DRUM Magazine Article

[Three over Four]

http://www.thepolice.com/news/interview.php?uid=5187

"At this point, we're into the lesson part of the article," Copeland says. "With the perspective I now have that seems to make it all work better, the two big things are relaxing and listening. When I was a kid trying to prove myself as a rock star by any means, and my means were my drums, somehow it was the job of the drums to stand out. I had to make my mark on the world. I had to piss on the tree. But that's a distraction. It's more fun to play when you couldn't care less, when you just live in the music. Drums are an accompanying instrument, and if you understand and bathe in that concept, then they are really fun to play.

"Maybe I can elaborate on the listening part. There seem to be two modes of playing: one is when you're listening to yourself: and one is when you're making music and not listening ro yourself. Listening to yourself is practicing, playing rolls, paradiddles, flamacues, and ratamacues, paying attention to whether your right hand is heavier than your left hand, and you can work on that. You can work on that by slowing everything down, because playing slow is actually more difficult and has a better effect on the synapses than anything else - you're training the synapses to fire off in the correct sequence. If you do that, then speed is just a natural thing that comes. The physical patterns of playing drums, the choreography of all that, is most effectively streamlined by doing it slowly when you're listening to yourself."

Great advice considering Les Claypool's comments about Stewart being the best listener he has ever played with....