1-Note Independence

Back to the basics! There are certain exercises that I've found I should really play every day ("DAILIES") if I want to improve my skills on any instrument. Since my drumset playing is rather... unpolished... right now, it's time to go back to the basics of moving notes around on top of a stock swing pattern (not as easy as it sounds!).

1-Note Independence

I think the chart speaks for itself- you maintain a basic swing pattern check between your RH (ride cymbal) and your LF (hi-hat) THE ENTIRE TIME YOU'RE PLAYING -- breaking all over the place isn't a good habit to develop timing skills, so play with a met, and if you notice the check deviating AT ALL, remove the fancier elements (SD(LH)/BD(RF)) and make sure your check is solid.

Once you have a solid check, start playing through the patterns as indicated on the page (and come up with your own exercises, as well- don't be a bore.). The patterns I wrote down are all 4-bar phrases with a bar at the end to check in on your check (or insert a fill if you're feeling saucy), but somebody just starting out with an independence study like this would benefit more from 8-bar phrases of only one pattern at a time.

Work all the patterns every day if you want to see results.

Then prioritize the ones that don't "feel right" until they do feel right.

Just imagine how much control you would have if you spent the first 30 minutes of your practice time every day on basic independence studies like this! I'll let you know how it goes.

#12.59

So I recently retrieved my drum set from the depths of my mom's spare room and brought it back to school to see how upset I can make the neighbors as I pursue the lofty endeavor of beat creation. The result- now that I've added feet back into the equation, I'm VERY AWARE of how poor my independence is!

I'll likely be experimenting with funky foot patterns until I can actually be comfortable enough to commit brain power to doing anything interesting with my hands- until then, enjoy some patterns like the following...

#12.59 || Independence A

Welcome to the world of 4-limb drumset independence - the final frontier!

Notation note: All notes for hands will have up stems (in this case, ride cymbal and snare drum), all notes for feet will have down stems (in all cases, bass drum and hi-hat). Feel free to experiment with adding tom notes and those sorts of things once you really get the hang of the patterns (that's what I'll be doing!)

Comments/questions are welcome, as always!

#22.35 "Circling"

Some more Four Tet for you this evening with the lovely tune "Circling" off of the There is Love in You (2010) album.

This is a fairly advanced two-bar lick that I arrived at after experimenting with fubars and inverted cheeses for a few minutes. And finally, we have a post in "treble" (as opposed to all the "duple" licks I've posted so far)- not to be confused with the famous clef! [Why "treble" instead of "triple"? Why not?]

Notation note: if I have something like this that's quite obviously in 12/8, I won't bother to mark it (again, these posts are coming directly from my personal notes, where I wouldn't bother wasting the time writing any obvious time signatures). Along those lines, you could also read this as 4/4 with all triplets missing the "3"s above them. If you can't figure it out, just check out how many notes are beamed together, in this case groupings of 3.

#22.35 || Track Rec: "Circling"

If you ever have difficulty with a lick like this, try breaking it down into its components and working on each of those individually (single flams, multiple flams, single and multiple flams with diddles ("cheeses" "fubars"), etc.).

Have a try at isolating beats 2 and 3 of the second bar- then isolate just the left hand rhythm (drop the constant right hand notes to focus on the left). Naturally, if it's worth doing with one hand, invert the stickings of the whole isolated selection and get it down with the other hand as well.

"Circling" is excellent to use to practice any sort of treble rhythms that you can come up with as well as a lick like #22.35 - try it out for a half hour or so on 1-track repeat.

Four Tet - Circling @ YouTube

#14.27 "Wing Body Wing"

This is the first post here that I would officially consider funky, mainly because of the way it's written (in an "odd meter", 5/16). Guess what though? It's a 4-bar pattern that repeats in 5/16, so really you can consider all 4 bars together as "20/16", which is really just "5/4" a fairly common meter. I could have written the thing out as a 5/4 bar, but that would have taken up too much time, and that wasn't the direction I was thinking at the time.

Don't be confused by the "nested" (one inside the other) repeat brackets- I'm aware that these aren't a common music notation convention, but it should be pretty self-explanatory that the small repeat applies to the first bar only ("repeat this one bar 3 times") and the large repeat applies to everything ("continuously loop the whole 4-bar phrase").

#14.27 || Track Rec: "Wing Body Wing" (see #14.31)

Whew! Now, to explain the sticking- this is definitely the vaguest I'll ever be with stickings on the actual image that I've written down, so sorry about that, but again, you're smart- likely these words will get you there (if not, contact me/comment/etc.)

#14.27 Sticking

• m1- repeat 3 times starting off the right and alternate hands each repeat (RH... LH.... RH...)
• m2- the first time through, use the marked [L.ll R] sticking on this "turnaround" bar
• when looping the 4 bars back on themselves, you'll have to play the exact opposite stickings ("invert" them)- (m1) LH... RH... LH...  (m2) RH turnaround [R.rr L]

#14.31 "Wing Body Wing"

Sorry for the break between updates! I'll try to stay regular and not neglect this page, but it's bound to happen, so... deal.

So I saw Four Tet a couple weekends back at Moogfest in Asheville, NC (best experience I've ever had seeing live music), and I've been listening to him a bit more frequently / in depth since then. Today I came up with what I thought were some "good ones" while drumming to some of his stuff which I'll split up into a few posts.

#14.31 || Track Rec: "Wing Body Wing"

This exercise is made up of constant sixteenth notes, which should make it a (relative) breeze to line up to a metronome, or a song like "Wing Body Wing" which features a prominent "four on the floor" feel ("house" bass drum on every quarter note). #14.31 is all about controlling the note after the accent (the "e"s), and developing that control is necessary to successfully play a diddle or buzz after an accent with any quality.

Note: the buzzes/presses are marked staccato, so keep them short. I'll also probably continue to write the staccato marks (as well as accents and tenuto marks) above the stem rather than below the notehead for the sake of simplicity.

Four Tet - Wing Body Wing @ YouTube