Friday, February 6, 2015

Asymmetrical stickings

Greetings,
Lately I've been experimenting with odd numbered stickings.
The resource material has been trusty old Stick Control. I started with stickings of 5 notes simply by taking the first 5 notes of any sticking on page 1.
The first example as is: RLRLRLRL RLRLRLRL
Turned into a 5 note sticking: RLRLR RLRLR

This can be applied in a number of ways.
1) Play 2 measures of the 5  note sticking to give us one measure of 5/4.
2) Play the 5 note sticking in 4/4, keeping track of where you are in the "home" time signature.
( A good way to practice this is while singing a standard tune. I'm partial to "Invitation" these days).
Also play around with what surfaces your hands are playing the sticking on.
3) As 2) but play the 5 note sticking in triplets.

You can do this for any length of sticking you like. 7, 9, 11 etc.
Some of the later stickings on the first 3 pages of Stone's book can be a little strange once they're put in to an odd length, so take your time and play them for a while to get them feeling comfortable.
Have fun.