Jumping the Fence

Tonight was my percussion class--hooray!!!!!! It was the absolute highlight of my week, believe me. Before we were about to start warmups, Michaelle asked what anyone wanted to work on, and I blurted out doubles!, since I've been working real hard on them on my own. I'm not usually a blurter-outer, but doubles have been a new and interesting challenge to me. In taiko, you don't really have doubles because wine-barrel taiko drums don't lend themselves to doubles. The skins are just too loose and boomy to allow your 1" stick to bounce much. You can get doubles on the shime drums though. They're tighter and more responsive. I see myself as more of a small drum player. I like the sound and dynamics of small drums, and so I've been working a lot on stick technique and, among other things, double-playing. One of the things that Michaelle does a lot when she's thinking is to play a sharp, fast double stroke roll. It is totally awesome. She'll be like, what should we play next, hmm??, and as she's thinking she'll do a roll roll roll roll! Double stroke roll. I'm always amazed.

So I've been working on my double stroke roll a lot. It's simple. You hit with the stick and there is a strike and right after that, a bounce. That's a double stroke. A lot of it is learning how to hold the stick, and then there is the bounce, and there is the control part of the bounce. It's one thing to do it with the right hand, but doing it with the left is another. Getting the left and right side to work in unison is a lifetime challenge in itself. It's all about control, and you don't get that without sitting there with your sticks and a practice pad for hours. I've been putting in those hours, but I just can't get to the point where my rolls go from kinda fast, to Michaelle-fast. I want to get there. She's got these laser-pointer eyes where you can tell that she's looking at your hands and your fingers and wrists and evaluating your sticking--all in just a moment. She had me do the double stroke roll as fast as I could and she said, uh-huh yeah, your ALMOST there, you just need to jump over the fence. I know those fences. I know that I have worked up to the point where if I just figure out that one thing, that one little thing--whatever it is--a lifting of the wrist, the caress of a finger, the push of a pinky--if I can just figure out what that tiny subtle thing is, then I'll get over that fence. I think that a big part of learning percussion goes beyond learning time, and learning patterns, but it's the tiny subtle things that no one can teach. You just need to sit there and practice over and over again until you get it. You can't really teach to someone: after you hit, clench your fingers for a millisecond and then release, and then flick your wrist and put the tension back in your fingers. It's hard. You just have to sit there until you get it.

And I am almost there. When she says you just need to get over the fence I believe it because I have tried to get over that fence many times. I am so close. Just a little bit more.