Here is the transcription of my most recent video blog
(And here’s the audio on AnchorFM)
For some weird reason, it won’t embed the video today – here’s a link.
Hey everybody, this is Queen Mab, and you’re sitting right now (or you were) on the tom tom of my drum set, which is why you’re seeing me at this, like, super flattering angle. Here, I’ll turn around so you can see – there’s my drums. And I wanted to share with you today what I’m practicing.
So in my last post, I was talking to you about the fact that I’m dealing with these elbow injuries, and it’s kind of scary, and I don’t completely know how to handle them. So I was like, “Well, what can I practice?” And the answer is…my feet! Okay? I watched this awesome video…and I’ll find a link to it so that you can watch it, too [It was a rudiment video by drummer George Carvin that I showed to my students last year during the pandemic]…where there was this drummer who was saying that most drummers have educated hands, but uneducated feet. And so everything that we’re practicing with our hands, we should also be practicing with our feet. And I got really excited about that video, because that’s something that I can definitely do while I’m dealing with this injury.
So here is Stick Control by George Lawrence Stone, and I am practicing for 15 minutes at a time, which probably doesn’t sound like very much, but the method to my madness is – I want to make sure that I actually do it, and I’m consistent. And I’m going to prioritize that over practicing for a long time, okay?
Now I’m going to put you back on the toms. Okay, so here’s the first page of Stick Control. And for the first five minutes, I’m just doing this. [Demonstrates the first few exercises using bass drum and hi-hat.] Etcetera. Okay? Then for the next five minutes, I start incorporating my heels, okay? So I don’t know if you can see my feet…I’m going to try. So instead of just playing like this, [demonstrates toe-only playing on the bass drum and hi-hat], I’m incorporating the heel motion as well as the toe on the hi-hat and on the bass drum. So like, for example, if I was gonna do number 4 of the single beat combinations, it would be like – [demonstrates exercise 4 using heel and toe motion] – or, it would be like this – [demonstrates again]. Whoops, I did that wrong. [demonstrates again using heel and toe motion].
So that’s what I do for the next five minutes. And then for the last five minutes, I work on a pattern that is very important to me from a style of music called “murga” that comes from Uruguay, and I’ll talk more about that in a future video. It sounds like this. [Demonstrates the bass drum and cymbal part for the marcha camión.] And the whole reason that I’m working on that heel to toe motion is so that I can do that hi-hat part better. I’m gonna do that for you one more time. Here’s the hi-hat. [Demonstrates the marcha camión again.]
So what are you practicing? Let me know. I’d love to hear it. I’d love to know about what works for you, especially if you are also working on your feet. Thanks for tuning in. I’m Queen Mab. If you’d like to see more of my content, you can visit queenmabmusic.com. See you next time!