🐝 Buzz rolls

Hey fellow drummers!

This last week, I decided to do some work with Stick Control.

When I got to page 12, I realised that my buzz rolls were terrible, so I went in to my regular drum lesson ready to ask my drum teacher about this! 🐝 

To be honest, as a kit player they’re not something I’d (consciously) find myself using all that much, but I’ve discovered that practising them has been a challenge and resulted in much softer hands, which is always a bonus.

Check out this week’s article with some hints and tips around improving your bzzzzzz…

👉️ Credit cards at the ready…we’ve got some pointers to some gear reviews, including a new line of cymbals from Zildjian 💰️ 

👉️ Drumming news, including a new world-record ⏱️ 

👉️ Your “todo” list to provide inspiration ✅ 

👉️ Top five videos 📺️ 

Stuck for something to do? Here’s some ideas…

✅ Strengthen your swing: work on your swing, grab a copy of “progressive steps to syncopation…” or “drummer’s complete vocabulary” and spend some time with them.

✅ Don’t forget your feet: Follow Claus Hessler’s video and spend some time improving those lumps at the bottom of your legs 🦶 

✅ Learn your latin: Spend an evening with Tommy Igoe working on some rhythms that may be outside of your usual comfort zone 💃 

Are your buzz rolls stinging you? 🐝 

🥱 I know, I know…if you’re still here after that horrendous opener, let’s try and sort it out!

Or…if you’re like me and never really put much time into buzz rolls, you may find - also like me - that the process of trying to deliver a buttery-smooth buzz roll and fitting it into the context of other stroke types (see step 2 below) really improved my hands…

Luckily, most can get to a decent buzz roll fairly quickly - though it can take some time an practice to get good (as per usual, amiright? 🙄 ).

You can find some tips after we outline a two step process.

✅ Step 1: Watch the video below and work on the 4 steps it details

Nice video from Rob Knopper 👆️ breaking down the roll and providing some steps for building it up.

Once you have a certain degree of competence, let’s kick into step 2.

✅ Step 2: Stick control

Deciding to spend some time with Stick Control (no apologies) and finding out that my buzz rolls weren’t buzzing was what kicked this topic off for me.

Page 12 (Part of “Short Roll Combinations”) was where I came unstuck. They are referred to as “closed” rolls in the book, which is a synonym for the buzz.

Grab your copy of the book, get the metronome going and spend some time on it.

If you’re not sure what these rolls should sound like, check out this video from Aaron Levy.

I found that the combination of the buzz roll within the context of other strokes was very useful to hand development generally. Stick control doesn’t specify stroke height, so I tend to try and practice at different stick heights. Makes sense, right?

Having to apply these dynamics was a challenge in itself, but when it came to the end of my practice session - which is usually “free play - go nuts, have fun” - my playing was so much smoother and relaxed.

Tips 👌 

🎯 Keep a fairly relaxed grip. There’s a huge instinct to dig in and grip the sticks pretty tightly when buzzing, but this will hurt your hands over time (it’s not sustainable for a long buzz) and not achieve the desired sound. Keep it relaxed, and when you find yourself doing this, go back to basics and practice the strokes on each hand individually.

🎯 Practice different stick heights. As per the video above, make sure you practice the buzz roll with the sticks at different heights. Maybe start low, then progress. When you move to stick control exercises, for the non-buzz rolls, try these at different heights. The dynamics and having to move from the closed (“buzz”) roll will challenge you.

⏱️ Metronome. Use one! When practicing the exercises, using a metronome will help to ensure that your strokes are evenly spaced and landing in the right places.

🐸 Pad? Playing these exercises on a pad is really useful, but keep in mind that to have a convincing, useable buzz roll, the snare drum is much more forgiving. I’m not suggesting you settle for poor technique, but in a pinch, you’ll probably get away with it on a snare drum if you need something workable for a gig. Just be sure to come back to the pad once the gig is done… 😉 

🏃 Keep at it. Nothing good comes easy, or quickly. Getting very good will take time and consistency, as ever. Don’t get disheartened, have faith that being consistent will yield results!

Paper Talk

Zildjian has a new line of “K Paper Thin” crashes. There’s a bunch of videos starting to appear, but here’s an intro from Drum Center of Portsmouth including demos.

They sound nice through decent headphones, though nothing beats a live demo, so I’ll be on the lookout for some.

Everything in it’s right place

As drummers, we tend to have much more gear than other musicians and we are in a position where we need to get that gear consistently set up each time we move it around.

Having something out of whack can really affect how comfortable you are and subsequently affect performance!

Until I started gigging fairly regularly, I’d never bothered to mark a drum rug in order to map the position of my gear.

“Vegas Alien” posted a review of Meinl’s rug markers this week. I currently use the protection racket markers which I have found to be great (actually with a Meinl rug).

Maybe it’s not something everyone thinks about in terms of gear, but for a small investment I think markers are worthwhile to make sure I’m comfortable with my setup when I gig.

Metal Madness

“Timbo from Keno” takes a look at 7 metal - “not the genre” - snares!

💰️ …opens wallet… 💲 

Allister Brown set a new world record for drumming endurance in memory of his partner, who died of pancreatic cancer in 2021.

What an incredible achievement.

If you’d like to give, you can do so via Just Giving.

Drumming and Autism

The beneficial effects of drumming for teenagers with autism is something that is being studied, with Clem Burke an advocate of including it as part of the teaching curriculum in England.