add in the rest of the line, like the baseline probably comes in the fourth rep. By about the fourth or fifth rep, everybody in the line is in. So you might go, oh, you know, Mr. Bush, before your in snare was getting 10 reps, now they're only getting five reps. But I would argue those five reps on the drum are significantly better for those players than the 10 reps where they're just ingraining their bad sounds over and over. They're never listening to the guy inside of them in the first place. They're not even aware of the dude's sound next to them or what's going on or that, oh, that was supposed to be the edge or that was supposed to be mezzo piano, right? So this has been very, very, very effective for us and helped us a bunch over the recent years in terms of like, you know, we do two separate drumline shows in the fall. We have the marching band show, which competes at Texas 6A state finals. So that's very, very intense, right? Multiple BOAs, so on and so on. And then we have a whole separate standstill drumline show, which has competitively been very, very, very successful. This is a lot of music. So those 10 reps, it's very purposeful of exactly what we do to get the best results kind of as soon as possible. And this is one that really reflects the fact that sound is number two. for us in our approach. Now, Mr. Scheer, again, when we first showed up at Coppell, this was not your inclination. What were some of the things as you maybe shifted gears that you noticed?

SPEAKER_02 26:52

So I'll say right off the bat, that one that you just talked about, Mr. Bush, when you first started, you started, I think, probably talking to me first before you talked to the students about doing a mental run. And I was like, oh, what? And witnessed you do that, implement that with the line and saw the results almost instantly because I love things like this, that it's like that instantly makes the group better. It instantly helps the students maximize what they can already do, I think is the right way to say it. And it doesn't take them going home and practicing more. It doesn't take more rehearsal time. It's just a, it's just a better way to rehearse that gets a better result period. And so, um, Yeah. I, I saw that and then went, okay, you know what? I think I can do this with the beginners too. So I started doing some mental reps with the beginners also. And I think the thing that was really powerful at the beginner level, like I always try to put myself in their shoes. Like I've only been holding sticks for 90

SPEAKER_01 27:57

days. So your shoes are untied. Half of your lunch is on your shirt. Right.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

Like this is my fourth period class. I was late to school today. Again, I've only held sticks in my life for like an 90 days. This guy wants me to tap my foot, take a chair test, count out loud. Oh my gosh. And sometimes we just throw them in the deep end. Even if it's just line four out of the book or whatever, if we can give them... There's a lot of different methods of count, tap, clap or whatever before, but then if we can also insert that mental run before they're actually asked to focus on the physical things, then it just helps them. Again, it's a better way to do things. It makes them more successful. Um, I also really noticed this is going back a little bit to the timing aspect. Um, and miss East loss, you touched on this. Um, I started to notice that when I made timing number one in all the ways we described specifically assessment and incentivizing the students to focus on timing more, like you said, we were able to play, uh, we were able to get our music to a better level faster. And this is the thing I wanted to add onto what you said, which allowed us to play more music.

SPEAKER_04 29:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

So if we wanted to bring in a guest artist or if we wanted to do whatever it was, we were able to get more music to an acceptable level faster.

SPEAKER_03 29:15

The

SPEAKER_02 29:16

other thing I started to notice is the band directors I worked with were happier specifically. And this is, I think really important to mention specifically like the top band kids, they're going to be fine. You know, those top band kids that are making their honor band recordings or whatever, they're going to be fine. But those second third band kids oh man like if those students from day one in their beginner class are really taught like if nothing else even if we don't quite get the dynamics or whatever else we play in time boy does that help that middle school second band you know and as someone who is married to a former middle school second band director like man does that help everybody so it's just it's so So, so powerful that, yeah, those, those things specifically are what I started to notice. And I'll say one more thing about the implementation of the timing thing. We talked about it in assessment on an individual basis, but when you're teaching a large group, specifically beginners or front ensembles, where I always experienced this, the tolerance level for timing, all together timing, just drifting away from the metronome. If you want your students, you want your program to be to really internalize this, that timing is number one. Your tolerance level for allowing your beginner class or your front ensemble to drift away from the mat needs to be zero. Not 1%, but zero. And Mr. Bush, I think you mentioned it, stop them as soon as that happens. Because they need to know. They might not have heard it, but they need to know, like send up a red flag, this is wrong. And then that will become something that they are very sensitive to, which then gets the end results you want, which is your students playing in time.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, guys. Hey, thanks so much for hanging with us today. If you have any questions for the podcast, send them to teamislas at gmail.com. That's teamislas, T-E-A-M-I-S-L-A-S at gmail.com. Shout out to all the great percussion companies that support Team Islas. This is Mapex Majestic Percussion, Remo Drumheads, Promark Sticks and Mallets, Sabian Cymbals, Beatle Percussion, and Lotri Apparel. Timing is step one, and sound is step two. Come from a list of 24 rules found in a best-selling snare method book. Missy Sloss, do you know what snare method book these 24 rules come from?

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Yes,

SPEAKER_01 31:46

I do.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Master Hands.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

That's right, Master Hands. And Mr. Shearer, where can these beautiful listeners pick up their very own copy of Master Hands?

SPEAKER_02 31:56

TmeSloss.com or your favorite music retailer such as Steve Weiss Music or Dallas Percussion.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

Absolutely, listeners. You might not know this, but Mr. Shearer just used to have hands. Now he has master hands. There's a video preview available on our YouTube channel, Team East Loss on YouTube, that has some of the exercises if you want to check it out. I'm personally a big fan of Eighth Note Party and Even Flow. Don't forget to like and subscribe. And if you can play in time with great sound, then give us a five-star review. Remember, friends, step one is time, step two is sound, and step three is subscribing to the Team East Loss podcast.

UNKNOWN 32:36

Thank you. Thank you.