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2026-09-06

Live log - Playing drums for Decode by Paramore

Disclaimer

• personal
• target audience - strictly myself
• Link to source - with sheet music
• Link to source - drumless

Update (2026-09-07)

• I am probably done practising this song for now. I no longer commit to keep this document live. It is at this point an archive rather than a live log.

Log

• 2026-09-04 - 0-2 major errors per playthrough on an actual drumkit this time
• 2026-09-03 - 2-3 major errors (and multiple minor errors) per playthrough. Less but still non-zero errors in fills
• 2026-09-02 - Maybe 2-3 4-5 major errors (and multiple minor errors) per playthrough. Making mistakes only in the fastest fills.
• 2026-08-31 - Can play full song (at full speed) to drumless music but badly
• 2026-08-30 - Can play 00:00 to 04:22 (full song) at full speed but badly
• 2026-08-29 - Can play 00:00 to 02:42 at full speed. (make sure to practice in few days so you don't undo muscle memory of some of the fills)
• 2026-08-23 - Can play 00:00 to 02:24 at full speed but badly
• 2026-08-21 - Can play 00:00 to 01:54 at full speed
• 2026-08-17 - Can play 00:00 to 01:18 at full speed
• 2026-08-15 - Started. Can play 00:00 to 01:18 at 0.75x speed, with errors

Longer misc notes

2026-09-06

• Uploaded recording. See also: Music

2026-09-04

drums note

• Rented a drum studio with the actual drumkit. Made less mistakes as compared to the fake drumkit despite very little practice on the real one.
• This was also more fun, although novelty might be a factor.

tangent / rant

• Deleted, motherfucker, let's fucking go!
• This was suprisingly fun
• Muscle memory is insane. I am automatically able to play better on a real drumkit despite less practice.
• side note - we will one day have an AI that plays even better than this, also insane.
• I love muscle memory. Soldiers have lots of important patterns burned into muscle memory.

2026-09-03

• Practice 16 bars (2nd B section 4 bars, 2nd C section 8 bars, I section first 4 bars) with (garageband or any other) metronome, quarter notes only, 80 bpm.
  • Keep drums off for this. This lets you focus on technique instead of hearing the sound. (No music, no drums sound either.)
  • Just repeat these 16 bars endlessly till you make zero mistakes. This is where you currently have highest error probabilities.
• Previous advice is all accurate. Hands loose, play with wrists not arms, play softer when practising. When performing, should play on muscle memory, not manually, if your hands are tightening it means you are trying to play manually. In fills, first note after hihat needs to be fast, this helps you not miss the toms (in terms of physical position, not just timing) later on in the fill, practise all this with metronome.
• Youtube macOS keyboard shortcuts - 0 for start, k / space for play/plause.

2026-09-02

• Got sheet music and a binder. Nice!
• Advice 1: In each of the faster fills, the first snare/tom note after the hihat has to be played faster than you think. R L R L needs to flow in perfect timing even if first R is hihat and first L onwards is snare/tom notes.
  • I thought the reason I am missing the toms was because the toms are too small. But turns out the above is even bigger determinant of the whole thing.
• Advice 2: Practice the fills softer. Hands loose.
  • When performing you can play them louder. But playing louder causes you to tighten your hands which increases probablity of playing them wrong. Hands too tight means you're trying to manually play them instead of relying on muscle memory to autoplay them. Trust muscle memory. If you can't play them using muscle memory alone it means you haven't practised them enough.
• Advice 3: Make sure to practice the 3-4 fastest fills individually, just before any time you play this in public.
• Advice 4: Ideally practice with louder instrumental track and louder drums both. Th is especially for the section with crash replacing hihat, as I need to improve timing in this section. (This contraints conflicts with constraint of not disturbing neighbours.)

2026-08-31

• Short practice
• I need actual sheet music. The blue bar thing on the video is annoying
• Also now begins the boring part of the practice. Where you know how to play everything, but you need to drill some parts even more, another dozens of times, possibly at slower speed, until you can play them flawlessly. Reduce error rate.

2026-08-30

• Achievement unlocked
• Need to practice some of the fills some more. Still missing the toms because they're too close to each other. I think I need more practice with actually keep my eyes on the toms and crash and so on. Because this is not a full size drumkit, I can't just play with my eyes somewhere else and expect to always hit.
• By end of the upcoming week I should be done with this song completely.
• Okay so my best case prediction on 2026-08-21 was not that that bad. I defeated hofstadter's law.
• 2026-08-31 - next time practice with the 'no drums' track it sounds way better

2026-08-29

(just finished practising)

rant start

• yeh drumstick kisi ke gaand me ghusana hai bhai. bhenchod
• I want a genocide
• If you all fuckers behave like animals, you will be treated like animals. Make long-term plans. Else I will round you up in a pit and summarily shoot you. I don't care if you live or die. rant end

drums notes

• Mat is successful at preventing the bass pedal from moving.
• The drums feel too close to each other. I am now building muscle memory with kit, but it will be a bit annoying when I have to switch back to an actual kit and rebuild muscle memory on that again.
• 2:24 to 2:42 has so many confusing fills that need to be played entirely on muscle memory. The answer is simply to play the fill N number of times at a slower speed so that the correct fill and form get burned into your muscle memory. Then later on when you play at full speed, you are just mindlessly executing, you are hardly even seeing the sheet music or even consciouslty aware of what you are playing. You are just playing.

rant analysis

• Why am I still ranting? I don't know. I think playing this is not fun anymore. But I told myself, okay finish learning this one song, go play at some open mic events, go get a recording and post it on your website and on your hinge profile. Blah blah blah. I am like wait I don't care that much about playing this song anymore. This is starting to get a bit boring. It is okay, not very boring yet, but yes.
• I think I will still finish learning this song. Sunk cost. (Sunk cost fallacy is not actually a fallacy, whoever invented this phrase is probably an economist not a psychologist, theory-fucker not practician, they don't understand activation barriers. The hardest part is starting, once you've started and reached decent level, you have already sunk a lot of cost.)
• I want to beat the shit out of someone.
• I am vaguely second-guessing this hinge bullshit. I don't even actually like any of these women, there is only a small subset within them who I actually like, who gives a shit about all this.
• I notice I am confused. Why is this harder for me than for many others at similar stats? Is it just they're normie? Whereas I hate normie culture with such an intense fury I genuinely won't care that much at this point if these people are genocided. rant over

drums notes

• On the bright side, I have actually finished practising the hardest part the song. The rest is mostly easy I think. Except for one final fill at the end.
• Okay just listened to it. Yes the rest is actually quite easy, except for the final fill.
• Best case scenario I should be done with the whole song in another 2 (?) practice sessions.

more rant notes

• My first reaction was like iske gaand me ghusana hai.
• But then I was like, wait what if this guy ends up reading my website.
• And umm, on a more serious note, I do appreciate some of his contributions. They are not useless. And he does seem self-aware enough to realise that economics theory and human psychology tend to differ. So my criticism of him is incorrect. Apologies in case he actually ends up reading this lol.

2026-08-23

• Bass pedal is shit. Need to figure out a way to fix the pedal in place. (Or else buy a better pedal.)
  • update - option 1 - use a rubber mat below to increase friction. option 2 - use adhesive to stick the pedal to a rubber mat. option 3 - abandon the whole kit and buy a better one (lol)

2026-08-21

• I initially started playing out of frustration, like, why the F is this still on my to do list. Finish it and move on to the next hobby. But by the end of playing, I actually liked playing.
• I think making fast progress makes me feel good. It is the whole gamification curve thing. My day job feels like climbing a cliff that goes vertically upwards. But this feels like an easier climb.
• I counted till the end. There are like 2 + 2 + maybe 3 or 4 = maybe 8 fills more I need to burn into muscle memory.
• Also the 32nd notes are just at the max speed I can still play comfortably.
• I have to basically play the entire song's fills on muscle memory lol. No time to actually read the music live (for the fills, rest you can read).
• Okay so I have done half the song. I should be done in another 4 or 5 practice sessions then, yes? Best case scenario, will be done by 2026-08-31

2026-08-17

• Second half noticeably ramps up in speed though, not sure if I can play that fast without actually slowly getting each of these fills into muscle memory (which is kinda the point).

2026-08-15

• Playing drums after ages. Holy shit that was fun.
• I surprised by how much I actually remember and am play just from muscle memory.
• Also just one day practising and I could do almost half the song, at 0.75x speed.
• I think I picked a good song. I picked something I actually listening to, and something beyond but not significantly beyond the edge of my capabilities.

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