Not only have the months proceeded in a timely fashion, but I have not posted the results of my Drum Trainer experiment. So here's the deal (Yes, an excuse is coming). A week after kicking off my grand experiment, my television went out. Then I had to fly to New York. Now I have to fly to Tokyo. I'm not pulling the plug on the experiment, nor am I changing the rules, really, but I am going to postpone posting the results. I'll still show you the progress of 30 days of training, but it's going to come later in October.

For now relish in the official training guide that John Drake over at Harmonix, a drummer himself, was kind enough to put together for me.

Above all else Drake stresses that you practice makes perfect, lots of practice. But he also said that practicing in this particular order could, perhaps, speed things up for fans of drumming and Rock Band 2.

LEARN HOW TO DRUM IN ROCK BAND 2
To begin:
Start with the “how to play your RB drums” tutorial to get the correct stick/foot position if you’re unfamiliar.

Play each beat to 100%. Play each fill to 100%. Head into freestyle mode with the metronome on and see if you can put the techniques to use!

Then try each song in no fail mode and see how you do. If you struggle, try the beats again. If you still fail out, try the troublesome parts in practice mode.

SIMPLE/WARMUPS
- Mixed Hands
This is a great hands only way to warmup! Alternate between your left and right playing the 8th notes and start loosening up your hands
- 8th note hats
Simplest of beats, hands only
- Kick and Snare
The other half of simple beats, only 2 things
- Hard Rock Hats
Straight forward beat, with quarter note hats
- Baby’s First Rock Beat
Straight forward beat, with 8th note hats
- Pound through the following simple fills:
Quarter Note Snares
Quarter Note Kicks
Quarters down the toms
Flams on Quarters
Quarters with a kick
8th Notes
8ths down the toms
8ths with a kick

Wrap it up with a song: Eye of the Tiger
Play a second song? : Psycho Killer
Play a Third song: Hungry Like the Wolf!

Surfin/Punk (California Times!)
- Surfin on 2 hands
- Surf’s Up
- Poodle Skirt
- We Will We Will Rock You
Sing along if you’re having trouble rocking this one!
- You Will You Will Rock Us
- Fast Punk 1
- Fast Punk 2
- Pound through the following fills:
Chicka Bum Chicka Boom
The Balladier
3 Big Ones
3 Big Ones with a Kick

Wrap it up with a song: My Own Worst Enemy
Play a second song?: Keep Em Separated

Disco Beats!
- Disco 1 (your right hand is going to hit on all the quarter notes…so it matches right up with the kicks! Just alternate your hands…try hands first for all these disco beats!)
- Disco 2
- Disco 3
- Disco 4
- Pound through the following fills:
16th Notes
16th Notes 1 tom
16th Notes 2 Toms
16ths around the set

Wrap it up with a song? : Orange Crush
Play a second song: Everlong (way challenging!)

Tom/Harder Hands Work
- 8th Note Hats
- Tricky Snares 1
- Tricky Snares 2
- Tricky Snares 3
- Kick/Snare Var 3
- Tricky Snares 4
- Smells Like That Beat
- Big Band Toms
- Pound through the following fills
- Little Rock Fills
- Big Rock Fill
- Big Rockin Crash
- Stairway to Flams
- Hands Foot Simple
- Hands Foot Simple 2

Wrap it up with a song: Move Along
Play a Second Song? : We Got the Beat
Try a Third Song: Go your Own Way

Triplet/Swing Week
- 2 Hand Swing (6)
- Swing the Hats (62)
- Swing the kick (63)
- Swing and Stomp (67)
- Triple the Hats 1
- Triple the Hats 2
- Triplet Doom (76)
- Pound through the following fills
Intro to 8th Triplets
All 8t
8t with Toms
8t Around the Set
8t, 1 hand 1 foot
Tricky Triples
Triples around the set
Speed Bonham

Wrap it up with a song: Spirit in the sky

Tricky Kicks Week
- Baby’s First Rock Beat
- Tricky Kicks 1
- Tricky Kicks 2
- Robot Rock
- Prog Rock
- Tricky Kicks 4
- Pound through the following fills
Double Kicks
Quads
Thundering Kicks
Mix it up 1
Mix it up 2
Craziness
Craziness 2

Wrap it up with a song: Alive (Pearl Jam
Try a Second Song? : Lump (Presidents of the United States of America)

Some Tips:
- In these beats, and most of the beats moving forward, the right hand is almost always constant. This means that you can practice the foot/left hand patterns, using the hi-hat as a guide (since it’s evenly spaced). Then add the hats back in. (or get the hand patterns down and then add the kick.) When in doubt, drop out one limb and learn it part by part!
- Play what we call “open closed open”. Start the beats slow, work up to higher speeds and then slow it back down to show that you’ve mastered it!

This concludes our great experiment.

Verdict: We rock.

—Mark Wilson

We are officially eight beers and about two Jager Bombs into the show. After hanging out at the Activision booth for way too long watching McWhertor pwn at Guitar Hero III, we realized we were out of time and high-tailed it to Hall number three where Sony and, more importantly, SingStar was located.

We arrived just in time to find a clutch of booth babes and booth bucks hogging the machine doing a monstrously-bad rendition of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive." The song, or attempt at a song, ended with the woman in charge of the microphone thanking everyone and tuning off the sound system. It took a little sweet talking by Mark, Mike and I before we convinced them to let us, sans beer, to get them to turn on the sound again and have a go at a song... specifically Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf", the drunk man's opus.

After knocking it out of the ballpark, Mike and I walked from the stage trying our best to keep the shrieking fans from tearing our t-shirts from our sweating backs. Fortunately, we found shelter in a beer garden where I sat to type this, perhaps my last bit of prose, out to you, our beloved readers. I gotta pee, back back later.

Michael McWhertor drunkenly copy edited this drunkenly written post.

Unfortunately, we ran into Boogie, after the Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 kiosks looked to be totally occupied. After a couple played songs—Daft Punk's "One More Time", Kelis' "Milkshake" and who knows what Old Man Crecente did—we were more sleepy than pleasantly boozed. Fuckin' Boogie. It's literally a buzzkill.

We're off to Hall 2.

Synopsis: Subjects shows a propensity to discuss topics of high school activities.

Over lunch, we learned that Mark played trombone, Brian mended a broken leg and Michael asked that you not confuse him with Fahey. He also ran track and wrestled. Yes, he was a jock. Throw rotten food at will.

We've already secured a mini-bottle of the local poison (Jagermeister) with which to start our hall crawl, but the rest of the drinking (mostly beer, we suspect) will be done on the show floor itself. The rules are that any time we pass a beer stand, we drink.

We'll be posting progressive updates and expect that by the time we reach Hall 5, we'll be praising Pony Friends for its fresh take on the horse grooming genre. We may even take up the mic on the SingStar stage to belt out some Scissor Sisters.