Inside Practice with Alex Roper, Holly Norman and Jessie-lee Mills.
By Nat Grant. First Published in Drumscene Magazine in 2016
Alex Roper photo by Brent Edwards
Inside Practice
Nat Grant
Finding time to practice can be difficult, as can keeping your practice or warm-up sessions relevant and interesting. Alex Roper, Holly Norman and Jessie-lee Mills - drummers who, between them, cover a wide range of playing styles and instruments in their work, share their thoughts on the evolution of their own practice.
Alex Roper
Melbournian Alex Roper has played in bands across many genres and is an active performer in the live music scene in Melbourne. She’s a member of the roving ensemble Chaos Magnet and plays drums and electronic percussion in brand new pop band Cool Explosions.
She describes how, after many years of playing different styles and in different ensembles, rudiments still form the basis of her practice routine:
“I warm up with rudiments to a metronome every day … I have been doing rudiments as part of my everyday practice pretty much since I first started playing drums as this is what I was taught. I often add and remove things, some more physical and some more to warm up the mind a bit (playing along to tracks, or tracks without drums), but always rudiments!
“I also play singles around the drum kit to make sure my touch is even and smooth and I can move around the set freely. Then I practice what I’ve been working on previously, which usually includes some kind of jazz comping exercise. I often play along to songs too and include some tech work into my routine too.” Currently, Alex is working on these comping patterns as well as with the Roland SPD-SX which she plays in Cool Explosions.
A regular practice session for Alex could look like this:
“I play the three main strokes (singles, doubles, paradiddles) every day to a metronome on the snare drum and try to build the speed as I go, making sure it’s all even. I put the metronome on a quarter of the pulse to try to rely on the metronome less and strengthen my own sense of time (for example, if I'm playing a stroke at 160, I'll have the metronome play 40). Someone once said to me the goal is to make each stroke sound like singles … I up the tempo once I can hold each stroke with each hand for at least one minute. Then I play singles around the drum set focusing on keeping the wrist movement relaxed and building speed. I do this with the metronome playing off-beats instead of on-beats, again: to help improve my sense of time. Sometimes, I'll do this playing along to a track. I don't usually do my warm-ups without having stretched my hands, wrists and fingers first, either.”
Alex makes use of social media to track and share her own progress and to follow other drummers. “I use Instagram specifically” she says, “to share my personal drumming adventures.” Her Instagram account contains photos and videos of gigs, gear, warmups and practice sessions. It’s “there to share with people what I'm working on and to network”, she says. “I learn things from watching other people's videos and enjoy looking back at the older videos and learning from those, too. It can be a cool way to mark progress. It’s really important to film yourself playing so you can pick up on things you may not have otherwise, so I try to tie the two together.”
Alex describes how she figures out what to work on in her practice sessions:
“Ultimately, what I think I should be practising is partly determined by the things I feel I need to improve upon at the time, and partly things I've learnt from teachers or other drummers.”
Asked if she would give her younger drumming self some advice, Alex says “Don’t stop practicing if things seem difficult! Find the fun in what you’re doing.”
Nat Grant
Finding time to practice can be difficult, as can keeping your practice or warm-up sessions relevant and interesting. Alex Roper, Holly Norman and Jessie-lee Mills - drummers who, between them, cover a wide range of playing styles and instruments in their work, share their thoughts on the evolution of their own practice.
Alex Roper
Melbournian Alex Roper has played in bands across many genres and is an active performer in the live music scene in Melbourne. She’s a member of the roving ensemble Chaos Magnet and plays drums and electronic percussion in brand new pop band Cool Explosions.
She describes how, after many years of playing different styles and in different ensembles, rudiments still form the basis of her practice routine:
“I warm up with rudiments to a metronome every day … I have been doing rudiments as part of my everyday practice pretty much since I first started playing drums as this is what I was taught. I often add and remove things, some more physical and some more to warm up the mind a bit (playing along to tracks, or tracks without drums), but always rudiments!
“I also play singles around the drum kit to make sure my touch is even and smooth and I can move around the set freely. Then I practice what I’ve been working on previously, which usually includes some kind of jazz comping exercise. I often play along to songs too and include some tech work into my routine too.” Currently, Alex is working on these comping patterns as well as with the Roland SPD-SX which she plays in Cool Explosions.
A regular practice session for Alex could look like this:
“I play the three main strokes (singles, doubles, paradiddles) every day to a metronome on the snare drum and try to build the speed as I go, making sure it’s all even. I put the metronome on a quarter of the pulse to try to rely on the metronome less and strengthen my own sense of time (for example, if I'm playing a stroke at 160, I'll have the metronome play 40). Someone once said to me the goal is to make each stroke sound like singles … I up the tempo once I can hold each stroke with each hand for at least one minute. Then I play singles around the drum set focusing on keeping the wrist movement relaxed and building speed. I do this with the metronome playing off-beats instead of on-beats, again: to help improve my sense of time. Sometimes, I'll do this playing along to a track. I don't usually do my warm-ups without having stretched my hands, wrists and fingers first, either.”
Alex makes use of social media to track and share her own progress and to follow other drummers. “I use Instagram specifically” she says, “to share my personal drumming adventures.” Her Instagram account contains photos and videos of gigs, gear, warmups and practice sessions. It’s “there to share with people what I'm working on and to network”, she says. “I learn things from watching other people's videos and enjoy looking back at the older videos and learning from those, too. It can be a cool way to mark progress. It’s really important to film yourself playing so you can pick up on things you may not have otherwise, so I try to tie the two together.”
Alex describes how she figures out what to work on in her practice sessions:
“Ultimately, what I think I should be practising is partly determined by the things I feel I need to improve upon at the time, and partly things I've learnt from teachers or other drummers.”
Asked if she would give her younger drumming self some advice, Alex says “Don’t stop practicing if things seem difficult! Find the fun in what you’re doing.”
Holly Norman photo by Richard Watson
Holly Norman
Holly Norman is an arts manager, event producer and musician from Perth, currently based in Melbourne after a stint in Darwin throughout 2015 and 2016. With a background in classical percussion, Holly has performed in a variety of settings including orchestral, New Orleans second line, as well as marching and brass bands. In Perth, she performed for 5 years with the Junkadelic Brass Band, a sustainability themed 12-piece band with the drummers playing on buckets.
At the moment, Holly has been working through Tommy Igoe’s ‘Great Hands For a Lifetime’ DVD, which she find to be “ a really great workout.” She combines rudiments, reading and mobility as part of her practice, including “jazz comping exercises from ‘The Art of Bop Drumming’ by John Riley, and ‘Take It To The Street’ by Stanton Moore to practice second line sticking variations … I also have a Spotify playlist on my phone with a bunch of different tunes that I’m trying to nail.”
When asked about the history of her practice Holly says “My warm-up habits and love for practice pad time at the start of each session probably stems from my time studying at the WA Academy of Performing Arts with my former teacher, Tim White. Tim was a huge stickler for correct technique on the pad and at the start of first year, all students would go 'back to basics' with a series of 20 minute sessions on the pad that consisted of single strokes and double strokes only. These were to be practiced in front of a mirror with great attention to posture and grip symmetry. I really appreciate this strong technical foundation now, and warmups that involve technical maintenance are a big part of my routine.”
Holly’s current practice regime looks a little like this:
“Depending on time constraints, I would do at least twenty minutes on the pad at the start of each practice session. I like to start with molar strokes at around 50bpm, before moving into singles/doubles/paradiddles at 80bpm speeding up to 130bpm. In addition to warming up, I like to focus on a couple of rudiments per session and really get into those with different exercises. I'll often finish my warmup or pad work by sight-reading from the Wilcoxon snare drum book, to get myself playing lots of different rudiments at a fixed tempo where I can't 'cheat'.”
Holly’s practice includes working both with and without a metronome, as she feels that both methods have their benefits. “Obviously it's really important to be nailing tempos and I am trying to 'bury the click' whenever I am playing to a metronome,” she says. “I think the metronome apps that can be programmed to drop beats (e.g. playing on 1 and 4 only – omitting the middle two beats of the bar) are a great challenge to keep yourself honest.”
She also tried to always include some playalongs in her practice sessions, including “warming up with some jazz comping and playing along to a Miles Davis record, or maybe working on playing along to classic tracks by Toto, Aretha Franklin, Blues Brothers, even The Roots or anything where there's a great consistent time feel and really trying to get into the pocket with that.”
Finding time to practice can be difficult but Holly has also found that it makes prioritising important stuff easier: “As soon as I started working full time (in arts management)”, she says, “I became a lot more specific with how I spent my ‘music time’ and a great deal more productive with my practice. If you only have two hours to practice per day you have to be more outcomes-based and strategic with your practice.”
For Holly, keeping herself fit and healthy is important too:
“Drummers and all musicians really need a strong core–think about all of the lifting we do at weird angles each time we load gear into a venue up and down stairs. I practice yoga about four to five times a week and I'm doing my RYT (Registered Yoga Teacher Training) next month in Bali. I'm hoping to start teaching classes over summer and I'd love to do some musician-based classes. We spend so much time hunched over, not breathing and concentrating really hard - music is a very physical pursuit and I'm passionate about keeping myself and other musicians in great shape so we can do what we love until we're rocking out in the nursing home!”
Jesslie-lee Mills photo by Carly Fern
Jessie-lee Mills
Jessie-lee Mills is originally from the Gold Coast and has lived in Melbourne for the past 5 years. In addition to the drum kit she plays congas, tabla, cajon and darbuka. She previously drummed for folk artist Charles Baby and is currently playing percussion with Melbourne band Cloud City.
Playing and learning so many world percussion instruments has influenced her playing and practice on the kit. “The rhythm is different, has a different feel and not as rigid or about numbers” she says. “Timing is still important, but I think it's more about circling back to the one, not just focusing on how to end a bar. It makes you think of the sounds as language (which is how they are taught) and really getting you to think about tones and interesting ways to improvise on the kit … It's really refreshing for anyone who's played rock drumming on the kit for a long time. It changes the whole experience.”
A regular practice session for Jessie-lee might look like this:
“For percussion I just go over some basic grooves on darbuka for thirty minutes, switch to Tabla for another forty minutes (going over previous lessons/mostly warming up with tirakitataka variations) – both drums primarily using fingers – and back to darbuka for another thirty minutes playing louder once all warmed up and depending on how long the practice is, keep switching between the two (which is interesting as the leading hand/fingers are the opposite on each drum).
Sometimes I’ll jam along to a few Afrobeat or jazz records for some ideas.
For the drum kit, my bible is ‘Stick Control’ (George Lawrence Stone) for two hours, and flipping through some exercises in ‘Syncopation’ (Ted Reed).”
“Jojo Mayer teaches something that has always stuck with me”, she says, “about the energy flowing through your arms and outwards through your fingers (or out through the drumstick onto the drum), and playing in such a conscious way to let the energy you generate flow through you, instead of it tense up and lock it in your body, which only lets out part of the sound that you're trying to create.
“I still do very basic rock drumming rudimental exercises I learnt from my first teacher. It changes all the time depending on what I'm practicing for (for my next lesson with my tabla teacher or darbuka teacher) or more recently for gigs and rehearsals with Cloud City.”
Like Alex, Jessie-lee has been experimenting with electronic percussion: “I've recently invested in a Roland HPD-20 Hand Sonic that is so sensitive it can interpret your exact hand shapes and techniques. I never thought I'd be interested in electronic percussion (it's not like the real thing!) but for playing live it's incredibly convenient, interactive, creative and versatile.”
“My plan now is to really break down all the patterns I currently use, (from each instrument) and simplify them into rudiments (L/R instead of/as well as the vocal interpretations) to each hand or even to each finger (as tabla and darbuka 'split' the hand into using primarily the index and ring fingers on each hand) with a metronome (or lehra – which I use on an app) so I can merge them seamlessly into one another. My way of learning is by ear and feel first–then over-complicating and breaking down/simplifying the rhythm as much as I can to really stick it in my brain.”
Her advice to other drummers? “Only play music that you love, that you would listen to, and with musicians that respect you, that you can grow and learn from and that you can have fun with … if only I’d had that advice!”
