Do you think that it is fair that I get yelled at for not having correct playing areas on the left side of my tenors when I don't have left peripheral vision? I have have a lazy left eye and a small optic nerve in my left eye which resulted in very poor developement of my left eye as a child. In fact, my left eye didn't really develope at all. Anyway, I don't really think that the drum tech should yell at me for not always having correct playing areas all the time. Has anyone had problems like this? If so, what did you do about them?

Assuming he knows about your condition:
A. He is wrong and should not have put you on the line in the first place.
B. He is wrong and should help you work around it.
C. He is wrong and is just a jackass.

Have you told him that this is related?

Should he yell? No. Should he let you know if your playing areas need improvement? Yes. You have an obstacle to overcome, not an excuse to play improperly.

Dude, one of the cadets players has virtually no EYESIGHT whatsoever. He see's blurs a few colors and shapes. Dont let it keep you down, let it motivate you. Pratice in the mirror. It will fix it, period end of story. Keep it up man, dont let yelling be something you take personally. Let it make you stronger. I've been yelled at relentlessly for the last 3 years, and i've had people get in my face and tell me that im not worth my skin. So prove him wrong, be like screw this, watch me, I did it, SCREW YOU! (Do it with actions). You have it man, just use it.

-Justin

Negative reinforcement isn't a very productive thing in general. However, where you play on your drums shouldn't be affected by your eyes, it really comes down to technique. Think of indoor, peoples heads are tilted up the entire time, so you have no vision of the drum what so ever. I could see where your habit came from though, and thats 100% understandable, as most drummers when they first start AT LEAST use their periphs to see where they are hitting, which you lacked. However, in the upper leagues you should definitely work on it in a mirror. Proper playing zones are a big technique issue after several years of playing, not so much a sight problem. But don't let yourself have bad technique and use your eye as an excuse because that would just fuel the fire.

I do disagree with your tech yelling at you though. Screaming isn't helpful anyways, and in this situation definitely not. Good luck though!

ugh
like all the people above me said
him yelling at you is going to get you nowhere
however
i like what gnome said
take this as motivation to bust your butt to really be able to play in the playing areas naturally with your hands, not your eyes, and shove it in his face
it'll show that you have what it takes to be a good quad player, and you've got the discipline to be a good drummer overall

i agree with what everyone above has said. yelling at you isn't gonna solve a thing but hurt your self esteem. However, the gnome said it..don't let it affect you in a negative way. let it drive you to do better and give you motivation to practice.

my line is currently goin through tryouts for next season and i'm tryin for tenors, and i knew 2/4 of the people tryin for tenors (including me) had a better chance to get tenors over me before tryouts were even being thought about..so i let that drive me to work hard enough to get the drum i want.

so don't let your eye get you down..i also have a bad eye and its givin me Hell when it comes to dressing to the person next to me and i've had to over come that immensely. so just practice in in a mirror or something like dude man said above til you over come it.

Well, you have a lazy left eye, yes, thats only hurting if your looking at hte drums, once you get your positions down, you should be able to feel your way around the set without looking, so eyesight isnt the reason

But for right now, assuming you dont have a 100% feel for the drums yet, then, tell him, and get that position down as fast as you can, so he cant say anything

He shouldn't yell at you, no. But you shouldn't let a lazy eye stop you from being a great tenor player.

think of a bass drummer...on most drums, they can't even see where thier mallets are at all. but, they still know where the center, half, and edge is. same with a snare drummer, they shouldn't need to look down at the head even though they can. just get the basics down and it's all muscle memory after that. again, you should be using a mirror almost every time you play, if not every time.

it's not fair for him to yell, and i don't think you need to be off the line, i'd practice the zones until i got muscle memory kicking in.

He has every reason to get mad. Every tenor player should be able to hit correct playing areas with his eyes closed. Yelling usually doesn't get much done, but don't make excuses.

True. USUALLY.

Sometimes there is no better way to get your point across and get the group/individual to listen, or understand that there is an issue then to raise your voice. The problem is, WHEN to do it so it's effective and LIMITING it so that it doesn't happen so often that they tune you out.

Here's an example: Paul Rennick HATES people swearing around him (i.e. "tour mouth"). He would even get on people in the lunch line if he ever heard it, but I KNOW that if we ever heard Paul swear during rehearsal, we knew we were in trouble and had better get our crap together. Didn't happen very often, thank goodness, but it made us understand that we were not doing our jobs.

Not sure how your situation happened, but outside of blatant Jerry Springer-type abuse, suck it up and play your drums.

On the topic of zones...

Even if you can't SEE where the zones are, you should be able to FEEL and HEAR where they are. On any drum. I think it was mentioned before, but hand placement and muscle memory are more important than actually trying to look to see where you're supposed to be playing. Besides, while you're marching drill and rammin' beats there isn't really enough time to study your zones anyway!

Quad players are kind of lucky considering our playing zones are in the "sweet spot" of the drum giving it optimal rebound. Snare and bass drummers don't get quite as much because their drums "speak" better with the zone in the middle, but on any battery instrument you can feel and hear your zone almost as easy as looking at it.

Good quad lines don't look at their drums.

BTW - Is the "blind" guy with Cadets? For some reason I thought he marched quads for BD.

i don't think that he should be yelling at you because of a disability you have, but that should motivate you to work harder and not play in the wrong zones. the middle of the drum and the edges create a different sound, so use you hearing to fix it. also muscle memory. keep practicing playing in the edges and you will automatically play there after a while of practice.

Yeah, Practice with a mirror. One thing that I would do is Bend forward so the to of the drums face the mirror, and look at where your hands are. But do this sparingly. Like what was said above, the best way is muscle memory and listening for correct tone.

he marched cavies (im pretty sure) cadets and rhythm x

He wasn't entirely blind. He had a disease that destroyed his vision to the point where in 2006 he just saw blobs of color and faint shapes. But if he can march the Cadets and play correctly, then that means so can you if you put the time in!

The guys name it s Matt Bowers. He marched Cadets in 06, and BD in 07 and this year. He didn't march Cavies. I have no idea if he marched Rhythm X.


pretty sure hes the the second quad in, in the picture

Tenor Pad

My school owns a pad that looks just like that except its for quints and not 6 drum. anywayz as u can see that pad has the playing areas isolated in a way. so if u can get a hold of a pad like this it wouldn't be a bad idea of learning ur playing areas. or atleast thats how i learned them. so if u hear anything but the rubber then ur hitting the wrong area. just figured i'd suggest this hope it helps
and as far as size comparison to real tenors i sat our pad on top of our tenors and they're really close in size.

and as far as using actual tenor mallets on the pad they don't work so great.

That pad has a good idea in theory, but if you use scrape zones it's not so hot. Great for finding proper 'normal' zones though.

yea i forgot to mention that. but just a suggestion

our school had one, idk if there are different sizes, but they feel too small, and the spots arent always good for some drumming. i prefer a large heavyhitter tenor pad or a large xymox one and just practice off a mirror.

A great reference to use for zones, and quad playing in general, is Quad Logic, by Bill bachman. It will give you normal AND scrape zones.

Quad Logic is my Bible.

just take his negativity as a motivator and fix it. use it as an obstacle to make you a better player.

I think your tech handled it pretty poorly. As for you.. I know I don't look at the drums when I play. In fact there is hardly much of the drum that I can see when I march. The playing areas should just come with practicing them. practice playing in the center or on the edge and you will play there. You should be able to feel where the playing areas are.

dudDude, thats that's mest messed up. that That dud dude really is a an [b]butt[/b], man

Our instructor put a peice of tape across the correct playing zones.It was held up by the rim, so if you hit the tape, you knew you weren't playing in the right place.
It helped one of our players get his zones in check.

uhm, yeah dud.

Just for motivation, does anyone remember the interview with Matt Bowers at the Cadets in 2006 on the ESPN2 broadcast of DCI? If you do, you'd remember that he's practically blind. The guy is one heck of a person, and an amazing quad player. He's been in some of the best quad lines around including Cadets, Blue Devils, and Rhythm X. Don't let your vision inhibit your ability to play quads!

Yes i think it's fair.
But don't let it hold you back.
More power to you man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFaKotynGrM&feature=related


hes nearly blind, there was a special on him in 2006 on espn during DCI finals. He won DCI i&e. And he did the last third of routine blindfolded. it definitely doable.

your playing areas should be muscle memory you just need to teach yourself where they are and then you wont need to worry about seeing them or not

Thanks for all the motivation everyone, I've gotten used to the playing areas and I don't have to look down anymore. Also, our drum instructer is a lot better of a person this year, and he thinks that I'm one of the best players this year because I memorize my music almost instantaniously.

Well that's great that you got used to the areas and got really good