Ep. 6 - Player's Guide Deep Dive: Drum Mode

Double stops, dynamics, and diddles, oh my! Tune in to hear the team discuss the distinctives of drumming in Player's Guide for the Beginning Percussionist. Learn why the drum portion of the book is laid out the way it is, and how it can help you take your students to the next level. 

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Transcript

UNKNOWN 0:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Welcome to the Team Islas Podcast, Episode 6. My name is Doug Bush, and today I'm joined by... Patricia Islas. And... Zach Scheer. And this is the podcast for anyone looking to better themselves in percussion education. Today we're going to talk about how the Player's Guide handles learning to drum. If you're not sure what the Player's Guide for the beginning percussionist is, go ahead and hit pause, check out Episode 5, and we'll see you in a tight 20 minutes. All right? So, let's get started. Welcome back, friends. Here we go. Player's Guide for the Beginning Percussionist. Yeah, and the construction of the snare drum book or the drum book, or I actually, this might be the most important thing to talk about right off the bat. I didn't even think of it as a snare drum book as much as a primer for developing fundamental skills necessary to be a percussionist. And it happens to be on a pad, and it happens to possibly be most transferable to a snare. But we need our students to play timpani or quads or bass or toms or what have you, or marimba or vibraphone. And we want a lot of these fundamental core concepts to carry over. So in this process, just like learning anything, any new skill, we tried to approach this with very long on-ramps where you develop one simple motion or musical concept and you build that over time and over time. When I was younger, it was very popular to have method books that were separated by things like rudiments, right? And if you went to like a physical trainer I don't think they'd be like okay for the next hour we're doing push-ups for just an hour and then we're never doing push-ups again and then next time we're doing just chin-ups right I mean maybe if David Goggins is your trainer but other than that you know you're going to have a little bit more of a holistic thing that is sequential and builds on itself a really good example of this is the rhythmic building blocks which is very similar to Mr. Benny Greb's rhythmic alphabet if any of you guys are familiar with that but it's essentially in its final completion form. It is 16th notes where the percussionist can play every single mathematical combination of rhythms dealing with four notes. So they could play the first note, the second note, the third note, the fourth note, or any combination of two notes or three notes. So this is introduced early on in level three as quarter notes and quarter note rest. We increase the tempo. It eventually becomes eighth notes with eighth rest. And then again, from level six to level seven to level eight to level 9 they're still playing this rhythmic building blocks as 8th notes with 8th rest but they're increasing the tempo little by little by little week after week after week before you know it you get to level 17 and not only can we play as 16th notes now but we're starting to use this rhythmic structure along with like checks for diddles and checks for accents and things like that so not only have I took the time to develop the ability to master feeling all these rhythmic syncopations if you will then when I go to learn a new skill or apply another skill I don't have to think about well what is the pattern I can focus on improving the skill I'm working on like so for example for diddles or flams or something of that nature so we have a lot of these things throughout and we wanted to establish very early on these methodologies of how to appropriately think before you play to think before you grab the and start hitting it to develop these skills. And one of the methods we used early on with that is checklists. Mr. Shearer, you want to talk about checklists?

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Yeah, absolutely. So it sounds so easy to say it, right? Like, yeah, getting your students to think before they play. Easier said than done. And I found that I could do that in class, right? I could get the room quiet. I could get every student looking at me and I could go like, okay, we're going to count. We're going to get our foot tap going. We're going to check our grip. And okay, now our sticks are going to come up. And I could like sculpt this time where we would get everything right so that when we started playing, they had the best chance possible of executing well and learning, right? But then it I feel like, you know, okay, that's great. But if you can't get them to do that when they go home and practice, it's kind of, don't waste your time. You know what I mean? Like if you cannot get them to at least try to replicate setting themselves up for success when they go home and practice, well, then they're also not going to develop that habit and set themselves up for success when they walk into their middle school band or when they go into like a real playing situation. So one of the things I found myself doing a lot and this is reflected in the book in many ways but I found myself trying to get at like hey Johnny tell me about your practice setup at home what do you do like where is it what room is it in where is your music stand what distractions are around you but then also talking to my students a lot about like okay when you're about to practice what are you actually doing and the answers you'll get are terrifying so that it was so as we're talking about, you know, writing this book and what should go in there. One of the things we developed was like, okay, we want to put a simple little checklist. This shows up in the beginning of the book. Um, in the first few levels that a student can look at and go like, okay, before I play, here is what I should do. So for instance, level two, here's the checklist for level two. And these actually have little check boxes next to them, uh, in the book. Uh, the first one is a review to make sure my grip is perfect and perfect is underlined Right. So like, how am I holding the sticks before I move on? Second one, my metronome is on, I can hear it and it's set to 80 to 90 beats per minute. And that second little part right there, I can hear it. Like I, I found from talking to my students sometimes that their setup, whatever it was, was had the metronome like over on a table, you know, across the room or something. And it's like, well, do you think you can really hear it when you're playing? And they're like, Oh no, no, I can't. No. And It's like, well, why is it on? So that's just,

SPEAKER_02 6:34

I've even had where they, they have the volume down. Cause they think there's just supposed to look at it. They think they're supposed to see the blink. And like, I just, I play with the blink that I see.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Yeah. And it's one example of something like in class, we're running the metronome for them. Right. But at home, they're not like, they're now their own teacher. They're running

SPEAKER_00 6:54

them for themselves. They're practicing. There might be a TV on or video games happening or

SPEAKER_01 6:59

the dogs barking. Yeah. Yeah. So just a lot going on. So like my metronome is on, I can hear it and it is set to the correct tempo. Third checklist, third little box here. My foot tap is with the metronome before I begin. Again, this is something you might be the world's best teacher at like getting those foot taps perfectly in time before we start. And that's great in class, but at home they may or may not do that. The last one, when I play, my motion is smooth and consistent. So we want them to think about a physical thing, again, right before they play. So just a little example. It's not the same in every level, but this is something that's coming up at the beginning of the snare drum book to really try to make sure your students are set up for success when you're not there.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Yeah, what I love about this is there's clearly so many new things that are being introduced at the same time. So it's difficult for them to prioritize what is the most important or what I should be paying attention to today or this week. But this checklist really It really just narrows in on building really good habits that are going to allow them to set a very high standard for whatever they're playing, whether it's stickings or playing lines or different techniques in any of the levels. They're always going to be able to reference these habits that they've built in very clearly in the first few levels with this checklist.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And then one of the other things that's introduced in level two, Mr. Bush, I think you're going to talk about is double stops. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I've been very

SPEAKER_02 8:31

fortunate throughout my career to have had, we've all had just these outstanding musicians and drummers that have gone on to do these incredible accomplishments. And I would like to think a part of that comes from, I very much enjoy studying people that are successful in multiple endeavors and the things that they have done to become successful, whether it is a Navy SEAL or an athlete or a musician or a author or a chess player or whatever. And I like to look for the commonalities. What are things that kind of all these people are doing? And one of those is analyzing the methods in which they're learning their craft and kind of, for lack of a better term, like trimming the fat or reprioritizing, essentially not just doing something because that's the way it's always been done, but more like, what is it that I'm actually trying to achieve and how do I get there? And so there's a wonderful podcast, Rhythmic Wavelengths. Missy Sloss and I got an opportunity to be guests on it on its inaugural season with our friends Riley and Shannon out at Forney. And they were asking about this in the book, and I looked at Riley and Shannon, and I said, here's an example of some of the innovation you'll find in the drum book. Of your percussionists that you teach right now, what instruments do they play on a regular basis that they play more flams than double stops? And they thought, and they looked at me, and they both said, yeah, snare, snare, yeah, yeah, okay. It's like, what instruments do your percussionist play right now that they play more double stops than flams? And Riley, his head exploded right there, live on camera for everybody. He's like,

SPEAKER_03 10:14

whoa,

SPEAKER_02 10:15

like everything else. Like I would argue, I mean, it depends on who your arranger is, but I think that the quads at Coppell play just as many, if not more double stops than they play flams with their arranging. So again, it goes back to the first thing I said, where the pad, sometimes we you look at the pad and we go, this is an analog for snare drum. And our approach was like, no, this is an analog for music for you, you know, communicating music through my hands. Uh, and I want to be able to take these skills to anything. Uh, I also have just a firm belief that if I can't play a good double stop, if I can't make a good sound with my hands together, they're not going to sound really good when I separate them. So, uh, we introduced double stops like immediately, right, right off the bat. And then one of the other things we get to very soon in the process, Mr. Shear is this tap count clap method what is this

SPEAKER_01 11:02

yeah the tap count clap method is uh our recommended method to you the teacher uh in order to help your students be successful when learning and practicing specifically new rhythms and the idea here is that we're going to get learning the rhythms of a given line and the coordination of like how that syncopation works how does this rhythm work against the downbeat how does it work against subdividing eighth notes we're going to get all that out of the way and locked down before I actually have to pick up sticks and focus on playing these rhythms well with good technique and making a good sound, right? Like if we can have them focus on the fewest number of things at a time, their success level is going to go up. So tap, count, clap, we're working on the rhythms before we actually pick up sticks and try to make like a great, beautiful rebound stroke. And our recommended method in order to do this for you is laid out on page three It's level three of the book and it's laid out very clearly. Number one, tap your foot exactly with the metronome. So we are advocates of tapping your foot and having an amplified metronome that the students can hear in class all the time, especially, I mean, you're going to turn it off at some points, but not in level three. You're not turning it off in level

SPEAKER_02 12:23

three. You know, I mean, I see this very often with younger educators. Hey man, I don't do the foot tap. Why not? Oh, well they play better without it. And it's like, no, they don't. You're fooling yourself. You're fooling yourself. And you're accepting the short-term win, and you're sacrificing the long-term game by doing that. Because they're just kind of going through the motion. They're not actually subdividing or feeling the beat if that foot is not tapping with the metronome.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Absolutely. Yeah, I had a conversation with a good friend who was kind of saying that, Mr. Bush. They were like, well, you know, I mean, if they don't tap their foot, I'll let them leave it out sometimes. And I was like, okay, wait. So let's say you're teaching upbeats and they're not tapping their foot, but they're playing upbeats. How do you know, even if the med is on, right? How do you know that internally they are actually feeling that as an upbeat, if their foot isn't tapping on the downbeat, like you don't, you know, so, um, big advocate of foot tap. Um, and then, and so our tap count clap method is laid out here. Number one, tap your foot exactly with the metronome, which is going to be quarter notes. Number two, count one and two and three and four. And so count eighth notes out loud all the time, even during rests. So before the student looks at, or regardless of what the student is about to look at on the page, whether it's quarter notes or eighth notes, whether it's rhythmic building blocks or an etude or a duet, they know I'm going to be tapping quarter notes. I'm going to be counting eighth notes out loud the whole time. And then number three is clap the rhythms in your music. do not clap on rests. So it's, it's very simple. Clap what you see against your counting out lot of eighth notes and the tapping of your foot. And this is a method that worked very well for me. I actually did not do this when I started at Coppell, um, did something very different and was kind of hesitant to switch. But when I switched, it was number one, it was just easier for me as a teacher, right? It was like, we know exactly what we're going to do. The students know I could just say, okay, count, tap, clap, flip on the met one, two, ready to go. and they knew exactly what we were going to do but the result was also better the last thing I'll say about this is do we like Mr. Bush just said do we recommend you tap your foot your students tap your foot yes do we recommend that you tap count clap every line before you play it yes however just like in our previous episode episode 5 we are not going to pigeonhole you pedagogically so if you've got your own method that you really believe in good for you and if that works absolutely we recommend recommend that you try this. We would love to know if you try it, what your experience is. Um, but this book will still work even if you don't do that.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

Yeah. And this, this method of the subdividing all of the rhythm, like subdividing the eighth notes, as opposed to going one and, and, or whatever, right? Like his universally worked every single time. There are two things in my career, this and switching from traditional grip to match grip on snare to the this day anyone that has actually done it and tried it every person i know has come back and been like yes my life is easier the kids are better musicians they're able to do more i really think uh it always startles me how difficult it is to get people to just try it you know i feel like it's its own episode i don't want to stay here for about 45 minutes but again like mr sheer said uh man i hope that you'll try it and get back with us um you know maybe you'll be the first. Oh, I tried those eighth note subdivision and my kids can't play in time anymore, right? You know, if you're the first, let me know. But regardless, the book is written in a manner that you can use any method you'd like, right? One of the hallmarks, I would say, of both our music, Missy's last, but also just the performers we've had over the years, the musicians and students we've had is their dynamic contrast and expression. You want to talk a little bit about the dynamics in here?

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Yeah, um, Having a good control and understanding of a wide range of dynamics is crucial to being an excellent musician. And we've gotten constant comments about how mature the touch and dynamic range of our high school students is. And I think there may be some curiosity to how we get that to happen at the high school level. And the truth of it is, it starts with the beginners. One of the things that we really wanted to implement in the book is dynamics being introduced very early and throughout the course of the entire book. So the first time dynamics are introduced is in level one with the dynamical forte. And it's actually introduced in an interesting way in that it has the term, the symbol, the definition, the height, if you're into using heights, and a description of the sound. So for forte in level One, we might have the term is forte, the symbol is the F, the definition is loud, the height is 12 inches, and the sound is using your outside voice like at a party. So this gives plenty of information for the student to understand what forte means from different angles. And then how it's implemented in the rest of the levels is when we get to level five, we introduce our second dynamic of piano. And it's got the same chart of all of these different options. And in the playing lines, it's very strategic. There are many playing lines that use forte and piano, but none of them use them together in the very first level. It's either forte or it's either piano, so the student has time to readjust their heights and their technique so that they can be successful with both dynamics. In the very next level, we introduce crescendos and decrescendos. So now we have a method the students can use to travel from one dynamic to the other in the same line that is technically going to be achievable. And so there's a lot of thought into the placement of these dynamics when they're introduced and how they're implemented for the students like for example the first time that the dynamics are played in the same line and there's no crescendo or decrescendo there's intentional rests within the rhythms so they have time to adjust their hands which leads to more success more variety of control that they're not only going to take to dynamics obviously but other techniques that they'll need to be able to manage in their hands at an early level and we'll will give them the tools to be successful when they get to concert band. Because often we've all seen the band director yelling more and more that needs to be softer, it needs to be softer, but those poor kids don't have that dynamic in their hands to be able to access. So it's not ever going to be softer. They're just going to keep yelling. So this gives them a chance, a fighting chance. And it also communicates to the students, the dynamic isn't this after effect thing that we address later in the year, that it is a part of the music, just like the notes and the rhythms are a part of the music.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

Yeah, absolutely. And one of the words that you use a lot there, Missy, is that I think people don't associate with dynamics enough is the word control, right? Like this is how they're gaining control. As I've gotten older, I've thought of it more and more like a basketball player or a tennis player. Like I need to be able to have the control to shoot the ball anywhere on the court and get the ball to act the way I want it to, in this case, going in the hoop or whatever, right? By doing these dynamics, I have just discovered spending more time on dynamics has made accent to tap better because the student has more control and they have a greater understanding of what an accent is and a tap is because they have a clearer idea of what that middle ground is and uh you know this is how the downstrokes are actually developed in this book our our dear friend and master educator mr jeff osdemore would say we're using expression to teach downstrokes and what that all that means is that in level six you begin a downstroke builder that is essentially play it forte and then take an entire measure to day crescendo, play a piano, take an entire measure to crescendo. And then each level, the day crescendo and crescendo happens faster and faster. So instead of a whole measure, it might be a half a measure, just a couple beats. And then we get to a point where you're just playing piano quarter notes and mezzo piano quarter notes, boop, boop, boop, boop, right? And now I'm playing piano and mezzo forte. Now I'm playing piano and forte. And this is every week, every level, a new thing. And then by the time you hit level 12, boom, you're playing accident tap, you're playing bucks. And again, I've for years watched educators that I would come in to teach lessons. They'd be like, okay, Mr. Bush, this is downstroke week. Okay. This is Mr. Freeze. Stop the stick, tap, tap, tap, or whatever, you know, their method. And, um, yeah, it was always very difficult for the students and very difficult for the teachers. So this is another example of just taking our time, spreading it out and giving the students chances to kind of like develop these skills over time. Can I just say,

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Mr. Bush? Yeah. I was terrified of that day as a teacher. I would be walking into, because I used to do this sort of the way you describe, and I would be walking into class that day thinking like, I mean, I probably woke up that morning at like four, right? In a cold sweat.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

This beautiful rebound stroke I've

SPEAKER_01 21:52

been cultivating. Right, yeah. And I just would think like, it's downstroke day. Okay, it's downstroke day. And as a teacher, it It was like this pressure of pressure of like, don't screw it up because today is it like it's all happening today. And, um, if you're, if you have a longer on-ramp, like you described, it allows you to, because students aren't going to get it perfect right off the bat. Right. So it allows you to like develop those technical nuances that need to be corrected and developed over a longer period of time. So,

SPEAKER_02 22:23

yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Now, if you're a fan of the podcast and you already know the answer to this step one is It's timing. It's timing. It's timing. of the motion of my hands to stay in time. So you could think a very classic example might be like 16th note, three note timing, stuff like that, right? And then rhythm change timing, which is where I have to navigate going from one rhythmic subdivision, like eighth notes to a new one, like triplets. Now, other method books will include the motion-based timing. There's very little spatial timing to be found in other beginning method books. And often when it is, it's only in like an exercise or it's like, okay, here's the etude where we're going to deal with some whole notes. Man, you want to trip up, not just some beginning kid, you want to trip up some high school kids, throw a dotted quarter rest in their face, man. Yeah, that is where the students struggle is with space, which is what they navigate more in their band music, right? So there is considerably more space and subdividing and rest in this method book than I've seen in any other beginning method book. And there are some method books out there that don't even touch the rhythm change as So again, I feel very confident saying that we introduce more of that. And just as I said earlier with the dynamics control, I've noticed the same thing with rhythm. By getting comfortable with triplets, I understand my 16th notes and eighth notes better. By getting comfortable with five-lets, I understand my six-tuplets and my 16th notes better because I know what is happening between the two, right? So having all those involved is extremely important. There's also a lot of other common things that I've noticed or issues that educators have kind of every year when they're going to teach percussion or drums and examples of some of these things that we tried to fix. Mr. Scheer, what are some of these other things, small problems we're trying to solve here?

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Yeah, just like you said, Mr. Bush, there are these things that like every year at like TMEA or PASIC or something we'd be talking about, I'd be talking to some other teacher, we'd be talking about beginners and I was like, oh man, my kids do that same thing every year. What is with that? And a couple of those, we were just like, let's put, please put these in the book. One example, four eighth notes beamed together do not equal four sixteenth notes. Newsflash. I know this is a shock to all the sixth grade percussionists listening right now. But the first time they would see, because, you know, when eighth notes are introduced, it's always like two of them beamed together, right? And then we might get to an eighth rest and an eighth note, like with a flag. But then sometime, and it would always, seems like it would always happen in their band music, right? I'm going in there. Everything's great. I've got the instruments laid out. Everything's good. The middle school band director's happy. As soon as I step out of the room to go to my next thing, Johnny sees four eighth notes beamed together, and he goes, Juanita! And the band falls apart, and now I'm getting yelled at. So on page 26, for those of you following along at home, top of page 26, eighth note beaming. It says very clearly, I won't read the whole thing to you, but it lays out that Yes, eighth notes always have one beam, but that one beam can group together, can beam together four eighth notes, and that does not equal four sixteenths. And so that's explained there. And it's also written out like with an image that says four eighths, and then it has the does not equal sign and then four sixteenth notes. So just an example of like something small that always gets messed up that we're trying to address in the book. Another one is one sixteenth note versus four sixteenth notes. I feel like a lot of times we get the explanation of a flag on an eighth note really well, but when it comes to seeing one 16th note and those two little flags, there's a lot of confusion there. That's laid out very clearly on page 17. Another thing is what is a release? There's like this informal thing we all do as experienced percussionists, right? If the three of us were to play an exercise right here, right now, without even talking about it, we would just add the release. But to a sixth grader, it's like, wait, what is that? And little things like this can just become a source of confusion of confusion and a lack of efficiency and wasted time in your class if you're not careful. And so that's explained very clearly. What is a release? How do we do it? How's it going to work in this book on page 10? Just three examples of common misunderstood things that we're trying to get out of the way so you can spend more time teaching.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think it's worth mentioning that before releasing this book, I had already written two best-selling sneer drum method books, an intermediate one, Super hands and a advanced one master hands as well as a best-selling beginning solo snare solo book opening statement so as a composer looking at this and kind of comparing it to some other resources and thinking about my students it was important that the musical lines were indeed musical right and sometimes i would see some of the the other things that i my students were being asked to play early and it felt more like they were riddles or like they were trying to intentionally maybe trick student and I didn't know that it didn't feel like they were being set up for what type of things they were actually going to be playing in band or for the percussion ensemble concert so I tried to be very mindful with that and you know down to there are multiple quotes within this book you're going to see some Bolero there's going to be some Gustav Holst Mars in there there's claves there's cascaras and so if you as an educator or when you as an educator catch those things you then also have the educational opportunity there to talk about like this is what a clave is and maybe even play music with it if you would like if not the student is still playing a very common rhythm or they're playing things that have stood the test of time musically or they're embedded in there right and again I want to reiterate that you know one of the things teaching with the master Michel Lebrecht for years that we just really noticed with the beginners to know if they are truly subdividing and keeping track is space and so we just tried to be very mindful of having more space than normal as we're writing it. Speaking of the music in here, we have not one, but two pad jams, and not one, but two snare solos. Missy Sloss, you want to talk about those?

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Yeah, I want to take a minute to brag about you a little bit. You're definitely, Mr. Bush, a prolific composer, and one of the things that I have witnessed watching you create some of these outstanding books is and solos and percussion ensembles that you've written is your ability to make a variety of difficulty levels sound musical. And that's not something that's easy to do. And I've seen you put a lot of effort into making that possible so that, you know, with the player in mind, right? You know, just because they're in the middle school level doesn't mean they can't play something that gets them excited about playing music. And I think that's true for both of these pad jams. You know, you've got your pad jams that you know you potentially use for your percussion concert the very first time your sixth graders are getting out there in the world and performing for you know aunt vicky and grandma and all these people right you want to have something that is that they're going to be excited about and that the audience obviously is going to hype because that's going to make them feel great about their very first stressful performance and we've seen we've all seen variations of that but this book offers two versions that you know are two different difficult levels could potentially be used if you have a concert happening in different times of the year. You have your first one, which is called It's Clobbering Time, which is really fun. The tracks for this one and for the other one, the play along tracks, are really cool. The kids love them. I have to be really mindful that I don't take it personally when I'm in lessons with a student at this time of the year. And at the end of the lesson, the student asks me, can we uh can we end a little bit earlier because i think we're playing with the track today and i'm super excited i can hear them pulling it up right now i really i've been listening to it all week uh i really want to go play with them um so they're really fun the kids get excited about them and i think uh mr bush you do such a great job at balancing the uh independent playing versus the unison playing um so there's moments in in the etudes or in the solo the pieces where uh the students have to kind of be independent but not with not sacrificing that opportunity to play together as a group and one of the other really cool factors in both this one and the second one drumming till the sun comes up is that they start with the track for a couple of measures and then there's a solo measure that you could potentially use in a number of different ways with your students so it could be that you're using that solo as a challenge to get the students to learn their music at a higher level so you have a little competition in the class of who plays this part the best well they're going to get to play the solo at the beginning or maybe if you have some elaborate we turn off the lights and we get glow sticks and we have the fireworks and we have all those things and you want the students to have the music memorized then this could be like a carrot to get them to do that faster and it also means that you don't have to have a conductor that it can be self-sustaining when they're in the performance setting so I think those are both great and the tracks can be found on YouTube, I believe on our YouTube channel, Timmy's last YouTube channel. That's right. So they're available even if you don't have the book to go and listen to and check out. And then that leads me also to the two solos that are in the book, potentially to be used for a solo contest or maybe just as a musical practice to prepare them for solos that they'll have later in middle school and high school. And the two solos actually come from your previous book called Opening Statement, which is a collection of maybe middle school, beginning level snare drum solos that range from very simple to quite complex. And the two solos in this book, in the beginning book, are the very first solo in the book, Drum Eat Sleep. It's actually not. I'm sorry. I spoke incorrectly. It's the second solo in Open Statement, Drum Eat Sleep Repeat, and then a more advanced version called Tony Pepperoni. And like I said earlier, these are both very musical solos. They include a variety of different skills and not just one technique or one idea that will allow the students to learn what it means to put together a solo at a level that's achievable.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

Yeah, wow. Missy Sloss, thank you for the kind words. Oh, you're welcome. For those of you that aren't aware, I buy Missy Sloss boba tea every day. So that might color some of her feelings here. But thank you so much. Thank you so much. Hey, you can't talk snare drum and not talk about diddles. My gosh, triplet rules, right? Mr. Shear, how we approach diddles in this book?

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Mr. Bush, you're right. You can't talk about snare drum and not talk about diddles. And I was just thinking of like, I wonder how many gray hairs are on my head from long conversations I've had with, I mean, I could name 20 great percussion teachers that I've been like, how do you teach diddles? And then like, what am I doing wrong? Or like, I did this one thing that really worked. are you doing this? And so two methods have come out of that, that I think there's kind of a consensus that most people use some version of one of two methods to introduce and teach the sensation to their students of playing a diddle and then develop that into like a rhythmically accurate, usable technique for your music. And the first one, and again, for those of you following along at home, this is level 13, page 31 in Player's Guide. The first one is to play a rebound stroke, a free stroke, a legato stroke, whatever term you use, and let the stick essentially fall, playing a series of several notes until it ends in like a buzz and just lays on the pad. And then we're going to kind of shorten that and shorten that and shorten that until we're left with two strokes. And we're kind of developing that into a diddle. This is usually done without a metronome, maybe like kind of down the line, maybe all together. But that method is laid out clearly in a way not using sheet music, but in a way that represents kind of what that looks like and feels like to the student, that method is laid out clearly for you to use if that's your preferred method. The other method that I've experienced, and again, it seems to me is kind of very common, is to play, say, four rebound strokes in a row. This is usually in time with the metronome. And then without stopping, to then play four diddles. And you're trying to get the student to understand, hey, our wrist is going to stay the same, but we're going to make one two notes instead of one. Maybe you use the term bounce. Maybe you use the term diddle. There's a lot of different ways to do this. But the point we want to make here for you is that, again, going back to that term of flexibility, both of those methods are laid out here clearly in the level where we introduce diddles. So if you have strong feelings about one more than the other, this book is for you. If you use both, this book is for you. If you think you might change at some point in the future then this book is still for you. And I've been on all sides of that. Another thing that I have found works very well is to give the students some time. And I would always say this to my students, like, hey, before we start this, I want you to know, no matter how well you do today, this will not be great today. And it won't be great tomorrow either. Developing diddles that are excellent is a journey. If we do it correctly, they'll be good sometime in the future, right? And so that meant that I wanted to have some time to work on that physical skill of playing a diddle well before we jumped into having to play those in the music really well, right? So you'll find that in level 13, we introduced both of those methods and then give you the rest of the level to work on some other skills that are not as physical, but not have to force those those diddles into music immediately. They're going to be included in your daily review, which we mentioned at episode five. And then when you get to level 14, we're going to give you some, uh, exercises, chicken in a roll, some diddle builders, things like that to start to put them in a musical context. And then they'll start showing up in the lines in level 14.

SPEAKER_02 37:46

Absolutely. I mean, that's one of my favorite lessons with the younger kids when we get into the diddles. And I'm always like, Hey, if I was on the basketball team, would I need to practice my free throw shots? And they're like, yeah, yeah, but I'm on the team. I still got to practice them. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay, well, let's say I'm real good. I make it onto the high school varsity team. Clearly, I don't have to practice my free throw shots anymore, right? You know, no, you still gotta, what? Okay, oh gosh, I'm so good. I got a scholarship to college playing basketball. They're paying me. I ain't gotta practice my free throw shots. No, you still do, right? I've made the Mavericks, right? You know, right? And then I'm always like, hey, you think Mr. Bush still practices his diddles? Like, yeah, you know, so like having this, like, yeah, this is a long, long process, right? And we're here to help you through it with this resource. Guys, thank you so much for hanging out with us today and learning about the thoughts and methodologies that went within the drum portion of this book. Hang around for next week's episode where we dig into the keyboard portion of the book. Between now and then, if you have any questions for the podcast, please 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 Mr. Shearer, if our listeners want a beginning percussionist that can, and I quote from Level 21 Daily Review, a beginning percussionist that can play 16-note, 3-note timing, that can do advanced sticking, 16-note accent grid, fuzzes, fiddle grids, triplet rolls, Jedi 8s, flute, Flam accents, flam taps, rhythm chain, including fivelets, triplet accent grid. If they want a percussionist that can do all of these things, where can they pick up a copy of Player's Guide?

SPEAKER_01 39:39

Any purveyor of fine percussion materials, including Dallas Percussion,

SPEAKER_03 39:46

formerly known as

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Old Habits Die Hard, Dallas Percussion, Steve Weiss Music, your local music store, teamysloss.com, Lulu.

SPEAKER_02 39:57

Absolutely. Absolutely. Guys, don't forget to like and subscribe. And if you can play De La Cluse 9 and Drum Quorum Parade by memory, then give us a five-star review. Looking at you, Jeff Prosperi. Remember, friends, step one is time, step two is sound, and step three is subscribing to the Team Eastloss podcast.

UNKNOWN 40:28

BAM!