Ultimate Drumming Solution.pdf

SETTING UP YOUR DRUMKIT.

When setting up your kit theres really two main considerations; the height and the angle of each drum or cymbal.

You want every component of your drumkit in a position that is easy to get to and comfortable to play. You dont want to be lunging towards your kit just to play it. A good way to check this, is to reach out and touch every part of your kit with just your hands. If you find you have to really lean or stretch, then that part of the kit is too far away. You should be able to touch every part without leaning.

Pedals and Legs.

You want your weight evenly distributed between both legs, and your centre of gravity in the base of your body. Your legs should just extend naturally and neither foot should be on any strange angle when resting on or playing the foot pedals.

Seat Height.

This varies from player to player. Some people sit high and have their legs angled down, some people prefer to sit almost flat. Whatever your preference, dont sit so low that youre getting a 90 degree angle or less in your legs. Otherwise youre having to work too hard and use too much muscular force to use your legs.

Snare Drum Height.

With the snare drum you need to make sure that you can play all manner of strokes (tap to full strokes, rim shots, rimtaps etc) easily and comfortably. This will take fine tweaking of both the snare height adjustment and the snare angle adjustment.

One thing to check is that you can play rimshots easily. You should be able to play a rimshot at the bottom of a stroke. Assume a rimshot position, you should be able to produce one without your hand hitting into your leg if it is it means the snare is too low and youre lunging down towards the drum. Your fingers hitting your leg is fine, but if your hand is really hitting in to your leg, then the snare is too low.

By the same token, if at the bottom of the stroke, your hitting the rim and not the centre of the drum, then the snare is too high.

Snare Drum Angle.

This is also a personal preference. Many trad grip players prefer to angle their snare down to the right, similar to the old marching drummers (and the reason trad grip was invented). Many players of both trad or matched grip like to have the snare on a slight angle down toward them. The reason is, since the toms and cymbals are often on a steep angle, its less of a change of feel if the snare is also on a slight angle. If your toms are angled but your snare is dead flat, the change is surface angle can be difficult to play between.

Tom Angle.

The height vs angle factor is crucial with toms. Assume the finished position of a stroke on a tom, your hand should be at the bottom of its stroke, relaxed. At this point the stick should be playing square onto the tom. You want to make sure that you always hit a drum/cymbal square on. Doing so means that not only do you get the maximum amount of natural rebound, but you get the best sound out of the drum. If the tom was over rotated, you would be making contact at an over rotated angle and the stick would be stabbing into the drum. This not only gives a poor sound, it dents the drum skins which further degrades the sound and costs you money.

Potential Problems With Power Toms.

If you use power toms, which are longer in length you might run into setup problems, particularly with a 22 or larger (diameter) bass drum.

Obviously a tom sits higher on a 22 than a 20 inch. The problem with deeper power toms is that they hit the bass drum when you try to get them down to the height that you want. Because they will not go any lower, you have to compensate by angling them in towards you (so that you can at least hit the skin), but then they are over rotated for the height, and you once again are hitting in to the drum causing dints in the skin and getting a poor sound from the drum.

Posture Very Important.

People will always tell you sit up straight. But whats actually happening when you sit up straight, and why do you need to do it? Maybe a better way of thinking about it is, rotate your hips forward so that youre getting the natural S curve is your lower back (lumber spine). The reason you want to do this is, when your spine is in its natural S curve, its the strongest, safest and most stabile position.

If you dont rotate your hips and assume the S curve in your back in other words if you slouch, the discs in your back which were level and flat and now being squashed down at the front because your spine is arched over. And that means there is a lot of pressure pushing the gel in the discs out the back. Worst case scenario, youll blow a disc or have a herniated disc.

Inherent Physical Problems In Drumming.

This relates to posture.. As we know everything we do on the drums is in front of us, never behind us. Therefore were spending a lot of time using the muscles on the front of the body, particularly the arms, but also to a lesser degree the muscles on the front of the shoulders (front deltoids) and chest muscles (pectorals).

What can happen is, because these muscles are being used so much more than the equivalent muscles on the back of the body, they become overactive, stronger and tighter than the back muscles, and therefore pull the shoulders forward. This is known as thoracic kyphosis.

Mild cases of thoracic kyphosis like this are often seen in someone who spends all day typing on a computer, and has their shoulders pulled forward. Basically the front muscles are over active from extended use, and the equivalent back muscles are switched off from no use.

How Thoracic Kyphosis Relates Back To Posture.

Given that Thoracic Kyphosis is a potential or even inherent problem in drumming, it furthers the need to have your hips rotated forward and your natural S curve in your spine. Why? If you slouch (un-rotate your hips) your shoulders will naturally fall forward as it is. So you can see, if you slouch AND do a physical activity using largely the front muscles on the body, they both exacerbate the same problem.

HAND TECHNIQUE

Hand Technique Intro.

The first thing to know with technique is that there are many different hand techniques for many different applications, and there isnt one technique that rules all or one that is better than the rest. At the end of the day there are many different ways to move the stick in the hand and you can use different combinations of fingers, wrist and arm to produce motions in different ways.

Gripping The Stick.

You grip the stick between the flat of the thumb and the first knuckle on the index finger, 1/3rd of the way up from the back of the stick. 1/3rd of the way from the back of the stick seems to be the perfect balance point for most sticks, where you can obtain maximum rebound.

This grip between the thumb and index finger is called the fulcrum and the fulcrum is where the stick pivots in the hand grip when playing rebound and other strokes. Always make sure the gap in the fulcrum from the stick to the finger webbing is open. Never close this gap, otherwise the stick wont be able to pivot or move.

Make sure the fulcrum is tight enough that the stick wont fall out of the hand, but not so tight that it restricts the stick movement.

From there the back 3 fingers come around and cradle the stick, theyre the engine room for finger strokes and other strokes. Quite often the back 3 fingers moving together as one unit, contribute a large amount in moving the stick.

Matched Grip VS Traditional Grip.

When both your hands are in the wrist up position, youre using Matched Grip. Traditional Grip is where the left hand (for a right handed drummer) assumes an underhand position. Here the back of the left stick sits in the finger webbing between the thumb and index finger, and the middle of the stick rests on the middle joint of the ring finger. The index and middle finger then come over the top of the stick and work in conjunction with a sideways wrist movement to produce the motion of the stick.

Traditional grip was invented when marching drummers of the early 20th century played marching drums on a 90 degree angle down to the right. It didnt make sense to use matched grip because the left arm had to be raised so high, so a more effective under hand grip took preference. This became known as Traditional Grip. Since so many of the days marching drummers taught the next generation of drumset players, or were also drumset players themselves, trad grip became very popular with the jazz drummers and got passed down from generation to generation through all styles, including the modern rock styles of today.

You can see the lineage and continuation of trad grip when you study the greats. Early masters like Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich used trad grip, and modern day masters like Dave Weckl, Vinnie Colaiuta and Virgil Donati also use trad grip.

The Rebound Stroke.

The Rebound Stroke gets its name from the fact that youre utilizing the natural rebound off the drum head to produce the sticks up motion. This is a fantastic concept, it means youre getting twice the result from half the effort..

Assume vertical up position start position. If you use a combination of fingers and wrist to throw the stick down into the drum head, then after the stick has made contact, release the fingers and let the stick rebound up youll notice that it rebounds all the way back to start position. Repeat this. Here you can see that you are only producing the downward motion, the rebound from the drumskin is producing the upward motion. Hence you use half the effort for twice the result.

The rebounds stroke works really well on any surface that offers a decent amount of rebound, like a snare drum, hihats or even practice pad.

Wrist Stroke.

As fantastic as the rebound stroke is, the truth is that on a drumkit there are some surfaces that dont offer the same amount of rebound as a snare or hihats, say for instance a floor tom with a slackened skin. When playing surfaces with no rebound you cant rely on the rebound stroke alone, you have to learn techniques like the wrist stroke where YOU produce both the up and the down motion yourself.

For the wrist stroke, grip the stick tight so that there is no gap between the stick and the hand. Close the fulcrum (even though i told you not to earlier). This is a training grip for the wrist stroke, it helps you isolate and train just the wrist muscles without letting the fingers help you along.

Play strokes from vertical position (full strokes) using only the wrist motion, with the stick in the lock grip. Here you are using the muscles on the bottom of the forearm to throw the stick down, and the muscles on the top of the forearm to pick the stick up.

You will find that as you play around the drumkit you COMBINE techniques like rebound and wrist strokes, depending on what surface youre playing on. You will later also learn about stick heights for achieving different volumes, and arm vs wrist vs fingers for achieving different speeds. And, you will later learn more advanced techniques like The Moeller Technique and the Push Pull technique.

Volumes.

A general rule of thumb with playing different volumes is: if you want to play louder, drop the stick from a higher height, if you want to play softer, drop the stick from a lower height.

There are well known stick heights like full stroke (stick in vertical position), half stroke (stick roughly 6 inches from drumskin), tap stroke (stick roughly an inch from drumskin), taught to achieve different volumes, but really there are infinite degrees or increments that you can go up in.

Try dropping the stick with cm between the stick and the drum, youll see you are producing an extremely soft sound. Gradually go up in increments of a cm, youll see that by the time you get to full stroke you have played maybe 20 or 30 different volumes.

Regardless of what volume youre trying to play always remember the rule to play louder drop the stick from a higher height, to play softer drop the stick from a lower height.

Control Stroke.

Believe it or not youre actually playing the Control Stroke in the first half of the rebound stroke. The Control Stroke is very useful when playing in and out of accents and non accents.

Given that you know to play louder (ie an accent stroke) you drop the stick from higher, and to play softer (non accents) you drop the stick from lower, here is an application of the Control Stroke.

If you play an accent with one hand and you know that the next stroke for that hand is a soft note (where you would drop the stick from low), it doesnt make sense to let the stick rebound all the way back to start position (vertical), only to have to bring it back down low, to get the softer stroke. Not only would this be a waste of time and motion, but it would actually make playing a soft note harder as you would have too much momentum behind the second stroke to play it softly.

A much better idea is to not let the stick rebound back, given that you want it at the low position for the proceeding soft note. And this is the Control Stroke.

Just like the rebound stroke, start from vertical position and throw the stick down. After the stroke has made contact the fingers should have the stick in a closed position. At this point if you were to release the fingers after the stick had made contact, it would rebound back to the start position, but if you just leave the fingers in that finished, closed position, the stick wont rebound. And hence, it will be in the low position, ready for the next soft note.

The key with the Control Stroke is not to grip the stick tight at the bottom of the stroke. Just simply leave the fingers in closed position and that will be enough.

Speeds.

To play a slower stroke, use a larger muscle group like the arm (meaning pivot more at the elbow) to help stabilize and control the stroke. As you play faster, convert to a smaller muscle group like the wrist to play at medium and medium fast tempos. To play even faster again, convert to an even smaller muscle group, the fingers, to play the rapid notes.

There are two main reasons why the fingers can play faster than the wrist, and the wrist can play faster than the arm.

1) The muscles in the actual fingers are very small, theyre a small muscle mass. Therefore its easier to train the fast twitch muscle fibres in the fingers to be faster.

2) Look at the distance the stick travels when using the fingers compared to the full range of a wrist stroke or arm stroke. Its a smaller distance, therefore its easier to play a shorter distance (range of motion) faster.

HAND GRIPS German, French, American.

There are 3 main ways of positioning the stick in your hand.

Germanic Grip.

This is where the back of the stick comes out the side of the palm. Wrists pointing straight up. So in effect youre playing inward. Back in the day it was known as playing around the barrel. German Grip has a lot of power behind it.

French Grip.

French Grip is where the wrist rotates outwardly and the thumbs are now up. Here, to get vertical bounces from the stick the fingers are used a lot. The hands come in together, both thumbs pointing up. French grip is used in a lot of tympani playing, you can get a lot of subtlety and speed with French Grip.

American Grip.

People consider American Grip a hybrid or half way point between German and French grip. From German position, first bring the stick in line down the centre of the palm, instead of across the palm. Then outwardly rotate the wrist a fraction. This is American Grip.

American Grip offers the best of everything, you can play all combinations of fast, slow, loud, soft but American Grip also gives you maximum wrist rotation, which you need to play around the drumkit. Also, American Grip lets you play finger strokes easily with the NATURAL way that the fingers want to move (something that is difficult in German position), and because the stick is down the centre of the palm, it lets you convert to either German or French Grip with minimal effort.

BASIC STROKES.

Every pattern we ever play on the drums can be broken down into combinations of the following 4 rudiments.

Singles.

A Single Stroke Roll is where you alternate sticks from R to L repeated. It doesnt matter what technique, volume or speed you use, it simply refers to the sticking pattern which is R, L, R, L repeated.

Doubles.

A Double Stroke Roll is where you play two strokes per hand change, alternating. So: R, R, L, L repeated. Again it doesnt matter what technique, volume or speed you use, it simply means you play 2 strokes per hand change.

Flams.

A Flam is where you play an accent with a grace note just before it. It gives a slightly split sound, like bda, bda or fla, fla. The grace note is played very close to the accent. The Flam is still considered one note, not two. You can either play flams alternating, or continuous one hand lead.

Buzz Roll.

The buzz roll is otherwise known as the multiple bounce roll or the press roll. Unlike the single, double or even triple stroke rolls, the buzz roll has an undefined number of strokes per hand change.

Instead of counting or trying to play a set number of notes, the aim is to buzz the stick for as long as possible on the drum head, alternating hands.

Squeeze the stick between the thumb and both the index and middle fingers. You need to find just the right amount of squeeze so that from the first bounce from the last a full, continuous buzz sound is produced.

FOOT TECHNIQUE.

Heel Up.

This is where the heel of the foot comes an inch or so off the foot plate, but the ball of the foot remains on the foot plate at all times. The advantage here is that you have more leverage and can now sink more leg and ankle in to the stroke. Therefore you can generally play faster and louder playing heel up.

Heel Down.

This is where the foot stays on the foot plate at all times and neither the heel or ball of foot comes of the plate, ever. This means that more of the shin bone muscle (a smaller muscle in comparison to the leg or ankle muscles) is used. Heel Down is great for softer playing, like a jazz four on the floor feel.

Hihat Pedal Technique.

Hihat Chicks.

Any time you close the hihat to get a short fast sound, that is a hihat chick. You can play these either heel up or heel down. Heel down is better at slower tempos, heel up is better at faster tempos.

Hihat Splashes.

From heel down position, raise the ball of your foot so that the top hihat comes up to the top position. Then quickly tap the fot plate down, so that the top hihat splashes into the bottom hihat.

Another way you can splash the hihats for a louder splash sound, is to kick the bottom of the foot plate with the heel of the left foot.

DRUMKIT TECHNIQUE?

There isnt really a taught thing as drumkit technique. Drumkit technique is really just your ability to play in and out of the many hand and foot techniques, seamlessly without choking up. Its also the ability to adapt any hand or foot technique to cope with playing on different surfaces and different angles of drums or cymbals.

You will find that in order to play fluently and naturally, that you wrists and hands rotate as you move around the kit. This is what you want. If you tried to apply a rigid and strict snare drum technique to your drumkit playing, it would look, feel and ultimately SOUND very stiff. Just relax and observe the natural ways the hand positions and angles change as you move around the kit.

Why Do You Need Technique?

Technique is a means to an end. You develop technique to unlock your musical ideas. You can be the most naturally talented musician in the world, but if you dont have the technique to express yourself, youll never be able to execute your ideas in a precise and accurate manner.

Many people would argue that technique without purpose or reason, in other words technique for techniques sake, is meaningless. However, at the time of writing, speed competitions which measure how fast one can play a particular stroke inside a set time, are popular in some countries. Whether they remain popular is yet to be seen.

How Important Is Speed?

Aside from setting speed records, speed itself is not as important as control. If you have great speed that you can also control (and you play accurately play every other slower speed), then that is great! If you can only play fast, or if you can play fast but with no control, its like having a Ferrari with no brakes.

To see where speed really sits in the overall picture of making great music, consider this..

1) Speed is just one part of technique. Then you have control, finesse, accuracy, independence, not to mention a whole variety of techniques: rebound, wrist, moeller, push pull, heel up, heel down etc

2) Technique is just one part of playing the drums. Then theres GROOVE, groove and groove. Theres the understanding technically and conceptually of all the different styles: rock, funk, latin, jazz, country, some latin or classical percussion? What about reading charts? If you were hired to site read a TV gig, would you nail it or would you train wreck?

3) The drums are just one instrument in a band/ensemble. You need to understand your role in the band depending on the style of music and the size of the band. Regardless, everyone in the band including the drummer are doing their best to make the MUSIC sound great. The other musicians arent there to make the drummer sound great, youre all there to make the music sound the best that it possibly can!

..So with all of that in mind, you can see where speed alone sits on the list of importance. Yes its important and yes you should always be trying to further your technique, a part of which is speed. But is speed alone more important than anything else? No.

TUNING YOUR DRUMS.

We all want our drums to sound great. Particularly when you perform for people live, and ESPECIALLY when you record in the studio, you want your drums to sound the best they can. There are many different sounds you can get from each drum, here well look at the common ways of tuning each drum, specific combinations of skins that help achieve certain sounds, and little fine tuning tricks.

Snare Drum

Snare drum tuning is a very personal thing and is often referred to as that drummers signature sound. The John Bonham snare sound or the Tony Williams snare sound etc.

Most often, drums sound their best with new heads on them, old or worn heads dont respond as well. When taking off your skins, have a quick look over the drum to make sure its general condition is in order. Specifically look for any dints in the bearing edges, and check that the

bearing edges and hoops sit perfectly flat on a table without any gaps. If either the drum or the hoop is warped and not flat, then this will affect the tuning negatively. Also check that the lug holes and tension rods are well oiled, check that all the legs are secured tightly and not rattling, and now might be a good time to clean the drum shell.

Assuming the drum is in good order, place new skins on the top and bottom. Generally the head on the bottom of a snare (the resonant head) is a very thin head, thinner than bottom heads on toms or bass drum. The batter head can be single or double ply, coated or clear. Generally coated batter heads are preferred on snare, single ply for most soft to mid volume music, double ply for heavier styles.

Snare sounds vary. You can have the deep dish sound, a tight funky sound, a middle of the road sound or anything in between.

First tune the bottom head to the pitch you want, make sure you tune in a figure 8 fashion, and tune each tension rod the same increment ass you go round. This will ensure the head is being tuned evenly. A way to check is to tap at the edge of the skin (with the snares turned off) near each tension rod and make sure the pitch is the same all the way round the drum.

As you tune tighter the pitch will get higher and eventually the sound will get shorter also. Therefore you can adjust the amount of sustain that the snare gives by adjusting the snare strainer on the side of the drum.

Bass Drum.

Again there are many different sounds you can get from the bass drum. A popular sound is the fat, dead, punchy sound, used in most contemporary music. The trick here is to use a thick skin, like a clear double ply skin, and detune it A LOT. This is the part people often get wrong, they tune the kick up and up instead of down and down.

Quite often people will have at least the batter head of their bass drum tuned only to finger tight. This will help bring out the slap of the skin (the high frequencies) and also give you the low end boom as the actual pitch of the drum is tuned very low.

From here put some muffling on the batter skin, maybe a towel or smaller piece of soft material, or even a zero ring on the inside of the skin. This will get rid of unwanted overtones and harmonics, and generally clean up and shorten the sound.

Toms.

A popular sound for toms is the pitch drone or pitch bend, which is where the sound drops slightly after the initial strike. To achieve this you detune the top head slightly lower than the bottom head.

Remember for toms and snare that you start by getting the pitch of the skins the same, and from there you can detune or tune up depending on the sound you want.

Skin Thicknesses.

You generally use thicker skins on the top (batter head) and thinner skins on the bottom (resonant head). For snare you might use a coated single ply head and underneath you would use a paper thin single ply head. For toms you might use a double ply clear head on top with a single ply clear head underneath. Bass drum you might use a double ply batter skin with pre built muffling tuned very slack with a plastic beater. Or you might do the exact opposite, it all depends on the sound you want for the style youre playing.

Sleishman Free Floating Drums - www.sleishman.com

Don and Dave Sleishman make the worlds only 100% free floating drums out of Sydney, Australia. Certain other brands have free floating models on the market place, but these drum shells are still making contact with other materials so they arent 100% free floating.

With a Sleishman free floating drum absolutely nothing touches the drum shell except the skins at either end. This means that the drum shell is free to resonate between the skins, and the amount of tone, the quality of tone and the tuning ease is second to none.

Most drums have lugs attached to the shell, and since its so common, people forget to question it. The problem with lugs attached to the shell is that they are choking some of the vibration going through the drum, and therefore the amount of sound, quality of sound and tuning ease is reduced. On a Sleishman free floating drum every pitch from slap low to bongo high is one continual sweetspot.

READING MUSIC.

Lets divide this section into 4 parts:

1) Basic Notation what the lines, dots and spaces on the percussion stave represent.

2) Time Signatures how do they work, why do we need them?

3) Note Values quarter notes, 8ths, 16ths, 32nds, triplets, sextuplets and their equivalent rests.

4) Combining Rhythms And Rests basically writing music!

Basic Notation.

The stave is the 5 lines you see written across a page of music. The stave is divided up with lines into bars, and inside the bars are combinations of notes with flags or joined by beams, rests and other written markings.

Lets look at note values because the value of a note tells us how long that note or its equivalent rest is to be played for before we can play another note or rest.

Quarter Notes:

A quarter note (European name: crotchet) lasts for 1 entire beat. So if you bar allowed 4 beats in it (like 4/4 time does) then you could put 4 quarter notes in it and the bar would then be full. Meaning youd have to start a new bar. Quarter notes have no flag falling off its stem and are not joined by a beam when written consecutively.

Eighth Notes:

An 8th note (European name: quaver) is worth exactly half a beat, so half a quarter note beat. Therefore you can fit 2 x 8th notes into every beat. Or in a bar that allowed 4 beats total (like 4/4 time) you could fit 8 x 8th notes into that bar. In fact this is where the name 8th note comes from.

When 8th notes are written on their own they have one flag falling off them. When theyre written next to other notes except quarters, so other 8th notes, 16ths, 32nds etc, they are joined by 1 beam.

Sixteenth Notes:

A 16th note (European name: semiquaver) is worth a quarter of 1 beat. So you play 4 x 16th notes in a single beat, and in a bar that allows 4 beats total (like 4/4) you can fit 4x4 = 16, 16th notes in the bar. A 16th note when written on its own has 2 flags falling off its stem, or when joined with other notes, uses a double beam.

Thirty-Second Notes:

A 32nd note (European name: demi-semi quaver) is worth one eighth of a single beat. So 8 hits per beat (which makes them very fast sounding!). If you have 4 beats in a bar (like 4/4), you can play a maximum of 8x4 = 32 x 32nd notes in the bar, and hence this is why they are called 32nd notes.

Triplets:

Triplets are exactly 3 notes per beat, which makes them a little different to quarters, 8ths and 16ths, which are all duple rhythms. Although triplets are 3 per beat, they are written on their own with 1 flag, or joined with 1 beam, in the same way that 8th notes are.

Sextuplets:

Sextuplets are exactly twice as fast as triplets, so they are 6 hits per beat. When written on their own they use 1 flag falling from their stem, or when written in groups they use 2 beams - in the same way that regular 16th notes do.

Quintuplets:

Quintuplets are exactly 5 hits per beat. When you write 5 quintuplets in a beat, you write them with either 1 flag, or 1 beam (same as regular 8th notes or triplets for that matter), but you write a small 5 above the group, to indicate it is indeed quintuplets and not regular 8ths.

What the different positions on the stave represent.

SNARE DRUM - second space from the top

BASS DRUM - bottom space

TOM 1 - top space

TOM 2 - second line from the top

FLOOR TOM - second space from the bottom

HIHAT - sitting on top of the top line marked as an X, and played closed

OPEN HIHAT - same position as closed hihat, but written as a clear circle

CRASH CYMBAL - same position as hihats but written as an X with a circle around it

HIHAT PLAYED WITH FOOT - written as an X but below the bottom line

RIDE CYMBAL - when played on the bow it's written on top of the first line as a regular full black note

RIDE CYMBAL BELL - same position as regular ride but has a small dot above it, and sometime is written smaller than a full black note

COWBELL / PERCUSSION - often written with an unusual shape like a black diamond to indicate a different instrument be played

TIME SIGNATURES:

Time signatures dictate how many notes or rests are allowed to be written in each bar before a new bar must be written.

The top number refers to how many beats are allowed in the bar and the bottom number refers to what KIND of beat the top number is referring to.

So with 2/4 time above, we are allowed 2 1/4 notes in each bar before we have to write a new bar.

COMBINING RHYTHMS AND RESTS.

Each rhythm has it's own equivilent rest which is the same amount of time as the note but in silence. Here they are:

European Name American Name Looks like this

semibreve whole note

minim half note

crotchet 1/4 note

quaver 8th note

semi quaver 16th note

demi semiquaver 32nd note

Copyright 2007 Rockyhouse Media PTY LTD. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

INTRODUCTION.

This PDF in conjunction with the material covered in the Fast Track Your Practice DVD are designed to give you 2 things: detailed, no guess practice routines, and real results.

Lets jump straight into it.

PRACTICE BASICS.

To develop solid time feel its crucial that you practice the majority of your session to a metronome, or some sort of click track that has perfect time. Practicing to a metronome has the following benefits:

1) It will help you develop rock solid time feel

2) It will help you identify where you tend to speed up and slow down

3) It will teach you how to play in the centre of the beat

4) It will help you develop an internal clock, which can act as a reference point if you later deliberately decide to play slightly in front of or behind the beat.

OVERCOMING POTENTIAL METRONOME PROBLEMS.

The problem we face as drummers is that the drums are a naturally loud instrument and a metronome usually isnt. Therefore how do we hear the metronome so we can practice effectively to it? We want to even up the volumes so the drumkit is softer and the metronome is louder, and aside from just playing softer, there are a few options..

1) NOISE CANCELLATION HEADPHONES.

A good pair of noise cancellation headphones will work well. These are the large headphones that cover your ear entirely. This means youre getting the volume of the click inside your ear space, but the headphone is blocking out the outside drumkit volume.

2) BEAD EARPLUGS + EAR MUFFS.

A second option that works just as well, is to use regular bead like earplugs plugged in to the metronome, and use ear muffs over the top of them. You can get ear muffs cheap at any hardware store.

This again gives you the volume of the click inside your ear and cuts out the drumkit sound. If anything I find this the better option.

Some headphones on the market look like theyre noise cancellation headphones, but when all said and done they dont actually cut out much outside volume. Make sure you try them out before purchasing.

PROTECTING YOUR HEARING.

While were talking about headphones and volume etc, its important to state that you MUST protect your hearing from day one playing the drums. The drums are a very loud instrument and its absolutely critical that you use some kind of hearing protection while practicing or playing live.

Lets look at hearing protection for regular playing without using a metronome or backing music, so in other words, just playing the drums.

EAR MUFFS.

Again I think the best option is regular ear muffs. They dont look particularly hip, but if youre practicing in your bedroom you dont need to look hip. The advantage with ear muffs is two fold..

1 they generally reduce more dB (decibels) than regular ear plugs you buy from a chemist

2 they cover the entire ear, rather than just the gap leading in to your ear drum.

* This is important. Did you know that bass frequencies (which might not sound that harsh) actually damage the back of the ear drum that is behind your ear connected to your skull. So its not enough to simply plug something into your ear, you need to protect the entire ear drum - front, side and back. Ear muffs do this, ear plugs dont.

CHEAP FOAM EARPLUGS.

Theyre definitely better than nothing. The only problem with them is, they dont cut out an even spectrum of frequencies. The cheaper ones tend to mainly cut out the highs which are the frequencies that sound particularly harsh to our ear. But they let a lot of the bass through, so again this isnt good for your ear drum.

CUSTOM EARPLUGS.

You can get custom made earplugs from places like an Eye & Ear Hospital. They sit you down, stick silicon putty down your ear, get the shape of your ear drum and build a rubber ear plug that fits perfectly to your ear only.

At the end of the plug are attenuators, which you can change. The beauty with these plugs is, A) they cut out a dead even frequency range, so it literally just sounds the same but softer (which is strangely an eerie sensation the first time), and B) you can change the attenuators depending on how much of a dB (decibel) decrease you want.

Personally, I (Jack ) have 15 and 25dB attenuators that I change depending on the gig. Ill use 15s on most acoustic gigs, and 25s on most miked gigs. I believe you can also get 50s. You might use 50s if you were watching UDS 2007 through a stadium PA for instance..

PRACTICE WITH SPLIT ROUTINES.

To get good at anything it takes consistent practice with a well thought out routine. The drums in particular require highly developed motor skills, so repetition is the key.

Ive tried many types of practice routines, and consistently found I get the best results from the following approach.

Regardless of how much time I have to practice I will always split my session into 3 sections:

1) Technique hand and foot development, rudiments, independence patterns etc

2) Stylistic exercises rock, funk, jazz, Latin or a combination whatever it is Im focusing on developing at the time

3) Playing to tracks or CDs playing real music or preparing pieces to perform (live gig or exam etc) Give you a sense of application of techniques and theory.

WHY THIS APPROACH?

The thinking behind this approach is..

1) I develop the technique..

2) To be able to play the exercises or patterns..

3) That I would play in a real musical context!

Plus there are many other benefits from this format, such as: you need to warm up at the start anyway so you may as well run through hand and foot patterns to get warm.

I also find that if I do it the other way around and start out by playing to real music, that Im less inspired to then hit the practice pad and blast rudiments for 20 minutes. So its like the playing to music is a reward for the solid practice done before hand.

This approach guarantees results! Well look at exactly what to practice (depending on time allocated for practice per week) in a moment, but first..

CYCLING YOUR PRACTICE FOR REAL MEASURABLE RESULTS.

Ive always found it best to split my practice goals into 10 week blocks, I call them furnaces. I go in with putty and come out with rock hard results. 10 weeks has always seemed the perfect amount of time, where I can:

A) See real measurable results and therefore feel a sense of accomplishment

B) Not burn out or become frustrated with my routine

C) Take a week off afterward to re evaluate and set new goals

Maybe its because school terms are around the 10 week mark that I feel this is the perfect amount of time. Gym routines are also divided into 10-12 week programs for maximum results, after which time the body becomes less responsive to it, and therefore the routine is less effective. I find drum practice routines very similar.

So if I have an hour to practice Ill do 20 minutes each on technique, styles, CDs.

Using the material in UDS 2007 DVDs were going to now look at specific routines for beginners, intermediate players and advanced players. Obviously its impossible for me to gauge your current ability level since Ive never heard you play, but you will you will fall into one of the 3 categories listed, and you can fine tweak things yourself using the principles laid out herein.

PRACTICE GUIDELINES.

If you already have highly developed hand technique, the increments you increase the speed of each exercise per week become smaller, because there is only so fast you can play. However..

* If you can practice 3 times or more per week, you want to increase the set metronome speed by 5 BPM (beats per minutes) per exercise, per week

This means that over a 10 week period you should have increased your max speed 50 BPM..

* If you can practice less than 3 times per week, you want to increase the set metronome speed by 3 BPM (beats per minute) per exercise, per week.

NOTE: Although you will always start out an exercise slowly and aim for evenness and consistently across a range of tempos, you MUST make sure that by the end of practicing that exercise youre practicing it as fast as you can EVENLY. This is what will break you through to the next level of speed and control.

I cant stress how much of a waste of time it is to try and practice something faster than you can accurately and evenly play it. Its ALWAYS better to take it back a few notches

in tempo and practice until it feels comfortable, even effortless, then gradually increase the speed.

IMPORTANT NOTES.

Youll need an exercise book. A) For each exercise below, you must first find your maximum speed for that exercise where you can play it evenly and consistently, then right it down! This will take time, but its crucial and you only have to do it once. Be honest here and dont kid yourself, as I said youll get nowhere stumbling through an exercise for half an hour.

B) Once you have written down all your maximum tempos for each exercise, write down the tempos that are 10 BPM and 20 BPM slower than your max. So for instance if your max for exercise 1 is 90bpm, write down:

Exercise 1 50, 70, 90

You will practice that exercise first at 50, then at 70, then at 90, then youll move on to the next exercise.

C) Aim to concentrate 110% while youre practicing, dont waver from your routine, and dont stop an exercise, unless youve obviously set the tempo way too high, or you feel ANY kind of pain. The only way to improve and develop motor skills is through repetition, therefore its vital that you dont stop an exercise unless you absolutely have to.

Here Ive written out specific practice routines for beginners, intermediate and advanced players. Always remember, depending on how much time you have per week, dictates how much time youll spend on each exercise remember the divide by 3 rule:

1) Technique 2) Styles 3) Playing to real music

Also note, obviously I dont know YOUR exact ability level, so if you find any of the exercises I mention too easy, or if its material you already know, simply find something that is challenging to you. With all the material covered in UDS 2007, you will have no problems finding something new to learn.

OK, lets get cracking!

Here are some samples of routines for beginners, intermediate and advanced.

All referenced exercises, patterns and backing tracks in the following routines are from UDS 2007.

1) PRACTICE ROUTINES FOR BEGINNERS.

* Remember every exercise listed below is played at 3 tempos, slow, medium and your max.

Technique:

* Single Stroke full strokes * Double Stroke full strokes * Alternating flams * Buzz Rolls

* Bass drum 8th notes * Alternating bass and hihats 8th notes

Exercises: (practice these to the corresponding tracks on the GROOVE TRACK CD from UDS 2007)

* Quarter note rock * 8th note beats * 8th note rest beats * Basic rock fills

Playing To Music: from the Eband JAM Tracks MP3s

* 8th Feel

2) PRACTICE ROUTINES FOR INTERMEDIATE LEVEL. * Remember every exercise listed below is played at 3 tempos, slow, medium and your max.

Technique:

* Hand Development Workshop Singles * Hand Development Workshop Doubles

Exercises:

* Intermediate Rock Beat Matrix * Samba and Cascara Latin American beats * Intermediate level Jazz Independence patterns


* Country * Heavy * Medium Samba * Medium Swing

3) PRACTICE ROUTINES FOR ADVANCED LEVEL. * Remember every exercise listed below is played at 3 tempos, slow, medium and your max.

Technique:

* Hand Development Workshop Singles * Hand Development Workshop Doubles * Chop Sui accents into flams into double stroke rolls

Exercises:

* Advanced Rock Beat Matrix * 6let beats * Odd Time Beats * Salsa * Advanced Triplet Independence


* Heavy * Funk * Salsa * Bebop

So there are some samples of what your routine would look like once youve written it out. Again it will depend on what styles youre trying to learn as to the

material youll practice, and also your ability level, but no matter what you want to learn, its all in UDS 2007.


HOW TO PRACTICE.

One thing you must learn at the start of your drumming is how to practice effectively, this is greatly covered in the Fast Track Your Practice DVD and PDF Workbook, but we will go over an important technique for learning new exercises here.

If you have a new exercise that you just cant figure out, by far the quickest way of learning that exercise is to break it down into smaller sub exercises, learn them first, then piece it back together again.

So, if you have an exercise like the following 3 limb pattern..

First break it down into sub exercises, like..

Then piece it back to the original exercise again.

BASIC QUARTER NOTE BEATS.

Lets start out by learning some basic quarter note beats, this will get us counting in 4/4 time and get us used to feeling the snare backbeat on beats 2 and 4.

This is the first beat we will learn..

You can see were just playing the bass drum on beats 1 and 3, and the snare on beats 2 and 4..

Once you can play that, add the third limb on the hihat line with the right hand (RH). You play the snare with the LH.

Here are some more variations of quarter note beats..

8TH NOTE BEATS.

8th note beats are very similar to quarter notes beats in terms of the patterns played on the snare or bass. The only difference here is that the hihats are now playing 8th notes. The bass drum patterns vary in each exercise, but the snare drum (LH) is only ever playing on beat 2 and 4.

8TH NOTE REST BEATS.

Once you have an understanding and feel for playing 8th note beats, its time to add in some 8th note rests on the bass drum. This will add interest and variety to the beats.

8TH NOTE HIHAT GLISS BEATS.

Another thing you can do to regular 8th note beat to add a bit of spice is to play hihat glisses. This is where you open the hihats on one 8th note and close them on the next, while hihat them with the RH stick.

1 BAR BASIC ROCK FILLS

Now that weve learnt a fair few rock beats, its time to learn some fills to go with them, these fills are 1 bar fills. Play 3 bars of regular time, then the 1 bar fill, then 3 bars of time, then the next fill. Repeat until youve played all the fills.

This is a great way of learning to transition from regular time, into the fill, and back into regular time without speeding up, slowing down, hesitating or dropping your sticks ;)

Here are each of the fills, make sure you play 3 bars of time before each..

ROCK SHUFFLE BEATS.

Lets change things up a bit now, and look at Rock Shuffle beats. These beats are essentially triplet beats, and you can write them in 4/4 time with each beat written as triplets (which well do), or you could write them as regular 8th notes without triplet markings, in 12/8 time.

The RH plays on the first and last triplet per beat, with a slight accent on the notes that fall on the beat, this will help define the pulse. Make sure every note you play falls into a swinging triplet feel, and also make youre alignment is spot on. That is, that between the individual notes, there are no flams or split notes being played.

12/8 BLUES BEATS.

The following beats work well in slower blues ballads, again they have a triplet feel about them but are generally played slower than rock shuffle beats.

BUSIER ROCK BEATS A Adding 16th on the a beat.

Within a group of 16th notes there are 4 notes counting as follows:

The 1st note is counted as the number The 2nd note is counted as e The 3rd note is counted as + The 4th note is counted as a

In this section well look at playing beats that play the snare drum or bass drum on the a 16th note, within any beat.

To ensure that the 16th slots exactly into its space, make sure youre subdividing 16th notes in your head as you play these exercises, so either hear rolling 16th notes in your head or count 1e+a 2e+a 3e+a 4e+a etc..

You can see with the added 16th notes, these beats are slowly starting to sound funkier and more interesting, just make sure the 16ths are dead even.

BUSIER ROCK BEATS B Adding 16ths on the e beat.

Lets keep building on our 16th beats by looking at playing both or either the bass and snare drums on the e 16th note. This further gives the beat a busier and more syncopated feel.

BUSIER ROCK BEATS C Adding doubles on the bass drum.

In this section well look at playing doubles on the bass drum within regular 8th note beats. This is where it gets interesting, you can play doubles starting from or landing on any 16th.

Here are the combinations of double you can have, all played on the bass drum..

COMPLEX ROCK BEATS A Adding 16th Note Rests

This section looks at adding in some rests into the beats weve already played, this gives the patterns a different colour, very useful for songs that require a funky groove that is less busy.

COMPLEX ROCK BEATS B Alternating Busy 16th Patterns Between Snare / Bass

Since weve been looking at using 16th patterns both on the snare and bass, less now look at some busy patterns that alternate between snare and bass with 16ths continuously. These are quite challenging so take your time!

Again, make sure youre subdividing 16ths in your head so you are definitely getting the notes landing in the correct spot. You will find keeping everything even just as much of a challenge as actually coordinating the patterns to start with.

COMPLEX ROCK BEATS C Displacing The Snare Drum.

OK! Having fun yet? In this section well look at displacing the snare drum for the first time. Usually most rock/pop/funk/country/blues etc beats have the snare falling on 2 and 4 otherwise known as the back beat. But that doesnt mean you HAVE to play snare on 2 and 4..

Sometimes the music require a more syncopated 16th feel, where the snare is actually falling around the beat instead of on it, and the following exercises will look at pacing the snare 1 16th note before beats 2 or 4.

Which means it will be coming in on the a beats before 2 or 4..

BUSIER ROCK FILLS!

OK since weve been spending all this time learning about 16th notes beat and their application within rock beats, lets now apply them to rock beat fills.

These fills are a little more involved and advanced than the Rock Beginner section fills, again the only way to guarantee your fills will land in the right spot is to subdivide 16ths in your head as you play them.

Once again, play 3 bars of time then the 1 bar fill, then 3 bars time, then the next fill. This will get you used to playing in and out of time and fills without any hiccups.

Here they are..

COMPLEX ROCK FILLS.

Once youve mastered the above fills, have a try at these complex ones. The following fills arent really that hard technically (theyre only using single strokes), but quite often youre ONLY playing on the e or a in between 16ths and that is quite challenging.

INTERMEDIATE ROCK DRUM BEAT MATRIX

This matrix is designed to give you a wealth of beats at the intermediate rock level that note only use complex bass and snare patterns, but also complex hihat and ride patterns.

So far with all the beats covered in this section the hihats have always played straight 8ths. Now were going to throw accents into the hihat patterns, move the right hand onto the bell of the ride cymbal, introduce accents on the off beats and play beats using rimtaps (rimclicks).

The matrix works as follows:

We have our core bass/snare patterns which we will continue to play all the way through regardless of the RH variation. Here they are..

As you can see these are beats weve already covered, from here apply the following 5 RH variations to each of the above beats. You end up with 25 beats.

Exercise 5 is the same as 1 except youre playing a rimclick on the snare instead of a regular snare hit.


ADVANCED ROCK BEAT MATRIX

This is a similar matrix or grid of exercises to the one presented in the Rock Intermediate section. Once again we have our core bass/snare parts which we will play to 8 different hihat patterns. Some of the more advanced hihat patterns actually become hihat/snare patterns.

The beats you get out of this matrix are very hip and funky, I think youll enjoy this section! OK lets look at our bass and snare parts first.

So theres a nice combination of straight 8th beats and some funky beats there. Now come the RH variations.

Its amazing how much of a difference or even a total command the hihats can dictate over a groove, and that is what this matrix is about. Youll quickly see, that depending on how we place accents in the hihat figure it can change the feel from a straight 8th, to a 16th implied feel to a half time funk feel to a half time funk shuffle feel.

Here are the RH patterns..

Let me walk you through each hihat variation.

1) Play the accents with the shoulder of the stick on the edge of the hihats, and the non accents with the tip of the stick on the top of the hihats. This will give us 2 sound levels, and 2 sound variations which helps build groove (along with solid time!)

2) Same as above but the rhythm is different

3) Youre alternating sticking leading with the RH, so the RH comes over and plays the snare backbeats on 2 and 4. Play a slight accent on 1 and 3 on the hats, again by playing the should of the stick on the edge of the hats.

4) Youre playing a parradiddle sticking here. All accents played on hats with shoulder on edge, and all snare accents plaed as rimshots, so hit the centre of ther snare and the rim at the same time. All non accents on snare (every note that ISNT indicated as an accent), play as ghost strokes, which are super soft notes played by dropping the left hand from 1 inch from the snare.

5) This is a half time feel, again all accents with shoulder of the stick on the edge, non accents with the tip on the top (like number 1 and 2), but youre doing this motion twice as often because the accents are coming in on the downbeats (beats 1, 2, 3 and 4 AND the off beats.

6) This is actually a half time swung feel, or a half time shuffle feel. And it has more of a swinging triplet feel, than a straight 16th feel. To help define the pulse play the downbeats and + beats with shoulder on the edge, and keep the non accents with the tip on top. Eventually your hand motion will become fluent with this technique and youll find your fingers snapping out the accent stroke.

7) This is similar to number 6, however this time youre adding in a ghost note on the middle triplet, where in number 6 you were leaving it as a rest. Like all ghost notes, make sure this note is extremely soft.

The problem with patterns that are as busy as this is that if there isnt enough dynamic contrast the patterns start to sound monotone and too cluttered or dense. Start slow with this one and just aim for a huge difference in volume between ghost notes and rim shot accents. This pattern isnt about speed its about groove, half time shuffles arent usually fast but theyre definitely magic once you nail them!

So there it is 7x9 youll end up playing 63 patterns!

SEXTUPLET BASS DRUM BEATS.

Since the last 2 exercises in the matrix were focused on sextuplets (groups of 6 per beat) lets continue on with more sextuplet patterns, this time focusing on the bass drum.

A popular technique for playing 6lets (sextuplets) on the bass drum is to leave the first note out and play the 2nd and 3rd notes on the bass drum. Well think of them in triplets rather than 6lets at this stage as its easier to read.

To begin learning the technique play the following pattern..

This will get you used to playing the bass on the 2nd and 3rd triplet while maintaining the pulse with the hihat.

From here try playing a backbeat on the 3rd beat, this will give you a half time feel.

Once you have this basic technique down, its time to incorporate it into some actual beats, here they are..

16TH NOTE BEATS WITH 32ND NOTE ROLLS.

Just while were looking at a fair few 16th note beats, lets look at playing 32nd note rolls within them. 32nd notes are exactly twice as fast as 16th notes, and in these exercises we play the 32nd notes with a double stroke sticking.

We will be playing the 32nds as either 3 strokes, 5 strokes or 7 strokes.

3 STROKE ROLL.

In these exercises the last 16th has been turned into 2 32nd notes. Given that the 16th wouldve been played with the LH, the LH now plays both 32nds as doubles.

Lets do the same thing but use a 5 stroke roll, now the last 2 notes are doubled up into 32nds..

And finally lets use a 7 stroke roll, here the last 3 16ths are doubled up into 32nds..

TOM TOM ROCK BEATS.

Lets now break things up and learn some rock beats focused primarily on the toms. The first section of beats are fairly standard 8th patterns, but the RH is playing on the floor tom instead of the hihats, youll notice it gives these patterns an entirely new flavour.

TOM BEATS BASIC.

TOM BEATS INTERMEDIATE.

Next lets add some 16th notes figures into the beats.

TOM BEATS ADVANCED.

Finally lets add in the bass drum as well. You can see the 3 different sections of beats here all have their own feel.

ODD TIME BEATS.

Next well look at odd time beats. Time signatures like 5/8, 7/8, 9/8, 5/4, and 7/4 are odd times. This means they have a different number of notes and rests allowed in the bar total, as compared to regular 4/4 time.

Well start by looking at quarter note odd time signatures like 5/4 and 7/4, as they are more basic than 8th note signatures like 5/8, 7/8 and 9/8.

5/4 TIME.

This means youre playing 5 quarter notes in every bar. Seeing as were used to hearing 4/4 so much, 5/4 will sound like a regular bar of 4/4 with an extra beat thrown in at the end.

7/4 TIME.

7/4 time sounds like 1 beat short of 2 bars of regular 4/4.

Lets now look at some 8th note odd signatures, this is where things get really interesting!

5/8 for instance means you are allowed 5 x 8th notes in the bar. 7/4 means you are allowed 7 x notes and so on.

5/8 TIME.

7/8 TIME.

7/8 is a nice odd time to play. Since its 7 8th notes to the bar its one 8th short of being 4/5 time, so it constantly feels like a regular bar is being cut short, and there are some interesting things you can do inside it. Lets have a look.

9/8 TIME.

Again like 7/8 this is an interesting signature because its one 8th short of regular 4/4. 4/4 is also 8/8, so 7/8 and 9/8 are one 8th short, in either direction.

In the case of 9/8, it sounds like youve played a bar of 4/4 with an extra 8th attached to the end.

INTRODUCTION.

This PDF / DVD focuses on getting you some serious hand speed and control. Lets now look at specific practice routines for getting your hands flying.

SINGLE HAND EXERCISES.

Quite often when we play either a single or double stroke roll as fast as we can, one hand will be faster than the other, and beyond that speed the roll will sound uneven. This is because one hand is playing faster than the other.

What we need to do is first identify where the problem lies (which hand is slower in which exercise and why), and focus on the hands individually and build them up evenly.

This section focuses on single hand exercises.

EXERCISE 1:

We alternate groups of triplets, first playing 3 per hand change, then 6, then 9, then 12. Also we add a flam to the start of each hand change, like so..

This is a finger training exercise, so make sure youre bouncing the sticks as high as you can and make sure youre using majority fingers. Aim for at least half strokes.

EXERCISE 2:

This follows with the same thinking but this time it not only trains your fingers but tests your ability to play cross phrases and unusual groupings over the beat.

After playing 3 per hand change, instead of going straight to 6, play 4 per hand, then 5 but still within triplets. Obviously the accents will now fall around the beat.

So going from 3 to 4 looks like this..

Then going from 3 to 4 to 5 looks like this. Note that the pattern of 5 puts you in a 5/4 bar, because it takes 5 full beats to resolve back to beat 1.

EXERCISE 3:

This next exercise gets you playing more finger strokes, but this time using 16th notes.

Heres the first exercise, you play 1 beat worth of 16ths, per hand change..

Make sure you play an accent on the LAST stroke, which will make the exercise even more challenging.

Then play 2 beats worth per hand change, this puts us in

Next play 3 beats worth per hand..

Then continue on playing 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 beats per hand change. This is a great speed and endurance exercise for hand technique.

EXERCISE 4:

The above 3 exercises focus on your hands individually and should get them both up to speed. Lets now look at exercises that bring both hands together.

9 STROKE ROLL PATTERN.

A big part of control is being able to transition in and out of different speeds comfortably without hesitation or choking. The following exercise goes back and forth between 8th notes (slower) and 16th notes (faster). Practice with both a RH and LH lead..

Again aim to bounce the sticks as high as possible so youre really working the full range of your technique.

13 STROKE ROLL PATTERN.

A longer pattern using the same idea, is a pattern that uses a 13 stroke roll. This time play 3 beats of 8ths, then 3 beats of 16ths, repeated.

All of these exercises have focused on single strokes, the next few will focus on double strokes.

Play both the 9 and 13 roll exercises with a double stroke sticking in the roll section..

So 9 first..

Then 13..

EXERCISE 5:

Another great pattern that works both singles, doubles, and accents, is playing a 5 stroke roll, but playing it as quintuplets. It really helps build up your hands evenly, and flows from one hand to the other..

ADVANCED SINGLE HAND TECHNIQES.

THE MOELLER TECHNIQUE:

This is a great technique that produces accent and non accent strokes at all speeds, without using the fingers. It relies on the energy and momentum generated from a whipping motion to produce a number of strokes.

The Moeller is most typically used to produce triplets with the first note accented, and the second 2 note unaccented. All with the one hand..

Heres how it works..

For the accent stroke, cock the wrist up and whip the stick down with a fast flicking of the wrist. For the second stroke simply let the stick bounce of its own accord. For the third stroke, let the stick bounce naturally but raise the wrist ready for the next whip. Repeat. Thats the Moeller Technique make sure you check the DVD for a full explanation.

THE PUSH PULL TECHNIQUE.

This is another great single hand exercise.

This is what you use to play accent, non accent, accent, non accent continuously, with just one hand. Like you might in a fast 16th note figure.

Heres how it works. For the non accent, release the stick from the meat of your palm, so it sits out at the finger tips. This should play a soft note on the drum.

Then for the accent stroke, snap the stick back in to the palm. Repeat. Again, you need to see it live so check out the DVD.

ADVANCED DRUMKIT PATTERNS.

Lets now look at advanced sticking patterns you can learn first on snare then apply to the kit as fills. These patterns use single stroke accents and double stroke non accents.

Eventually you will put the single accents on toms or cymbals while keeping the doubles on snare.

SERIES 1:

You need to learn 3 core units first.

1

2

3

* These 3 patterns make up the phrases below..

1)

2)

3)

SERIES 2:

This series looks at playing 16th note accents phrases 32nd note non accents played as double strokes.

Here is the concept play a regular bar of 16ths with the downbeat accented..

If you double up the non accents with double strokes, you get this..

Lets now apply that thinking to the following 16th phrases, and then put them around the kit, by playing the single accents on toms or cymbals and keeping the double stroke rolls on snare..

SERIES 3:

Here well do the same thing but with 32nd note triplets.

Play a series of triplet with accents on the downbeats..

Then double up every note that isnt an accent with double stroke sticking.

So this..

Becomes..

Lets now apply that concept to the following triplet patterns. Once you can play them, put the accents on toms/cymbals and keep the rolls on snare.

INTRODUCTION.

The most important thing to understand when youre playing Latin-American rhythms on the drumkit, regardless of style, is that youre emulating sounds from a Brazilian percussion section. For example, whenever you play rimtap patterns, the rimtap is emulating a pair of claves. When you play the samba ostinato figure on the bass drum, youre emulating a surdo drum and son on.

BASIC SAMBA OSTINATO PATTERN FOOT TECHNIQUE.

A large number of Latin styles well look at here use some kind of variation (even if only the tempo) of the samba ostinato figure, which well look at now. This is a repetitive pattern played between the bass drum and hihats (feet only), upon which other patterns are played with the hands.

In this DVD / PDF the following covered styles all use a variation of the samba ostinato:

Bossa Nova

Slow Sambas

Advanced Sambas

Street Batucada Beats

Snare Drum Sambas

..so lets now have a look at what this pattern is.

Or if the same pattern is written in 16th notes (twice as fast), its..

Make sure you check out the DVD to see this technique demonstrated at all speeds.

THE 8 CLAVE RHYTHMS.

1) THE SON CLAVES

The clave rhythms get the numeric part of their name from how many notes total are played in each bar. So with the 3, 2 son clave, 3 notes are played in the first bar, 2 notes in the second bar, repeated.

This is a 3, 2 son clave..

The numbers above the notes refer to how this rhythm is counted aloud..

1, 2, 3 1, 2 - repeated.

However you can see that if I write in the correct counting of where the rhythms actually fall, its..

..so just be aware of that. The first example is how this rhythm is traditionally (and still today) counted, even though the counting is not referring to the actual rhythm. This is the same for all the clave rhythms.

So then, a 2, 3 son clave is exactly the same with the bars swapped around..

2) THE RUMBA CLAVES.

The only difference between the son and rumba claves is that the 3rd note in the bar of 3 notes is delayed by one 8th note. So in the case of a 3, 2 rumba..

..you can see that the 3rd note is falling on beat 4+, not beat 4. Once again this rhythm is counted as 1, 2.. 3. 1, 2

To get a 2, 3 rumba clave flip the bars around and you get this..

3) THE BOSSA NOVA CLAVES.

You guessed it! Youll play these in a Bossa Nova beat.

Lets go back to a 3, 2, son clave, the first clave we learnt..

This time, to get a Bossa Nova 3, 2 clave we delay by one 8th the second note in bar 2. And it becomes this..

Again to get a 2, 3, Bossa Nova clave, flip the bars around..

Next lets look at the 6/8 claves, the 3, 2 6/8 clave is as follows..

The above is a 3, 2 6/8 clave, once again we flip the bars around to the the 2, 3 6/8 clave..

THE CASCARA PATTERN.

Lets now look at the popular Cascara pattern and eventually combine it with other rhythms to form a very exciting beat.

The basic cascara pattern is as follows, you can play it wherever you like but popular traditional choices are the side of a drum, a cowbell or hitting the rim of a drum.

From here lets add a 3, 2 rumba clave pattern played as a rimtap on the snare..

And finally to complete the beat lets introduce whats called a Baiao bass drum pattern, which is a repetitive 2 beat pattern..

When we put the Baiao with the hand pattern we get a full beat now..

Make sure you check this one out in the DVD, its a very popular and fun beat to play. Hopefully you can see at this pint how Latin American rhythms build upon each other and join readymade rhythms together to form full beats. Remember, this is exactly what a Brazilian percussion section would be playing, its just that they would have one person playing each part. Whereas here youre playing the entire beat yourself, by emulating their sound on your kit!

You can see there is a lot of 4 way coordination needed to play Latin American rhythms on the drums!

The above Cascara beat was not a beginner level beat in fact it can take some time to get the pattern down and grooving well, but I wanted to show you right from the start how we can take 3 separate rhythms; the cascara, the 3, 2, rumba clave and the Baiao and form a beat from them all.

Lets now go back a step and learn some basic samba beats, this will get you developing basic 4 way coordination for Latin American playing.

BASIC SAMBA PATTERNS.

The first thing well do is play 8ths on the ride cymbal with the samba ostinato foot pattern underneath..

Next lets add the rimtap on beat 2 with the LH..

And from here the final thing we do to create the beat is play the first tom on beat 4 and 4+

So thats a basic samba pattern. Now were going to build more independence with the left hand. The following 6 beats all use a basic core pattern of 8ths on the ride with the samba ostinato pattern with the feet (just like in the above example).

But this time the left hand is going to play rimtaps to each of the son, rumba and bossa clave patterns.

So the core pattern plus 3, 2 son, is..

Then with a 2, 3 son clave it becomes..

Next well do the same thing with a 3, 2 rumba clave, which becomes..

Then a 2, 3 rumba..

Next is the 3, 2 Bossa Nova clave played with the core pattern..

Then finally, the 2, 3 Bossa Nova clave with the core pattern..

ADVANCED SAMBA PATTERNS.

Hopefully by now you have a fair bit of independence with the left hand. Lets now develop independence with the right hand, by changing up the rhythms the RH plays.

This is essentially a Latin Matrix, we have 3 RH patterns, and 4 LH patterns, so 12 patterns total, all played over the samba foot pattern..

RH PATTERNS.

LH PATTERNS.

You want to first get used to playing them over a samba foot pattern individually, then combine them. By the end for instance, the first L pattern with all 4 RH patterns and the feet would be..

ADVANCED SAMBA INDEPENDENCE.

By now you should be comfortable moving the LH around the kit while the RH and the feet play repetitive patterns. The next step is to develop even more combinations of hand patterns, that will ultimately lead you to being able to solo and improvise with one hand while playing the other hand pattern on auto pilot.

One of the most common patterns the RH ever plays, in any duple oriented style of drumming for that matter, is the following..

What well do in this section is play that above pattern continuously while varying what the LH plays on snare, eventually youll be able to improvise random ideas and come up with your own patterns.

Lets learn some basic rhythms first, then well look at some actual phrases..

ADVANCED SAMBA INDEPENDENCE BASIC UNITS.

ADVANCED SAMBA INDEPENDENCE PHRASES.

THE BOSSA NOVA.

Lets now look at the Bossa Nova style. Bossas are generally quite similar patterns to sambas, although usually less busy, not as loud and slower.

The first type of Bossas well look at involve the RH playing a repetitive 8th note figure with a brush, while the LH plays rimtaps on the snare. Get used to playing the following hand pattern first, in all these examples the notes on the floor tom space (the second bottom space on the stave) are the brush notes, while the left hand rimtaps etc remain on the snare space.

BASIC PATTERN:

Make sure the snare wires are turned OFF.

From there were going to bring the second rimtap in one 8th note earlier..

At this point lets bring in the foot pattern..

So thats a basic Bossa sounding pattern, lets now play the Bossa Nova clave rhythm with the rimtaps.

Another way to play a bossa is to keep the snares off, but this time use 2 sticks. Play the following rhythm..

SNARE DRUM SAMBAS.

Lets now look at some sambas that use JUST the snare drum. We will be using as many sounds and tones from the snare as possible to create interesting rhythms. Thing such as rimtaps, rimshots, open tones, muffled tones etc.

To start out, learn the following pattern with your RH and play it as open sounding rimshots on the RH side of the snare drum. Keep the snare wires turned OFF.

What were going to do next is play all the in between 8th notes of the rhythm above with the LH as rimtaps.. To separate the music a bit and make it easier to read, all the RH snare rhythms (open tones) are written on the hihat space.

Then well add the samba foot pattern..

Now, make sure when youre playing the rimtaps that UNLIKE when you play them for a rock pattern, you keep the palm of the hand OFF the snare. This will mean that when

you hit the snare with the RH that you will get a nice open tone from the drum and not a dead muffled tone.

You want open tones from all the RH notes. Here are some more patterns..

TOM TOM SAMBAS.

Lets now move the RH to the toms and back, this will give the patterns a different colour.

BATUCADA RHYTHMS.

Another great feel you can take from the snare drum and turn into a full beat is a Batucada rhythm. This is what is typically played in Brazillian street carnival sambas with massive percussion sections!

Lets learn a basic rhythm on the snare first..

What were going to do is imitate the open tone of a big Surdo drum (a Brazilian bass drum played standing with a strap), by playing the floor tom on beat 2 and 4..

Now, to get a more authentic feel you can widen the gap (in real time) between beat 2 or 4 and the 16th before either, as demonstrated in the Total Latin DVD.

Lets now put this basic rhythm with the samba foot pattern..

From here we can vary up the rhythm that the hands play, try these series of accents over the foot pattern..

SALSA Songo, Mambo, Merengue

Salsa is also a style that can be emulated on the drumkit. Always remember that salsa is a style of dance, not a style of music/drumming. To that extent it can make salsa drumming a little hard to define, in fact there probably isnt a such thing as salsa drumming. But the styles that fall under the salsa banner which we can imitate on the drums are Songo, Mambo, and Merengue.

In this section well look at Songo, as it particularly lends itself to the drumkit.

SONGO AND THE TUMBAO PATTERN.

The crucial rhythmic difference between salsa and samba is that youre no longer playing the regular samba foot pattern in salsa. You now play a different bass drum part, called a Tumbao pattern, which is this pattern, repeated..

The bass player will be playing this rhythm also, so make sure you really get comfortable with it as youll be playing it continuously, like you were with the samba patterns previously.

Next play the snare on the following rhythms..

You can see that all the rhythms are falling AROUND the beat. What we need to do to help define the pulse is play quarter notes on either the hihats, bell of the ride or a cowbell. This will help tie the feel in and give the snare/bass syncopations a reference point.

Lets now try some different variations..

THE BASIC JAZZ RIDE PATTERN.

The first thing we need to learn is the basic jazz ride pattern. This is the fundamental pattern that many of the exercises in the DVD/PDF will build off.

From there to add more of a backbeat feel, add the hihats closed with the foot on beats 2 and 4..

And finally to give a consistent pulse, add the bass drum on all 4 beats, this is called the Four on the floor..

JAZZ PATTERN USING THE HIHATS.

You can play a couple of variations on the hihats using the hihat gliss. In these examples open the hihats on beats 1 and 3, and close them on 2 and 4 at the same time that you hit them with the stick..

JAZZ 2 FEEL AND 4 FEEL.

You can play jazz with an implied 2 feel or 4 feel if you choose. A 2 feel basically means youre feeling 2 pulses in the bar, and they are; a pulse on beat 1 and beat 3. You typically play bass drum on these beats to create the feel, and the bass player will be doing the same..

With a 4 feel, its basically the core pattern we learnt above. The bass player will play a walking bass line, meaning playing quarter notes the whole way through, and you will match that by playing 4 on the floor with your bass drum..

THE JAZZ SHUFFLE.

Lets now turn these patterns into a jazz shuffle. Here well put a strong backbeat on the snare to create more of a jazz dance feel..

Start by adding a snare note on 2 and 4 to the core pattern..

Next add the triplet before 2 and 4 as well

Then keep building by adding the triplet on snare before beat 1 and 3..

And finally add a ghost note ON beat 1 and 3 as well. NOTE: the only accented snare notes should be 2 and 4, every other note should be much softer, tap strokes, or maybe a ghost note..

THE JAZZ WALTZ.

Waltzes are in time, here well learn a few in the jazz style. Our ride cymbal pattern is..

Next lets help define the 3 feel by playing the bass on beat 1 of each bar and the hihats on 2 and 3..

Then well add the snare on 2 and 3 as well..

And give it a swinging feel with a swung 8th on snare before beat 2..

From here we can vary the bass drum pattern and the snare..

NEW ORLEANS.

New Orleans feels are primarily played on the snare drum over a repetitive bass / hihat figure. They are usually played with a swung or half swung interpretation of the 16th note figures.

Start by learning this basic pattern..

Then add the bass drum as follows..

Try buzzing the last 2 16th notes..

Also add the hihats on the AND beats..

Finally lets play around with the snare rhythm a bit, using different accents and rolls..

BASIC JAZZ FILLS

Lets now look at some basic jazz fills using swung 8th notes and triplet grouping, to play within our regular jazz beats. The way you should practice these is 3 bars of time, then in the 4th bar, play the fill, then 3 more bars time, then the fill etc. Each fill is 1 bar long..

Here are the fills..

JAZZ COMPING PATTERNS.

Quite often when playing jazz, youre not playing set beats the entire way through the song. In fact often the nature of jazz is to improvise and interact with the other musicians to create music on the fly.

When you improvise you need to be able to play whatever comes in to your head without hesitation or worrying about whether youll be able to play what you want to!

Therefore we need to learn some jazz independence patterns on snare, bass and hihats, to give you a vocabulary of ideas to draw on with your jazz playing.

SNARE DRUM INDEPENDENCE.

1/4 NOTE PATTERNS.

For each of the snare figures written below, practice them under this core jazz pattern of jazz ride pattern, hihats on 2 and 4 and bass drum on all 4..

NOTE: even though the above pattern and all patterns below are written as 8th notes, they must be played as swung 8th notes, meaning..

Is actually played as..

So then, here are some basic 1/4 note snare patterns to learn under the jazz core pattern..

JAZZ 8TH NOTE PATTERNS.

Next try the same rhythmic series as above, but play them as swung 8th notes..

JAZZ 8th RESTS PATTERNS.

Next lets try leaving a few of the downbeats out, and play figures that focus more on the AND beats. These patterns will sound less stated and obvious..

BASS DRUM INDEPENDENCE.

We need to also develop independence with the bass drum. The best thing to do is play all of the above patterns this time on the bass drum. Go through all of the above quarter, 8th and 8th rest patterns and play the figures with the bass.

SNARE AND BASS COMBINED INDEPENDENCE.

The next step is to combine both the snare and bass figures into independence patterns. The following patterns mix up swung 8th patterns played between both snare and bass. Take is slow and make sure youre getting that rolling triplet feel interpretation of the 8th notes figures.

LONG NOTE, SHORT NOTE TECHNIQUE.

Heres a popular jazz independence training exercise that also test your reading. With the following exercises (which are all written on the snare line), play ANY quarter note on the bass drum, and any 8th note on the snare drum.

Then reverse it, play any quarter note on the snare drum and any 8th note on the bass drum.

TRIPLET INDEPENDENCE 1.

So far every pattern weve looked has been swung 8ths. Now well look at playing some triplet patterns, which ultimately sound faster or busy within the same tempo, because there are more notes.

The first patterns will look at playing the last 2 triplets of a beat plus swung 8ths, on the snare only..


This next section looks at playing the middle triplet. This can be a difficult one to hear and play because were not used to hearing the middle triplet. The last triplet is often heard with regular swung 8ths, but the middle triplet is unusual, make sure youre subdividing rolling triplets in your head, to ensure the middle triplet falls in the right space..


The next section focuses on playing the first 2 triplets together, again a little unusual, and make sure youre subdividing triplets in your head. Start out really slow with this one..


This final section uses rolling triplet figures that also include the bass drum.

FAST JAZZ.

The following exercises work really well at any fast jazz tempo, as in REALLY fast.

Regardless of style (jazz swing, bebop, post bop etc), when you play the jazz patterns beyond a certain tempo, they take on more of a straight feel than the clipped triplet feel you generally use at slower and medium tempos. Eventually when it gets really fast, the jazz ride pattern gets flattened out into an 8th pattern, so it literally is played as fast 8th notes, no longer swung 8th notes..

The flattening out of the jazz patterns from swung 8ths to straight 8ths is a gradual progression as the tempo gets faster.

The following units work really well at faster tempos, make sure you play them with both the bass drum and hihat pedals. They are written as 16th note figures to save space..

1)

2)

3)

4)

TRADING 2s, 4s and 8s.

Quite often in a jazz tune you have the opportunity to trade solos with other players. This adds interest and often excitement to the song.

If you alternate 2s it means you play a 2 bar drum solo, then another player (maybe a piano player) plays 2 bars, then you play 2, he plays 2 and so on.

Same thing with trading 4s (which is probably the most common), you alternate soloing with 4 bar solos. With trading 8s you play 8 bars each.


INTRODUCTION.

This PDF shows you the basic grooves I play in each of the 14 Eband JAM Tracks. You can of course experiment and come up with your own. There is never only one way to play a piece of music.

In alphabetical order.

1) AFRO CUBAN.

INTRO / VERSE GROOVE:

Im playing a basic afro Cuban pattern between the hihat and rimtap, with a 4 feel on the bass drum..

In the hits section I catch the figures and play triplets in between around my toms..

In the piano solo I play light triplet figures, things like this..

In the half time section I play the following half time Afro Cuban feel..

And in the drum solo section the rhythm of the hits Im playing around is this..

2) BALLAD (JAZZ)

In this tune Im playing with brushes. I have my kit tuned to a jazz sound, and Im using more ride cymbals than crashes.

The intro hits are as follows (played straight not swung)..

For the majority of the tune Im playing a legato stirring 8th figure brush stroke..

Sometimes adding a hihat splash on beat 4..

3) BEBOP.

Of all the tunes I find this the hardest for a few reasons. Im (trying) to go for the soft but burning feel, like I would if I were playing in a jazz trio in a small bar etc. So Im not

really playing that hard but Im still trying to give it the intensity an up tempo bebop tune needs, by playing right up on the beat. Also Im using lighter sticks 7As.

The main feel is just a standard fast jazz groove..

The first drum break is played over the following hits series..

Nice and simple (except for the speed), all the hits are on the beat.

After the solos, a similar drum break is played over hits, this time some of the hits are delayed by an 8th note. Because the feel is fast enough that weve flattened out into a straight 8th feel, play the hits an 8th figures, not swinging triplet figures.

4) BLUES SHUFFLE.

Theres really a couple of options here for the feel you play. You could play a standard rolling triplet feel, something like this..

In the above groove youd ghost the middle triplets on snare and also the 3rd triplets on hihat. The hihat downbeats and the snare backbeats would

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