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Does speed and agility training have any carry over to other muscle groups? I ask as I play drums, does the increase in speed, balance, and coordination help hand speed? Obviously the conditioning will help my drumming but I wondered if it would help hand speed. Is there any ideas out there? Oh yeah we, drummers, do , or should do, what amounts to interval traing on our rudiments, where we play a pattern at a slow speed and increase to a max then slow back to the starting point. I seem to have hit a wall with that though.

That's a good question. I'm not real sure about that. I would think it would help. Have you tried practicing with big heavy sticks, to see if that helps speed you up when you use the sticks you normally play with? Or maybe learn the techniques of fast drummers. I was more guitar/bass, but I played drums a little. I could only do basic beats and fills though.

It's funny you guys bring this up because I just started playing the guitar a couple months ago. I picked it up really quick, and I like it. I actually just bought my first personal guitar and got it on Sunday. It's an Art&Lutherie Burgandy GT dreadnaught accoustic. I've learned quite a bit of music already, and have started learning more about the chords, bar chords, and notes. I learned all the music so far just reading tablature. I've been trying to find out more ways to improve and learn a little further, more conceptual so I can put into practice the simple skills that I've learned...Hammering, bends, slides, etc. I do a lot of improv blues stuff, but I have a hard time getting out of the first few frets, I don't quite know yet how to combine everything with the higher pitches. I started learning some Guns n Roses songs that go down that way into the 12th and 14th frets, and there's a couple of Metallic songs that I learned that use a little of that, but if I try to stray from what I read and do something improv it gets hairy. Any suggestions? I was going to get some literature on it, but I'm really not sure what sources to trust, and I don't want to buy a $20 or $30 book and not get a damn thing from it, espescially since I only make about 10 cents an hour right now.

The complete guitarist by Richard Chapman is pretty good.

Mmunn -

do you have a metronome? try practicing rudiments to a click and slowly increasing speeds. but when it all comes down to it, technique is the limiting factor. we can't all be the next Bozzio or Chambers or Mangini.

As far as bigger sticks (i.e. 2B's instead of 7A's), I haven't really found that to work only hit harder. There are a few commerically availble stick weights but some can be too heavy.

I know nothing about drumming, but I know a bit about sticks. I used to do Escrima. I grew up with the "use heavier sticks to speed up your regular sticks" training...but it's generally bunk. You end up grooving patterns for using a heavier stick and then attempt to make yourself transfer them to your proper stick. It just doesn't work very well. The "heavy" sticks just aren't heavy enough to provoke musclar gains, and just don't handle the same so you don't learn to handle lighter ones better.

But...the metronome sounds like a great idea. I saw a TV segment on Japanese TV about a yo-yo trick artist here. He wanted to do a three-yo-yo trick (one string, two hands, three rotating yo-yos juggling on the string). To learn it, he first mapped it out on paper, calculated the rhythm he'd need, and then used a metronome to tap it out over and over again with his empty hands. In the end he managed the trick (barely), but he'd sit at work at his workstation tapping out the rhythm one-handed all day for days. It seems reasonable this might work - use a faster and faster metronome speed until it's where you want it, and then practice that speed over and over.