Political Division

Working in a bar, I hear people constantly spouting out there personal beliefs, especially when their consumption of alcohol increases. But one thing I've noticed is regardless of political leanings (republican or democrat); they all want the same thing: lower unemployment, increase in wages, and better healthcare. But what really bothers me about both sides is the finger pointing, blame shifting, and outright anger towards each side.

The only difference between these people is how they think we, as Americans, can achieve those things. Some people want more government over-sight and some people want less. Both options have their good and bad points.

I believe that we can compromise on many things to make most, but not all, people satisfied. And it's up to us to know all the options on the table without bias or censorship. Both sides of the table have good ideas, but we can't hear what those are if we've already decided that it's a bad idea because the idea is Republican or Democrat based.

And the real truth is both parties are guilty of not telling the truth at some point. Both parties are guilty of playing their hand to benefit themselves and/or a major corporation/donor to their campaign. Both parties are guilty of hiding the truth. One of those truths being that there aren't any rich Democrats or poor Republicans, when in fact it's just the opposite: red states are full of poor Republicans, and blue states are full of rich Democrats.

And let's face it, when a person's job depends on getting votes, he's going to do whatever he has to do to get those votes. Whether you're a union president, school board president, or President of the United States you have to cater to the masses.

But the main point of writing this post is to encourage those who read this, to stop the name calling and finger-pointing. And to mainly stop the crazy accusations about the opposite party committing ridiculous acts. There are a lot of good natured politicians out there with good intentions whether they are Democrat or Republican.

Updated Practice Routine and Practice Log

Sorry for writing this so late, but I’ve been pretty busy at work and too exhausted to write this after work.

This last week was pretty tough. Wednesday I practiced and worked out to hard, so I was really sore on Thursday.

As far as my practice routine goes, it was hard to stay on track for two hours. It was also hard to set aside two hours out of my day to practice for that long.

So here’s what I did this week and at what speeds. I also changed my hand exercises to be more effective and not so monotonous. So I took out the four-stroke and seven-stroke exercises and put in a flam tap exercise. Also, I felt that the posted exercises weren’t very challenging as far as helping with endurance. So for these rudiments, I’m just going to play strait singles, doubles, triples, etc. for one minute continuously.

Also to help with time, I found playing two exercises simultaneously would save me time. For example playing single-strokes on my feet while playing double strokes on my hands at 140bpm.

So here’s the practice log for the week of May 14^th. As well as the updated hand and feet logs and the updated practice Regimen.

New Regimen

I spent a few hours yesterday, on my only day off, coming up with a do-able practice routine and exercise plan that I will commit to each day.

*Note: the exercise and practice routines will be split up during the day since I usually don't have 4 hours, nor the energy, to commit to both consecutively. So practice early in the day and work out in the afternoon or night depending on my work schedule.

So here it goes:

First off my exercise routine will just be an hour: 15 min. jogging and 45 min. weight training.

The exercise is supposed to help my circulation and breathing as well as stamina in my playing. So for those of you who are saying, "You need to run more or lift more" just know I don't care about becoming a Tri-athlete or an MMA fighter.

Now, my practice drumset practice routine.... This is going to be pretty detailed, so if you don't play music or drum set for that matter, you may want to skip to "THE END."

BTW I'm giving a breakdown of my routine for those musician friends of mine in hopes that they may be inspired to work harder on their craft AND hold me accountable to my program.

Here’s a pic of my routine schedule:

The time slots at the bottom indicate what I’m working on and how long to do it. The entire routine should take around 2 hours to complete it. However, I know that transitions from page to page from exercise to exercise as well as cool down time will add more or less than 15 minutes. But I did plan a bit for that by not putting in so many exercises in the 15 min or 30 minute slots.

The List of Readings in the above section is for the “Readings” portion of my routine which I will discuss later.

Ok, now the Rudiment portion of the routine:

The rudiment exercise is pretty basic and straight forward. I know that there are several as well as dozens of rudiments to master. But I don’t want to over load myself. I want to MASTER the basic rudiments first, and then move on other rudiments.

Feet Exercises:

Now feet exercises can be pretty intense and can vary so much depending on what you’re wanting out of it (i.e. to be a fast double-bass player or to just be solid at playing with your four limbs). But I, however, want to be a better Double-bass (metal) player. So the goals of these exercises are too increase my speed and stamina at playing with my feet, but not make me burn out my muscles before I get to practice the four-way coordination and style portions of the routine.

*Note: As most people don’t understand, practicing the drums, mainly metal drumming, isn’t just playing an instrument like guitar or piano, where you can develop technique without actually breaking a sweat. Drumming is more of an exercise, like aerobics. You have to warm up and be mentally and physically ready for your body to learn new techniques. It’s also not wise to try to learn new material if you aren’t feeling up to par, because it’s just a waste of time. It’s like trying to study while you have a migraine or the flu….you won’t internalize the new material.

Now the Fill Exercises:

These are a set of exercises taken from an article written by Ed Brackenfeld in the May 2003 edition of Modern Drummer. In the article, there are 30 Patterns of fills, a bar in length. Each pattern is played over and over for a minute long, hence the name of the Article, “The 30-Minute Speed Workout (Around the Drums)”

The purpose of this exercise is to become more comfortable and fluid when playing a fill, whether you’re playing at 100bpm or 200bpm. This is one area that I lack in both speed and creativity. I find myself using the same fills for a lot songs….I’m starting to sound like Lars Ulrich LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!

If you want a copy of the article, I’d be happy to post a copy online or email it.

New Breed portion:

New Breed is a fantastic book by Gary Chester that every teacher in the country has used to teach four-way coordination. I’m using this book mainly to improve my left foot coordination and strength. Even though my skills at playing solid 16^th notes on my bass drums are that bad, my stop and start playing is horrible. This book will help my sight reading skills as well.

Finally the Readings:

The readings are a list of pages in different books that I have listed in the first picture. These are books that a lot of teachers use. I’ve used half of them when I was in college, but I didn’t master them.

These readings will hopefully serve two purposes: one, to improve on my technique with different styles, and two, my sight reading. I can usually remember a page or two from the day before, so I’d be cheating just a bit by working on the same page two or three days in a row. So working a different book each day would eliminate that advantage.

Each week I will work on a new portion of each book. However, before I go to the next section of required reading, I will master the assigned section first.

THE END:

At the end of each week I’m going to post my practice and exercise log on this blog and possibly Facebook. The purpose is to not only have people keep me accountable, but to keep myself accountable. Plus it’ll show how much I’ve improved on my weight training, and hopefully inspire someone to improve on a talent or ability as well.

You Are Who Your Friends Are

Tell me thy company, and I'll tell thee what thou art.
- Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)

I’ve been looking for this quote all morning. It’s by the author of “Don Quixote.” Of course there are several variations, but my favorite take on it is, “You are who your friends are.” This is a hard idea to debate mainly because there are many grey areas. Most of us don’t hang around drug dealers, murderers, and politicians. But what I think this quote is referring to is whether or not we surround ourselves with honorable people.

Now honor is not being a “good” person. Just because you haven’t literally stolen some ones money or blatantly lied to people, doesn’t mean you are honorable. Being honorable means doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do; having a keen sense of ethical conduct; knowing that the ends do not justify the means.

A person can be a nice guy and good person but still act unethically. For example: Take a father who is good to his kids, loves his wife, and helps his neighbors and friends whenever he can. But on the other hand, he’s been collecting unemployment for years, without having any intention of looking for a job. Although, what he’s doing may be “legal,” it’s not honorable or ethical.

So, referring to the above quote, knowing an unethical person isn’t wrong. Helping that person isn’t wrong. But keeping that person in close company as a good friend simply suggests that you not only are accepting of that person’s actions but encourage it.

Some of you might be saying, “Jesus surrounded himself with thieves and murderers.” And you’re right. But you’re not Jesus. Most of us aren’t even priests, preachers, missionaries, therapists, or even life coaches. Our daily job isn’t to console or council others on their lives and moral behavior.

And to say, “I tell my friend to act better all the time,” only suggests that you don’t think highly of yourself. You should surround yourself with people that act honorably and expect you to act honorably.

But the quote isn’t just about honor and ethics. It’s also about respect. Respect for ourselves as well as others. If we associate ourselves with people that don’t respect us and our morals, how can we have respect for ourselves?

So surround yourself with positive, respectful, and honorable people, and you intern will become as they are.