I’ve been trying to play along with the click track for the fill in the first section of Grooving & Improving and it’s not quite working. I think what’s happening is that as I try to get the crescendo, I’m bouncing my fingers higher and higher so the rhythm gets thrown off. Any suggestions?
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You first want to be sure that that’s the problem by playing the fill consistently and then you probably want to set a metronome at a relatively slow tempo (like 90 bpm) and just try and hit on top of the metronome click at different velocities. So not even play the fill just boom boom BOOM boom (and even softer). Basically just mess around with loud and soft and getting familiar with that.
Another thing that might be going on is something super normal which is when you go louder you also go a little faster. That’s human nature and something you have to “unlearn”. I found that the best way to start unlearning that is again with a metronome and instead of focusing on your hands actually focus on your breathing first, sort of going all yoga-zen style, with deep consistent breaths. And when you got that breath going you try and make a cresendo going louder and louder while staying completely relaxed breathing yoga breaths. That prevents you from speeding up.
Maybe there’s some more stuff you can try, let me know. We can also talk about this a little in the upcoming livestream maybe.
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@Zephyr I’m so glad you brought this up. I had the same issue and it still resurfaces. I wonder if our brains haven’t adapted to our being able to make such big noises with tiny taps. I have to train myself to incrementally add dynamics with precision. I’m going to do Rob’s suggestion to just practice the crescendo for a bit.
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Getting better. I started with the rhythm first, without worrying as much about the crescendo. I think coordination between my hands is a lot of it - treating them as one unit. I was probably flamming at least a bit on most beats before. Locking my fingers is a thing, and not bouncing as much is a thing, but I’m finding that my instinct to get the coordination and vertical control is to lock my wrists too and basically play the 8th notes with my elbows/shoulders as the motivators. That’s probably not a great idea, I imagine. I’ve managed to do it with stiff fingers and my wrists as the force, but it’s harder to get that consistent, probably because it’s too easy to move them just a little too far.
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