Philip Agee, born on 19th of january in 1935, was an ex-CIA officer who became a prominent critic of CIA policies, detailing his experiences in the text "Inside the Company: CIA Diary". Agee ultimately defected to Cuba, dying there in 2008.
Philip Agee (1935 - 2008) served as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer for eight years, joining the organization in 1960. He was assigned posts in Montevideo, Mexico City, and Quito, Ecuador.
Agee resigned from the CIA in 1968 following the Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City, in which the U.S.-supported government engaged in mass shootings and arrests of a crowd of more than ten thousand protesters. The same massacre also played a role in the political radicalization of Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatistas.
Agee moved to London and published "Inside the Company", a tell-all text that, among other things, detailed his work in spying on diplomats, engaging in illegal activity to force a diplomatic break between Ecuador and Cuba, naming President José Figueres Ferrer of Costa Rica, President Luis Echeverría Álvarez of Mexico, and President Alfonso López Michelsen of Colombia as CIA collaborators, and exposing the identities of dozens of CIA agents.
For the exposure of agents, Agee was expelled from the United Kingdom. Agee was also eventually expelled from the Netherlands, France, West Germany and Italy, and was compelled to live under a series of socialist governments - Grenada under Maurice Bishop, then Nicaragua under the Sandinistas, and finally Cuba under Castro. Agee died in Cuba in January 2008.
"I don't think we have ever had real democracy in this country. Anyone who studies adoption of the constitution will understand quite clearly that; democracy - as we understand that on today; was the last thing the founding fathers had in mind when they wrote the constitution....it was: to establish strong central authority responding the elitist interests in United States.
That's private property. And those men who wrote the constitution were representatives of the elites. They were the lawyers, bankers, merchants, the land owners, slave owners and so forth. And they write the constitution for their own private interest$. That is how government has served ever since. And that is why we have so little democracy in United States."
- Philip Agee
Philip Agee - spartacus educational
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Hi, single stroke roll is something you need to spend a lot of time on and likely there will be many points where you revisit it and redevelop it. In my opinion there's no point in learning paradiddles and other rudiments until you have solid understanding of: Single Stroke roll, doubles, press rolls and probably flams. I say this because every other rudiment uses those four ingredients and they wont sound amazing if those are slacking.
I found that I could get my wrist/fingers to move at tempos 100-110, but if I was intending to do 32nds notes, I was actually doing 7s. Or also very common, really dragging but still feeling the quarter note on click enough to keep going and eventually run out of steam. If you're doing that, you're not really playing 110 and you need to go back. 110 is clean, evenly spaced, flows and doesn't fluctuate in time. If it fluctuates, again you're not playing 110. I have a phone that could do slow-mo recording and using it pretty much made me stop what I was doing and go back.
If your right hand has a better grasp of technique, use it to teach your left hand, your left hand is clearly underdeveloped and you need to spend a lot of time on it. They can inform eachother too I found.
Be very clear on what technique you are trying to develop, are you using fingers, wrists, ulna rotation? You need to choreograph these things in advance and get very detailed on what the entire hand and wrist is doing. If you're fingers, there shouldn't be wrist activation, if you're doing wrist, no forearm activation. Those things should be relaxed. My fulcrum doesn't really change when I play and I've put a lot of time into training my hand to not reposition into anything but what I feel like is optimal. See my other response to one of your old posts to get the idea of how to get your hands working right.
Check your fulcrum, for me and many people the focal point the middle finger is the finger that all single strokes work on. That being said all of your fingers should have some strength to them. With finger technique, I can play 110+ with just my index and middle. I would prioritize wrist technique though, fingers can only go so fast with an undeveloped wrist. Always stop if it hurts and try to aim more maximum relaxation and rebound.
Single Stroke roll is tough, the alternation aspect does require a sense of timing, muscle memory and is it's own thing. For example at 80 BPM, your right hand and left hand individually will do it cleanly, but put them together and it sounds choppy or they start climbing over eachother. This is where making sure both hands are doing the same stick height comes in.
Like you said a lot of vibes based practice but you have to take a more disciplined and methodical approach to acheive a very specific outcome, this is how I would practice these things if I had your problems:
5 minutes both hands each at 60 BPM doing quarter notes, each stroke should give the maximum practical rebound, you shouldn't being using a lot of muscle and you should be relaxed. I think you need to have a solid wrist technique so you should be using your wrists here. Your fulcrum should have detail, where is the stick resting in your hand (ex. Stick lays on middle fingers middle digit and connects to the first digit of your index. Ring and pinky are along for the ride. Thumb is supporting the stick and is relaxed. The stick rests on right side of the thumb.) Figure out these details and dont readjust your hand, you're negatively teaching your hand to change fulcrum when you adjust for comfort. Aim for the same stick height every stroke. Maybe do two sets of five with your left.
5 minutes at 60 and 65 each doing single strokes at 8th note level. If you start getting bored try doing triplets but try to be disciplined, you're trying to develop a cleaner technique that single stroke rolls demand.
Try this for a week, do it everyday. Also make sure your practice pad is laying flat and is at waist level.
I posted one of my practice regiments on the improoov board if you want to see how I think about practicing deliberately
Cool!! Thank you! This is just what I need. Noticed already that I don't pay enough attention to stick height. Getting a little better at this every day
If you're not watching your stick height I imagine you're missing other things I mentioned, keep looking back at my post when you need troubleshooting help or @ me again