Chop-o-rama

Hey drummers - any stuff you swear by for building chops or skills? Here's mine.

* practicing on a taped-up old hardcover book. My first drum instructor said "pad? why would you want a pad!? Don't be a siss!"

* using a gyroscope exerciser. I have one called a "dynabee" which is like holding a 40lb weight when it gets going. Good results fast. Relatively quiet and you can take it jogging with you, but people might look at you funny!

Check out - http://cp.digiweb.com/prod03.html

* using a guitarist finger exerciser - it's a little square thing with buttons on springs. You put it in your palm and press the buttons in succession, presumably to practice left hand finger coordination. I used to use it in both hands to develop my finger strength. No noise at all on this one. I've seen them at various music stores, so I imagine it's a pretty common thing.

* endurance laps around the field or down the street with the drums on doing what we called a "roll stroll." Beware of getting "Fonzie thumbs."

* Ken Mazur's book about competitive rudimental drumming. He sells copies sometimes, and that book was my bible when I marched. Sometimes it's listed on -

http://home.att.net/~rbeckham/
or
http://www.rudimentaldrumming.com

* resistance exercises with rubber pulling the sticks either up or down. I had a hook above my head in the basement to which I hooked rubber tubes knotted in a loop. I would put the stick in the loop and press down and hold for a minute etc.

* practice on pillows or an old tom-tom with a loose head stuffed with foam. If you can roll on a feather pillow, you can
roll on anything.

* timing - various syncopated timing exercises.

* levels and speeds  - same rams at various levels and speeds.

* left hand lead - for right handers, this forces you to develop left hand strength. Switch for left-handers.

* "if it can be flammed, flam it" Basically, a ram with flammed everything.

* Scottish style exercises - various stuff in the style of pipe band drumming, because those helped a lot with 27th Lancer's drum book.

* tricks - backsticking, flips, drum-to-drum, shell-taps, spirit-of-atlanta-style-3-sticks-in-one-hand etc etc etc