Monday Dec 28, 2009: I did 10 minutes dble bass, and 2 hours 40 minutes of Freehand (one handed roll)

Hi there,

I did no physical therapy or working out or even walking.  I'm in vacation slug mode.  Very dangerous.  But,  I'm getting sleep! 

Yesterday afternoon while my kids were with their acting coach in the room where I do my software work, I slipped into the drumroom, and did 10 minutes of double bass, and 10 minutes of free hand technique.

In the evening my boys wanted to watch a Simpson's episode on Hulu, so I brought out a pad on a stand and worked on the freehand technique (for brevity I'm thinking about just calling it the Rabb) while I watched with them.  Then we watched a Charlie Brown movie and I continued to work on Johnny Rabb's free hand technique.  After they went to bed, I watched an episode of brotherhood as I continued to work. 

RESULTS:
I have a ganglionic cyst that pushes up on the tendons on the top left side of my wrist:  It waxes and wanes with the frequency of my playing.  Cropping up when I play too hard, or when I lay off for a while and then come back to playing.  It started sending pain messages about 15 minutes into my Rabb work.  Everytime it came up, I adjusted my grip, or switched to work on the left accepting only the dissapearance of the pain.  It stopped happening after an hour and a half. 

Half-way through Brotherhood I was shocked to see I was starting to get some speed while staying very relaxed.  When one hand would start to go fast, I'd quickly stop, and switch to the other hand, so each hand could have rest breaks.  I tried very hard to not push myself.  At times, unfortunately I did lose discipline and just tried to force it.  Hints of oncoming aches and pains barked back at me.  Mostly I stayed disciplined and tried to let my body locate and manipulate the physics of the Rabb.  When a hand would start going fast even though it was relaxed, I took it to mean the various elements had started to temporarily coordinate. 

On the pad my downstrokes were slaps, because Rabb says the objective is to have the shank of the stick hit the rim at precisely the same time as the tip hits the head--to avoid the temptation of letting the tip hit first.  So I substituted the rimshot for a slap because the pad has no rim.  Plus, I know he uses this technique on surfaces that have no rim, like cymbals, countertops and pads like mine.  I think I should give Johnny a call and ask what his diffinitive teaching resources are for this technique. 

I should also mention I spent at least 30 minutes trying to alternate.  Toggling right left inside the down ups.  That was extremely difficult for me.  But my Dr. Evil mad scientist drummer in his laboratory reason for this is:  If you can play fast enough with one hand to qualify as a roll, then interlacing two hands moving that fast would be a rediculously speedy feat.  And not much of a strain, if any.