[pantera]

With my son enrolled in lessons I try to be a few steps ahead of him in his Realistic Rock book. I was able to order the 2 DVD set that just came out for the book and thought it would help us along in understanding the written music better and faster.

Well several pages in and I started hitting my first roadblock. There was one exercise that I just couldn't get right, and if I can't do it I can't show my son how to do it.

I was at a loss as to how to tackle it. My mind knows exactly how it's supposed to sound and what to do from the video lesson on the DVD, but my feet and hands just wouldn't co-operate.

So what I did was take only one portion of that lesson and hammer at it until it sounded and flowed like it's supposed to. I would then add another note at a time, chaining the piece together. After an hour I had that one lesson down. Of course I approached it the next day and had to’re-learn' it again for at least 10 minutes until it flowed properly again.

Last night after my son did his stuff I did the rest of the lessons on the page, and then attacked the final big exercise. Again I got stumped on the same bar as the exercise above, and again I tackled only that piece until I could string the rest of the bars to the end. I went over the whole exercise many times until I did it at least once perfectly. I wanted to do more, but my back, arms and shoulders were aching.

So after that long write up; I’m just curious, from the experienced folks, how you tackle new material that is different or more difficult than what you're used to? How do you break it all down? Is what I did the right way to approach difficult exercises? Or is it ‘whatever works’? Is there a general rule most drummers seem to follow in taking apart a new song?

[shazaam]

Whatever works best for you is never the wrong way, we all learn/develop differently and what you do to cope with what you can't do is always right...as long as your learning/getting to teh point of what you can't do. Main thing I do is slow it down and just get that "muscle memory" to remember what's goin on and be able to memorize the motions/rythm. Along with slowing it down, break it into sections, either bar by bar and work your way through it, or instrument by instrument(bass drum alone, snare alone and/or with hat/ride or whatever).
Iono, there's not just one set way to learn a newpeice, but those are just some ways I learned/was taught to do.

[CJDG]

That is a good question...
When I run across something that I want to learn and have trouble "getting it" I get all obsessed and it ends up eating all my time until I figure it out. I had a song that an online friend wanted drums on... it jumped around to all different time signatures like 6/8 to 11/8 etc... it had a very structured way about it, but with all the time changes I got lost quickly.

One day I just sat down and transcribed it note for note. I didn't care about what musical note was played... just the rhythem and accents. Once I had written it down it took me another two days of listening to it in my car on the way to work to nail down the structure of the song.

So for me repetition and transcription does wonders for me. I can't remember where I heard this little tid bit...

"... you must repeat an action 1000 times correctly before it becomes second nature."

How soon do you think the day will come when the teaching role gets reversed?

[pantera]

An interesting thing happened last night when I sat on the set again. As well as I did by the end of the previous night's session, with the first set of exercises and then the larger one that incorporates all of the previous lessons, I knew I wasn't as smooth as I should be.

Well I looked at the notes and started up again and my hands and feet flew over the bars like someone else was playing. Talk about neural re-programming! Now I don't feel so dumb because I was getting worried I wouldn't even make it out of the starting gate, let alone get further along in the book.

[hitman311]

I do just what you did. Section by section until I get the entire piece down. I have been teaching my daughter also. This is the way I have been learning from day one many moons ago. Even when disecting recorded music for any band I was in. Section by section until I had it down.