I Collect a lot of questions and visit a pro today, and here are what I have asked and feedbacks:
Q: what’s the correct sitting position when playing?
A: Balanced, neutral, and centered – no hunching over, no slouching, no jumping up out of your seat to reach a cymbal. If you are towering over the drums and pedals, you’re sitting too high. Move your seat into position behind your drum set, and rest your feet on your pedals. Both legs should have approximately the same angle at the knees and be spread evenly apart.
Q: How should I hold and strike the drum stick? Is vertical rebound a must when practicing? I always feel unstable with this guesture.
A: No. The strength of wrist is something fundermental but you skip that training and use your finger to control the stick too early. It’s highly suggest that practice your wrist to improve strength and flexibility at first.
Q: How should I practice the coordination and independence of my hand foot? Should I always practice them at the same time or do it separately at first and then later combine them together?
A: The latter one. Your weak side hand / foot is noticeable and do it at the same time would be difficult and it will enhance a incorrect muscle memory and take you more time for future correction.
Wenzhong: However I also found some independence training video on Youtube such as this one and How to separate your hi-hat and kick drum. And I am very convinced that before practising, the most important thing is “Knowing what it is that you are trying to play”.
Q: What’s the correct hand sequence for a doublet / triplet / roll ?
A: Play it alternatively will be easy for beginner, but if you want to add some difficulty and build up solid basic skills, try every possible ways.
Q: Why Accent Shift （重音移位） is important and how it could be applied in a song?
A: It’s quite important and it make your groove filled with rhythm.
Q: Given a pattern / groove, what BPM are sufficient for beginner training?
A: 100 is fine. start with 60 or slower, and then add 5 when you feel your work is solid.
Q: Heel up or Hell down?
A: Heel up. Heel down has a lot of limitation, the most critical one is speed. And you will also feel tired very soon.
Q: Why I feel Hi-Hat sound is not satisfying? I am using Roland’s TD-11K.
A: Roland’s kit are nice, there might be something wrong with your hi hat pedal.
Q: Any suggestion of playing Ghost Note?
A: Hmm… You are not quite close to this stage, practice your basic skills first man.
Q: Game like Drum Mania bring positive or negative impact to training?
A: A well organized and moderate difficulty tab will help you, but remember, basic training is fundermental.
Q: How should I enhance my left hand?
A: Practice more on your weak hand. For example, a ‘R-L-R-L’ pattern could be transferred to ‘R-L-L-L’ or ‘L-L-L-R’, you could also invert your left and right to practice all the groove you have practiced to improve your weak limbs.
Q: How to erase or get rid of incorrect muscle memory?
A: Well it’s difficult, all you could do is using those correct gesture to replace them slowly.
Q: If I am trying to practice several groove, should I practice the first one from 60 to 100, then second one from 60 to 100, or practice all with 60, and then gradually increase to 100?
A： The latter one is fine and more interesting, right?
Q: Where I could find groove of other gene like funk / Jazz / Bossa ?
A: Well let me give you a tutorial book, with some Funk tab in it.