[Music] [Music] [Music] hey everybody i'm marky ramone and this dvd is about punk rock drumming the way i play it so now we're gonna get rolling the first thing we're going to talk about is the snare drum this is the most important drum in the whole set in my opinion this keeps the beat the crack you need that and this is the tom tom this is called the top tom tom usually smaller than your floor tom tom which this is you can have any sizes you want on your toms this is basically a four piece set this is a bass drum this is a 26 inch and you can vary everything varies it's what you like but in punk rock four piece set is the best this is the hi-hat very important in punk rock i uh believe me i'd rather have the high hat than the tom tom's hi-hat snare drum bass drum this is the crash symbol this is the ride symbol and this is another crash symbol i keep it simple two crash cymbals ride symbol hi-hat snare drum two-times bass drum so i keep my drums very close because i play very fast rock drummers metal drummers and everybody has their own style they'll usually play like this [Music] so when you play punk rock the reason why you keep the drums close is because you're doing this or at least try to do this you're going [Music] so that's the difference between and what i just played and also i'm doing that on the floor tom i'm doing this [Music] now if they weren't close it would take a lot longer to get to and you would probably miss a beat or not come in properly on a after a drum fill so uh that's the marky ramon set up sticks are very important to any drama the weight of the stick this is the bead this is the shoulder when i play i always hit the rim it projects more it's louder than just this [Music] and i roll on it too i roll on the room okay let me show you what i did before that now i'll hit the rim and the head at the same time in a drum roll see the difference it cuts more to me that's very important it might eat up your sticks that's why you might need an extra pair of sticks but it sounds better and i keep my toms a little tight so i can get some tone [Music] now the reason for that is because when i'm doing the eighth notes the bounces better when it comes off the skin for instance [Music] now let's go to the bass drum okay this is uh this is how i play it anybody can play it the way they want but this is how i do it i keep my ball my foot up a little bit instead of flat it's a lot easier and you'll get a lot more speed on the foot pedal i keep the tension on my foot pedal in the middle the spring is there to loosen or tighten the tension so uh it's like this [Music] much easier when it's in the middle than having the tension harder because you won't be able to play as quick on that double bass drum thing that i just did here's an exercise that i can show you [Music] that's why i keep my tension in the middle because of the bounce back of the beater and that's very important if it's too loose you're not going to get that feel you won't be able to do it if it's too tight you won't be able to do it because it's too tight so keep it in the middle and again it's different for everybody punk rock drumming to me is about eighth notes quarter note drumming to me it's like metal rock this is a quarter note [Music] this is the way a punk drama should play it now why because it fills in gaps it creates a wall of sound now when you're playing the quarter notes there's a gap when you play the eighth notes there's no gap [Music] that's the slow versions that i was playing for you now i'll speed it up a little bit okay here's quarter notes fast [Music] he has eighth notes fast all right actually that's that's really mid-tempo so here's quarter notes really fast his eighth notes really fast so that's punk rock drumming now how do i do that i don't use my arm well i use my arm because i have to hold my stick with my hand okay i really use my fingers i try not to be too much of this like you'll get tired in 10 minutes believe me so what i do is here's my fingers right here and i'll just go [Music] okay besides the hi-hat i go to the right too when i do that at certain points of the song maybe the chorus i'll go to the right symbol and continue those eighth notes like this [Music] i'll go to the floor tom tom and play the eighth notes too the same way as i did on the ride cymbal and the hi-hat like this [Music] all right what i just did i'm gonna show you in slow motion see the fingers right here so i hold the stick about three quarters down the length of it right here this is what you call the fulcrum usually the fulcrum's in the center so you know it's a balance but here as you can see it's about three quarters down that helps me play the way i play you could be different you know it's uh your style your way but this is the way i do it so let me show it to you slow [Music] okay i'm using my back fingers here very important if you're going to be able to keep that up for an hour or for how long your band plays if you're into punk rock drumming here's some warm-ups that i do before i play to make it easier for instance get your two sticks wrap it around like this just to loosen up the muscles both ways like that i'll do it again like that and then this way like that okay here's another exercise i do to get the blood rushing to the hands and fingers i usually do it on the hi-hat so check this out i'll do it slow first basically triplets so i'll do it a little faster i'm moving the back end and the front back end and the front of the stick so you loosen your wrist a little more on your fingers now i'll do it a little faster [Music] now we'll do it very fast so you get to this point at least you know you loosened up really loosened up so that's what i do for my warm-up on the on the stick part and my right hand i do this because if i'm going to play those continuous safe notes you got to do other things alone with the one hand so i'll go that's slow it's a little faster i'm not using two two hands now a little faster again i'm using my fingers now a little faster so if you do that you'll feel the blood rushing into your hands you'll be able to play better now breathing is important breathing is very important uh some advice to you dramas out there don't smoke because it's not gonna work you're gonna start huffing and puffing breathe deep but don't let your your ex when you exhale don't let it out you know you're not you're not you know you're not in a uh you're not running you're drumming so try to just learn how to breathe better like for instance like this [Music] i don't know if you know what i was doing there i don't go nuts in the beginning of the set because you got to pace yourself so smoking is not going to help i don't go into the set immediately crazy you have to pace yourself that's very important i i don't i'm not going to end up doing this [Music] i'm not going to do that if you're gonna do that it looks like you're struggling nobody wants to see you struggling up there they wanna you wanna make it look easy so you like this [Music] now you you uh you take your time there's no reason to make it like you're playing uh a contact sport it's drumming there's two different ways to hold your stick this is called the match grip this is called traditional grip a lot of jazz drummers play this way [Music] and a lot of rock drummers use the match grip so it's whatever you like um the traditional grip is basically uh like i said jazz and marching drummers and uh because the drum was on an angle so it was easier to do rolls on that snare drum when they were marching because it was over their shoulder so it had to be a little more angled so it was like [Music] so that made it easier but the match grip is more powerful because it's it's even so you're going and you're able to hit the rim and the skin together a lot harder so you're going instead of because you might you might not hit the rim all the time you might miss so it's a lot more natural using it this way [Music] i use the match grip for punk rock uh that's what it's called for but if i was in a room alone and just playing for myself i would use the traditional grip that's how i learned uh i like holding the stick that way uh i'm able to do double stroke rolls better uh i'm able to play uh more of a jazz feel like i just showed you before i'll just i'll give you another example [Music] so it's a lot easier holding the stick that way than playing it like this [Music] it's better the other way if you're playing that style but if you're a punk guy i suggest the match grip so again okay when you start out there are really two rolls you should know that's a single stroke and a double stroke row let me play the harder one first here's the double stroke roll so you're going pop up pop up on each stick until it gets faster and faster for instance [Music] so that's what they call a double stroke roll now here's a single stroke row each stick is one at a time that's a single stroke roll i was doing it the traditional style let me try to do it the match grip style here's a double stroke roll match grip style [Music] [Music] that was a double stroke roll match grip style now i'll try to attempt a single stroke roll match grip style so okay remember these are exercises so you start off slow let the single stroke roll and the double stroke roll so i'm gonna go around the set with what i just did so you get a better idea of how to play it on the whole set instead of just a snare drum so i'll do the double stroke roll first [Music] i may do it a little faster [Music] i'll do it a lot slower again [Music] okay single stroke roll [Music] so you can speed it up slow it down but the whole idea it's an exercise so start off slow and then go fast and then like anything else slow down again all right we're going to do some punk beats now [Music] that's the slow version of it i'll play it a little faster [Music] here it is a little faster [Music] and here it is very fast [Music] all right this is what the bay strum did and that beat now [Music] that's right it's simple but if you speed it up and play for a whole hour it isn't uh here's another beat i'll play it slow first i'll play it a little faster now [Music] now i'll play it very fast [Music] this is what i'm doing with the bass drum [Music] now i'll do a little faster with the bass drum part [Music] that's just another beat now you can do it you can do a very fair speed and it goes like this so i call it the polka punk beat a lot of the la uh the southern la punk bands orange county bands will play like you know i like [Music] hey hey hey so that's playing that slower is like this [Music] hey [Music] hey now i'll play it fast [Music] okay on that beat i'm doing this the bass drum and the hi-hat are doing the same thing like this [Music] i'll do it a little slower now i'll throw in a snare drum so it makes some sense i'll do it a little slower hey hey so that's what that is now i'm gonna play uh some variations of the beats that i showed you throwing in some different things uh you can throw in what you like too again it's up to the individual so i'll start with the beat that i started with which was now i'm going to bury it i'm going to go through the ride symbol to the floor tom [Music] so now in every song and especially in pong songs there's your intro you have a verse of chorus a bridge usually during a verse i'll keep the hi-hat closed so the singer can be heard better so you're going then when you go to the chorus i would tend to go to the right symbol [Music] or if you want to experiment a little more you can go to the floor tom during the chorus [Music] and the bridge of a song you can go to the bell which gives it a little more spark like i remember the verse is really the part where the singer is singing alone so you want to give him his space so stick to the hi-hat snare and bass drum now getting back to this speed [Music] go to the ride cymbal [Music] now you can go to the floor tom you can play either eighth notes or the quarter notes on the floor tom so i'm just gonna duplicate what i just did on the hi-hat and the ride symbol [Music] now the bass player of the band has to lock in with the drummer bass the bass instrument is a percussion instrument even though it has strings so most of the time the bass playing follows the drummer's bass drum pattern he would have to play along with that but in punk the bass player should follow the hi-hat pattern if they're able to do it so if i'm playing this fast bass player is going to have to do the downstroke eighth notes like that to create the wall of sound now he might not be able to do that so what he will probably do is play quarter notes go like this will go up and down but in punk everybody has to follow the drummer's lead to keep it tight okay now the beats that i just showed you are punk beats but there are other songs that were in punk rock that i played beats to that were totally different for instance there's a song called blank generation that i did with a band called richard helen of ortoids and it went like this now that's called the shuffle but the song called for that there will be punk songs that you'll be hearing or that you'll learn to play or want to play eventually when you write an original song a different beat might be needed instead of just the usual [Music] so don't limit yourself uh because that song blank generation was a very is a very well known uh pong song so uh that was an example of it i'll play it slow here's the bass drum pattern [Music] [Music] here it is a little faster the bass drum pattern now i can vary that b2 so here's a variation on that beat i'll do that slower [Music] so that's what that is punk's about attitude and about expressing what you feel in a song hopefully under three minutes long maybe two minutes long and of course the beat is important what i showed you those two first beats that those are the main punk beats but the shuffle isn't but it's what the song is called for and that's what i applied to it that's what the writer wanted and that's what you have to do now putting a fill in a song where it belongs is the most important thing not doing fills every minute and uh taking somebody else's uh spotlight away so punk rock drumming also is about simplicity about where to put what and for example [Music] that's really uh single stroke rolls i'll play it again [Music] slower you can go to your top tom from your snare or you can go from your snare to your floor tom i'll show you again so i like to keep the 4 4 on the bass drum while i'm doing the roll to keep it full sounding i'll play a little faster for [Music] you now what else i do it's it's pretty interesting it combines the two toms so check this [Music] out [Music] you have two different tones there i'll play it a little faster [Music] i'll play it a little faster you know this time i'll use the open hi-hat so then you can also go all around the set and i'll get to the ride symbol after i finish with the hi-hat so here it is going around the whole set [Music] well you could do it this way [Music] all right so now we're going to do faster with the hi-hat snare on the floor tom [Music] now i'm going to show you what i do when i'm on the ride some fills [Music] i'll do that a little slower [Music] you can vary the beat if it's a 4-4 beat for instance like a surf song [Music] all right so uh here's some more options uh and punk beats that you could put some well then i really show off fills but just things maybe a little faster and a little off a little off the time [Music] i'll play it slower for you [Music] now i'll play it fast [Music] here's the fill alone that i'm doing i'll play the beat with that [Music] all right here it is one more time here's the beat with the fill [Music] here's some other fills that i incorporate in the beat that are a little faster the the single stroke rolls but a little faster [Music] all right let me play that slow for you [Music] [Music] now you can throw in an offbeat something totally from left field so i'll show you something that i occasionally do [Music] i'll play that a little slower [Music] here's some more fills with the 4-4 drum beat [Music] let me uh play that a little slower [Music] and i'll play it faster again [Music] and you can vary that a little bit [Music] all right now i'll do this slower [Music] okay here it is now up to speed [Music] all right i'm going to play a fair speed a punk beat and i'll keep the fills simpler [Music] then you can alternate the fill to something else i'll show you [Music] all right this is for you beginners out there i'll go on the ride [Music] now i'm going to speed it up for you [Music] okay the purpose of a drum fill in my opinion is to lead into a chorus or coming out of a verse or going into a bridge not doing a drum fill in the middle because you're going to interrupt the singing that's not what a song is made for again you got to put the fill in the right place so really that's what what a fill is it shows it leads in to each part of the song and it can end each part of the song so that's basically what i was just showing you what kind of fills you can put in but again everybody has their own feel so whatever fills you want to put in go ahead just as long as it fits okay groove is very important no matter what kind of genre of music you like if it's too fast you're not going to understand the words the instruments aren't going to sound as full as they should be so groove is important it's part of human life it's the way people walk the way they talk the way they chew their food so i'll give you an example um here's just the regular uh beat that that i'm known to do so it's now if the song was written for that speed that's the way it should go a lot of times bands play live and believe me i've done it they tend to speed the song up and then the words are meaningless and then it just doesn't it doesn't flow right so i'll give you an example for instance that might be too fast and compared to the uh speed that i played before that that would be wrong to do but again the adrenaline rush is live so watch what you're doing because i did it i did an album and i liked the energy but i didn't like the groove so remember that that's very important uh a lot of bands like to play the way they did when they are recorded on their albums which is what most people are used to so do you know just remember that before i got into the punk scene at cbgb's where it started i was doing other forms of music i was into hard rock and the first span that i was in was called dust and we did a lot of different time changes we played in 5-4 which is an extra beat besides 4-4 and uh different uh drum fills different rudiments so well let me give you an example of a 5'4 beat so this is what i played on one of the songs it goes like this i'm going to put the drumsticks down and i'll attempt to show you how the bass drum is [Music] alone now i'll do it slower now do it with the snare drum and the bass drum [Music] now i'll play along with the hi-hat [Music] now i'll speed it up again [Music] okay here's another beat and it's a three-quarter time beat and this this is traditional traditional way of doing it one two three one two three one two three one two three now you can do it a different way which is more more rock and more jazz inspired like [Music] what i just played for you i'll play slower so you get a better idea [Music] i'm gonna i'm gonna break down the three-quarter groove to you that i just played first with the bass drum [Music] [Music] so that's what that is and you can vary it you can go [Music] well i hope you enjoyed this as much as i did i always like to hear myself play and keep playing and believe in yourself don't smoke cigarettes don't drink too much definitely don't do drugs and there is a lot more to learn remember this was not a technical outing it was about punk rock and just a little more see you next time [Music] so [Music] you
