"Hipifying" the rudiments

Hey all.
Many students have mentioned to me Tommy Igoe's " Great Hands For a Lifetime " book so I decided to check it out, having worked through his first "Groove Essentials" book and quite enjoying it.
All in all, it's a very helpful book on rudimental playing, well written and presented. I don't agree with everything he writes, but having played drums for 44 years this coming fall, I rarely agree with anything ANYONE writes! :)

One thing that struck me during my first cursory glances was that he talks about converting the rudiments to drum set ideas, but doesn't really offer any method of doing so. I plan to cover this in greater depth and send as a possible article, but for now I thought I'd offer some general principles that help me make rudiments hipper and more useable on drum set. Okay here goes....

1. Corrupt the symmetry.....
I've mentioned this before, but one of the things that makes the rudiments seem very square is this " 4 on the right, 4 on the left" quality they have, due to trying to make the hands equal. This makes sense from a physical conditioning sort of way, but results in very predictable boxy, phrasing. So, a very easy way to create interest is to take away or add a note to any rudimental idea to make it odd numbers.
Let's take a paradiddle- RLRR LRLL, and take away the last stroke. Now we have a 7 note idea. Now when we play this idea in 8th notes or triplets, it will go over the carline and give us some really cool textures.
Now, how about we add a note- RLRR LRLLL . This create a cool 9 beat idea. Again, it will go over the barline in 4/4 or it WILL fit into a bar of 3/4 as triplets, but that could also be cool as we spread out the hands between two surfaces so it could be used in a jazz waltz or a afro-cuban 9/8 groove.

2. Orchestrate! 
As I just mentioned, our  lowly paradiddle starts to sound more interesting not only with a note missing or added, but also as we put our hands to 2 different drum or cymbals surfaces. Here's just a few ways we can create interesting tonal ideas from RLRR LRLL

a) R on Hi-Hat, L on snare
b) "     "", L on rim click
c) "" , L on small tom
d) "" , L on floor tom
e) "" , L on any combination of above
f) R on floor tom, L any combination of above
g) R on Ride Cymbal, L ""
h) R on any rim, "" ""

Phew! And I just said I was going to mention a few. Anyway, check out how these different combinations sounds and don't be afraid to experiment with any possible sounds. You'll likely find you discover some favourites. Good!

3. Change the home rhythmic grid.
We've already seen that we can change any 8th note idea to triplets to make it more compelling, and the opposite ie true as well. We can also, however, change any idea to an odd grouping, and that really starts to sparkle!
If we again take RLRR LRLL and play it as 2 sets of quintuplets in a bar of 4/4, the quintuplets themselves don't go over the barline,  but the sticking does! This sounds really cool, especially when we again orchestrate the hands. In fact, a favourite exercise of mine with "Stick Control" is to take the first 3 pages and play the stickings as quintuplets, septuplets, and groupings of 9, all in 4/4. That's definitely something you'll never hear a drum corps play! :)

4. Change the attack
Now let's take RLRR LRLL and....

a) Buzz the first L
b) Buzz all Ls
c) Deadstroke the first and 5th notes
d) Deadsroke all Rs

So, here all we're doing is not playing all the notes as regular strokes, and again this creates interest.

5. Add accents, especially in unusual places
Take the paradiddle  and accent other notes the than the first set of each 4 ( the standard way ) and you'll get some very cool textures, especially accenting either the first or second note of a double. This is also great for your hands!

6. Substitute feet for hands in a portion of the lick
Some possible ways to evolve the feel in our paradiddle
a) RF L RR LF R LL
b) RF LRR LRLL
c) R LF RR LF R LL
d) RL RF RF LR LF LF

So, plenty of linear trouble was can get into with this one.




Obviously, working on rudiments and rudimental ideas ( I make that distinction because although paraddiles are a great lick and a great example to use, I actually don't think of them as rudiments per se.) are a great way of helping us create quality sounds, but to a drum set player, they are just the beginning and a mere means to an end. So, don't be afraid to take these building blocks and do something creative. That's what it's all about.

Straight vs. Swung

Here's a couple of examples of playing straight and swung rhythms concurrently. In the first one. I'm playing Afro 12/8 in the right hand, straight 8ths in the left, generally playing a one handed paradiddle between the cross stick and small tom, bass drum on 2 & 4, and the hi-hat starting out in straight 8ths notes, but moving to quarter notes as I originally intended! ( Nobody could ever accuse me of over rehearsing these examples! )



In the second example. I'm playing straight 8ths in the right hand and the second 2 notes of an 8th note triplet in the left, bossa bd part and on again/off again 7 beat pattern in the left foot.



So, I'm hoping the obvious question now is, so??? That's certainly valid. Any "regular" situation utilizing bossa or 12/8 rhythms would not be well suited to playing this stuff. ( Unless you want to get fired! )
These rhythms, by their very nature, are not smooth or neat and tidy, but I believe there are  instances where we want to play rhythms that are jagged, ...angry even. That everything doesn't always line up is one thing that makes beats like these cool. It also gives a much more loose "ensemble" feel because it sounds like more than one person playing. These will also help you feel both straight and swing rhythms at the same time. Check it out if you like. It's a free country ( at least for now.....)

What's in the attic?

Today I'm bringing you an idea that came to me while practicing, or more accurately I should say came back to me. I endeavour to review things I've worked on, use ideas I've created etc., but I've been playing and practicing for almost 44 years now, so it's impossible to recall everything all at once!
Anyway, I stumbled on to this 7 beat idea between hi-hat, bass drum, and snare drum. It's just RLRLRLF ( The F stands for feet as in its first incarnation, the right and left foot are playing together. ) I liked it. I thought sounded pretty slick. Then I realized that particular combination I had been playing for decades ( I can vividly remember playing it with Mike Murley's band) except I had never voiced between hats, snare, and bass drum. I more used it open handed with RH on toms and LF on hi-hat. Anyway, here's a quick video on the original idea. Note that even though I start between hat and snare, it's not until I play the idea with the hands alternating on the hats that I get to the current lick I stumbled on.



I generally play it as an over the barline thing in 4, with the bd on all quarter notes or a samba bass drum part, although you could keep it in 7 as well. Also started moving the RH around at the end.

The second video is the same idea in triplets in 4, with either quarter notes or a shuffle on the bass drum. By the time I get over to the ride the pattern has essentially fallen apart but I kept it in because I thought it was funny! ( Don't try this at home folks! )



Believe it or not, my whole point to this post wasn't to show you these ideas, although I like them and they might prove useful to some of you. No, what I'm getting at is what I experienced with this "old" lick that I thought I had forgotten. I really believe that everything we work on in music is stored SOMEWHERE in our mind. ( Barring traumatic head injury, etc. ) I like to think of our brain as some sort of dusty attic full  of treasures we may have temporarily forgotten. But sometimes on the way to find a sweater from high school, we might find a cool vintage fan that we thought we had gotten rid of! Our mind is like that too. So, sometimes when you're practicing, don't be afraid to let your mind wander a bit, and you might rediscover something!
Have fun! Love yourself and others!

Jimmy Lovelace idea

Quick post today of a 3/4 idea from the almost criminally under appreciated drummer, Jimmy Lovelace. This is from a live version of "Full House" from the recently released Wes Montgomery in Paris album.

Although Mr. Lovelace starts Wes' solo in a fairly conventional swing 3 feel, he starts weaving in and out of the idea above during the 2nd chorus. One of the cool things about it is that although it's a metric modulation that makes it sound like he's playing a solo swing 4, it resolves to the + of 3 and leaves out beat 1 once it gets started, giving it an extra snake-y feeling. I can't tell if he's playing bass drum at the end of the phrase or not so try it both ways.  Check it out....



It certainly doesn't seem to disturb the flow of the rest of the band at all, so I suspect he had done this before. All of Wes' band has a very interesting ability to react to what was going on in Jazz in the 60s with modal playing etc., and adapt it too their own purposes.

Now, we can all learn it and adapt it to our own purposes! Thanks. :)

More thoughts on orchestration

Greetings,
During my recent Roy Haynes listening kick I was struck by how he uses static rhythmic functions like hi-hat on 2 and 4 sometimes but isn't bound by it. I think this is an area where my practicing hasn't reflected my reality. I would often practice ideas with my hands and sort of just "plug in" timekeeping with my feet, usually four on the bass drum and hi-hat on 2 and 4. The problem with always doing this while practicing is that isn't usually the way I play while playing modern Jazz. I tend to comp with the bass drum and hi-hat or sometimes leave them out all together. To that end, I 've started taking ideas that originate with my hands and practicing these various ways.

1) Hand pattern only.
2) Hand pattern with bass drum only playing some static pattern (four to the bar, 1 and 3, 2 and 4 etc.
3) Same as 2) but with hi-hat only with hand pattern.
4) Hands with feet playing various static patterns.
5) Hands with feet sometimes playing. (Try playing while thinking of an AABA tune, and only use your feet during the bridge).

This will also help  with being comfortable with more spaces in the ideas. Remember, independent coordination isn't just always putting things together and then having some of the limbs on "auto pilot"
 ( although it's important to be able to do that), it's also being aware of when a limb IS or ISN'T playing and doing that consciously to best serve the music. Just because we can play all the drum kit at once doesn't necessarily mean it makes the best sounds.

Give it a try and good luck!

Found some more!

So after fooling around with the idea from yesterday's post I came up with this. Still playing "Blue Monk" in accents, still playing doubles, but now moving the doubles (1set each) between snare and  3 toms.
The cool thing about this is the sticking resolves every 1 measure while it takes the tonal pattern 2 measures to start again.

Here it is:



It's a challenge to have the melody notes come out clearly enough (I'm speaking to myself as much as anyone else on this) so don't be afraid to take it slow.

Thanks,
T.

Reasons to do something and RIP another club

Hey,
I'm posting another one of my coordination things (melody to Tenor Madness on small tom in left hand while filling in 8th notes on cym. Right hand plays quarters, right foot plays + of 2, 4, and + of four in every bar and hi-hat plays 2:3 son clave. Now this took awhile to get together (and still isn't completely together either) and because my ego controls me sometimes, I posted this for no other reason than to prove i could do it. Now, that's okay in an artificial situations like this, but what I used to do is try to do what I learned during the day on a gig that night, with predictably disastrous results.

Why is this problematic? Well...

a) It was about satisfying my ego, rather than a need in the music.
b) The idea or concept usually wasn't ready to be played naturally and organically so rarely could I actually play it under "battle" conditions. (I.E. the gig!)

Don't feel you have to justify everything you practice, most things will eventually work into your playing, usually when you're not stressing about it!

Oh, here's the lick.......




Finally, we received news today that Ottawa's Cafe Paradiso is closing. Sad news. It was a nice place to play with good sound, good food, and a supportive staff. (More on this at Peter Hum's Blog).
Hopefully someone in the nation's capitol will pick up the torch....


Happy trails!

More melodic coordination!

Hey folks,
I'm the first to admit things are a little slow these days at Trap'd but here's something I've been working on that could potentially keep us all busy for awhile.

Lately I've been working on playing straight 8ths with either hand, and then moving the same hand to another surface for whatever melody I play. I assign the other 3 limbs static things to do. I'm finding this is very helpful for working one hand moving around.

In the first example I'm playing the melody to Monk's Oska T. on the floor tom while filling in the rest of the 8th notes with my right hand. In my left I'm playing 3:2 clave. My left foot is playing half notes and my right is playing the + of 2, 3, and 4.




In the 2nd example I'm playing the melody to C Jam Blues in my left hand while filling in the rest of the 8th notes, my right hand is playing 3:2 cascara, and the feet are the same as the last example.




Obviously I've taken some very simple tunes as my melodic material but I"m going to try it with some more rhythmically challenging material in the coming days. have fun and wear sunscreen (if you're outside!)

Odds and ends and flams between different limbs

Hey,
First I'd like to say thank you to Todd at Cruise Ship Drummer for his posting of my brush patterns that I've shared so far (the book is still coming, honest!) He also mentioned something that I'd like to elaborate on. He talked about the importance of developing brush playing by playing with people. He's absolutely right. This is vital. I think also, once you get the basics of a pattern down and it starts to "morph" into something else, as long as it's comfortable and sounds and feels good, it isn't a problem. No one's going to sit behind you with a clipboard and say "Hey, you didn't play page 87 exactly as written!", and if they did, they definitely need to join a book club or something!

Also, I would like to direct you to Earl MacDonald's website. Earl is director of Jazz Studies at the University of Connecticut. He's also a great pianist and arranger. I've been checking out some of his piano lessons at he's clarified things that I've been confused about for years! The vids are helpful and easy to understand, all delivered with Earl's particular brand of dry wit! A great resource.

Please people, if you haven't started getting your harmony chops together, please do it now! There's a real tendency among drummers (as well as other instrumentalists) to act as if our responsibility doesn't extend beyond our instrument. As a matter of fact, that's just where it begins!

Now here's some drum stuff. A quick vid of me playing flams between limbs besides the normal hand flams. These can create a lot of great effects. It can give things a nice jagged, loose quality. I do a few different combos, also sometimes playing double stops (both limbs at the exact same time) so you can hear the difference. It can also change up the feel. In the video example I employ a "lazy" hi-hat in a swing feel by playing it on the last part of a flam. I also play a rock beat with a "lazy" snare on the back beats then go to a four on the snare with the snare anticipating the hi-hat (flam with snare first) before going back to the lazy snare.



Happy trails!

Saskatchewan clave!

Hey folks,

Was just working on this a bit today. It's 3:2 Rhumba clave in the left foot, cascara in the right hand and filling in the rest of the notes with my left, and the melody to St. Thomas on the bass drum. I only played it once because I'm still getting it together and I wasn't sure if I could play it twice!

Thanks!