Odd Time Stick Control

Hey all,
I'm just going to explain this without a video because I'm a bit pressed for time, my apologies.

First take George Lawrence Stone's venerable classic "Stick Control". The first page is as good a starting point as any...

Play all Rs on hi-hat, all Ls on snare drum. Then pick a time signature you want to work in 5, 7 etc. and add in a fairly simple bass drum part to start with. For example, if you decide to play in 7, two half notes followed by two dotted quarter notes works well. Now the sort of tricky part ( for me at least ) is to keep the 4/4 sticking going while still playing the bass drum, and hearing the whole thing in 7. The sticking pattern will come back to the beginning of the bar after 4 bars of whatever time signature one is playing. It's interesting to note, that for me, I find it a lot easier to superimpose odd numbers notes in 4/4 rather than playing 4/4 rhythms that go over the bar in an odd time signature. This is also part of my ongoing work on trying to play more effectively in linear types of patterns. I hope some of you find this helpful.

Now, just because it's awesome, is Mark Guiliana talking about improvising. Lots of great stuff to chew on here.



Happy Trails.......