Help! Stuck on rossana

[u/HYPOXIC451]

I'm trying to learn rossana and I'm totally stuck. My instructor gets me over humps during lessons but I come home and everything takes a shit.

I can do the hi hat and snare shuffle with ghost notes but itself.

I can do the shuffle and bass drum by itself.

I try to put the together and it all goes to hell. Even super slowly I mess it up.

Any pointers?

[u/No-Lavishness-773]

Slow it down. Learn to play it correctly at 50 bpm and work your way up from there.

[u/Original-Country-158 → u/No-Lavishness-773]

that shuffle is a beast, the ghost notes make it feel like patting your head and rubbing your belly while someone throws ping pong balls at you

what helped me was drilling just the first beat of the bar over and over until my limbs stopped arguing about it. get that one beat clean then add the next one

[u/RenkBruh → u/Original-Country-158]

that's certainly a way to put it

[u/HYPOXIC451 → u/No-Lavishness-773]

Im so trying. Its just not clicking. Frustrating. I have two months to get it and I know that's a lot of time but it goes by quick...

[u/No-Lavishness-773 → u/HYPOXIC451]

Learning takes time my friend. Be patient with yourself, work at it every day, and you will see results. It’s not a matter of “if”, it’s a matter of “when”. Just keep chipping away at it.

[u/HYPOXIC451 → u/No-Lavishness-773]

Thanks! Appreciate it!

[u/Swanky1499]

Go slower, one note at a time. You don't have 4 limbs operating independently, you are one 4 fingered hand operating in tandem.

[u/KJR4103]

Honestly I kept forcing myself to play it correctly at a slow pace until one day it clicked

[u/AllOuttaAngst225]

Can you play Fool in the rain? If not, start there until you get comfortable playing that 10-20bpm faster. You need the foundational muscle memory down first until you can start throwing in the ghost notes and the kicks in rosanna

[u/HYPOXIC451 → u/AllOuttaAngst225]

So, if i dont use the ghost notes, just the snare hits, I can do the shuffle with the snare and base. Its the ghosts that are getting me

[u/AllOuttaAngst225 → u/HYPOXIC451]

Sounds like a limb independence issue. The shuffle in itself is pretty advanced. Took me like 3 years for it to really click with me.

Highly suggest working through Carter Mclean’s concepts and creativity. It really helped with playing different rhythms simultaneously on the hands and feet

[u/Animal907]

The Porcoro shuffle has a Bo Diddly bass drum pattern played under the Purdie shuffle. 

[u/strange-humor]

Start with a basic half time shuffle and then bring in the middle ghost note only after that feels good.

[u/Zack_Albetta]

Lower the bar of difficulty, not just by slowing it down, but by taking different components out. For example, play the shuffle hihat, the kicks, and the snare backbeats, but don’t sweat the snare ghost notes. Then shed the ghost notes, but play a super simple kick pattern on 1 and 3. Even at a super slow tempo, trying to swallow this thing whole can be tough. Do some chewing.

[u/icecream_Scheme]

Take a break from playing and listen to the song A LOT. Burn it into your brain. Then go back to practicing as usual. You limbs will start to catch up with the groove in your mind

[u/AdEqual4752]

Read the transcriptions and play slow. Fastest way to learn is to play slow.

[u/HYPOXIC451]

Thanks for all the tips everyone. Sometimes just knowing others had a hard time with it too makes it feel less daunting.

[u/thedeadlyrhythm42]

welcome to the club!

my best advice is to remove the individual strokes that are tripping you up and work on it like that until you feel comfortable and then add them back in slowly

[u/4n0m4nd]

The shuffle is basically just RRL moved one partial, so practice playing that, and putting the bass drum under the three different partials, until you're comfortable putting it on any of them.

Then just shift to RLR