Stick Control By George Lawrence Stone, Revisited by Bob Armstrong

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*04/03/05 Please note that minor corrections have been made throughout the document since the upload of this page. The corrections are as follows:

Minor text corrections on pages 1, 2 & 3.
Text correction: Page 3. Ex 2. 1st bar in 16th notes (not 8th notes).
Changes to the tabs in Examples 7 & 9 on page 4, and 2nd Example 3 on page 3.
Extension to page 4 from example 5.

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Page One.

Many years ago I was told by one of my teachers to get a copy of the book “Stick Control” by George Lawrence Stone. Although I found at the time some of the stickings useful I actually found the work quite boring. The reasons for this were that I (or anybody else for that matter) didn’t know how to use the book and also that everything emanated from the snare drum (which I must add is important but with a difference).

The book at the time was known as one of the “Berklee Bibles” and it compares in degree of difficulty with the ‘Arban Tutor for Cornet’ (ask any cornet player). If you don’t own a copy of this classic book, I thoroughly recommend that you treat yourself to one. I would like to share with you some of the possibilities of this fascinating book if you have not thought of it already.

It is very important that you do follow the guidelines laid down by the author, that way you will gain maximum benefit. Don’t ignore this fact.

What follows is only an approach that you might find interesting. If you don’t like it or you feel uncomfortable on any particular idea then reject it. I am not saying “this is what you have to do”. They are only ideas. The important thing is that if you are into something, go and paint your own pictures.

First and foremost the exercises are designed as “chop” builders and to give you fluency going in and out of different sticking formats. Your main priority as a drummer is to play everything in time so work with a click track or metronome with every exercise. Below is exercise one on page five:

 
“Nothing too much interesting here” you might think? But wait!

As you can see the sticking is very simple at this stage, also there are no accents. Your task here is to get each stroke that you play the same volume as the one before it and that all the notes are evenly spaced apart. Start at a moderate tempo and not too loud. As you feel yourself gain control of the exercise take things a little faster and start to apply more dynamics, from quiet to very loud and back again!! Dynamic control is a must. These are the only rules, from here on, you are limited only by the bounds of your imagination.

Next, and I hope this is obvious, get the thing moving round the kit. The more tonal changes that you hear going on the better. Don’t just stay on the snare. As you move from drum to drum try to hear that you have got a very even balance on each instrument. All of the exercises to start with are written as 1/8th notes so it is here that we can begin to experiment. Take each sticking through the following rhythmic formations. The rules that have gone before still apply.

The following examples are using exercise 6 on page 5 of the book. When you feel more comfortable add bass drum in four, hi hat 2 and 4:

A. As written 8th notes
B. 8th note triplets
C. 16th notes
D. Quintuplets (five 16ths in the time of four 16ths)
E. Sextuplets (six 16ths in the time of four 16ths)
F. Septuplets (seven 16ths in the time of four 16ths)
G. 32nd notes
When things start to feel good try running the groups together, for example:

 

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