Transcript

A lot of people ask about the pros and the cons of electronic drums and whether or not you should stick with an acoustic set or buy an electric set. I think a lot of it depends on your situation. Oftentimes, you have people who buy an electric set instead of an acoustic set because the acoustic drums are too loud.

It’s good to do research on exactly what you want from that, because there are different types of electric kits that have different makeups or different surfaces. A very common, lower end electronic kit you’re going to see has black rubber heads. You have upper end kits that have mesh heads that are a little bit softer, and they have a little bit more advancement in the trigger system which is the system that triggers the sounds that come out of the drums.

I would say that the leader in the electronic drum department would be the Roland V-Drums. The V-Drums are made up of a few different configurations and sizes of their drums, but contain these white mesh heads that are a little bit softer and a little bit easier to play, and they have real rims like a real drum and they’re cut in half about this wide so that they feel like and seem like you’re playing a real drum. Yamaha, and Ddrum, and a couple of other companies make electronic drum sets all of which are good. So it’s good to try out some and see what works well for you.

There’s also an advantage of the electronic versus the acoustic sound situation where some people like an acoustic sound a little bit better. Where others like the ease of an electronic sound and how you can plug them direct into a computer or a computer program which can make it easier to program music, or program rhythms, or program anything you’d like into a newer computer system.

You also want to take a look at what works for you as far as transportation. Some people feel that breaking down an acoustic set over and over again is a little bit tedious and heavy to lift wherever you’re going. Whereas an electronic set could be easy if you color code the wires, or work them where they plug in easier and you could just unplug them and bring it almost in one or two carries and bring it into your gig or to a recording session that you have.

But you’d have to try out some different things and work with an electronic kit, perhaps at a store or on a gig, first, before you decide what’s right for you.

Transcript

Much like a variety of other styles, Caribbean music can cover a wide range of sub-styles, anything from reggae to calypso to soka, and so on. There’ts many different ways of drumming and approaching the style of music. I’tm going to just talk about two beginning sub-styles of two separate styles. I’tll start with some reggae and talk about a style called one drop. One drop basically refers to the one note or the one drop note, you’tre playing between a snare drum and a base drum at the same time. Basically, you’tre playing just quarter notes with upbeat accents; one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, on the high hat. And, you’tre dropping a base drum and a snare drum at the same time on beat three. In addition, you’tre using what’ts called a cross stick on the snare drum. You’tre holding it backwards. You’tre laying it about an inch from the rim. You’tre getting a nice crack from the wood of the cross stick on the snare drum. So, one drop feel and reggae would sound something like this; one, two, three, four. [music]

And again, reggae has such a wide range of material in it’ts style and it’ts good to just listen to reggae and see what you can pull out of it. Someone, especially like Bob Marley and the Whalers is great to listen to, because you see how many different patterns there are. Another popular style of music in the Caribbean is soka. And often times,
you here soka with steel drum bands and danceable type situations. The best approach to playing soka on a drum set is to keep a strong quarter note pulse on your base drum. We often call it four on the floor. And, you’tre actually playing the same pulse [music] in both of your feet, while you play eight notes on the high hat. It’ts creating an open stroke on upbeats. And then, you’tre creating a displaced snare drum rhythm against it. And, it sounds something like this; one, two, three, four. [music]

And you can see what that pulse and that feel, how it could really enhance a dance style situation. So again, it’ts good to experiment with some different things and do some research on the wide range of Caribbean styles, but that’ts a good place to start.

Transcript

I think it’s important to understand that there really isn’t a lot of basic playing when it comes to Latin drumming. There is a lot of independence and coordination involved. In addition, I think it’s really important to understand the difference between the styles in Latin drumming. I think a lot of people confuse them. The two most prominent styles are under this umbrella is Afro-Cuban drumming and Brazilian drumming.

Now, within the Brazilian style you have sub-styles like bossa nova, samba, baccata, and bione. In Afro-Cuban, you have separate styles like cascata and mambo and mosempika and songo. These are all terms that are important to separate and understand the difference between the two as they really don’t mix and they have a lot of differences.

With all types of African, Cuban, and Brazilian drumming, it’s very important to understand that you’re limbs are taking place of a variety of different players. In Afro-Cuban, you’re taking the place of Congo players, and bell players, and even clave in your left foot at times.

In Brazilian playing, you’re taking the place of surdo drums, bigger drums, and different percussion instruments in the Brazilian. If you’re going to start to work on the background of Afro-Cuban drumming, it’s important to start with the understanding of clave and clave rhythms.

The clave’s, in general, are two rose wood sticks about this long that are hit together to create this sound, and there’s specific rhythms like son clave rhythms, and rumba clave rhythms, and two three clave, and I’ll give you an example of one right now and I’ll put it into a rhythm so you can hear it.

If this is my tempo, a son clave rhythm and a two three son clave rhythm, two three meaning two notes in one section, three notes in the other, would sound something like this. One, two, three, four, one, two, one, two, three, one, two, one, two, three.

Now, there are a lot of ways to sort of base your rhythms off of that clave rhythm. A good starting point with Afro Cuban is to understand a cascara rhythm for drum set. Cascara is a bell pattern that you put on the shell of the drum, or the hi hat, you would integrate that clave into your playing.

So, this is pretty advanced but I’ll play you an example of that, so you can hear a clave in this rhythm. I’ll be playing the cascara rhythm here, the clave rhythm here, and what’s called the tumbao rhythm on my base drum. One, two, three, four. If you want to approach Brazilian, a good way of approaching Brazilian is start with a bossa nova. A bossa nova is a very gentle style of playing, where you play a foot pattern of boom chick boom boom in your feet matched with a straight time pattern in your right hand.

And then what’s called a Brazilian clave rhythm in your left hand, which is not exactly the clave rhythm, but it’s a variation of something you hear in Afro Cuban rhythm, and that would sound something like this. One, two, three. Again, these rhythms are a little tricky to play, but if you get them in your ear, and you start associating with them, it’s a good launching pad on how to go through these styles.

Transcript

There’s a very big history with the drum set and jazz drumming in that the drum set developed around the time that jazz started to make its way into the music scene through the Americas, especially through the south part of the Americas, coming out of New Orleans style of music. To get a basic understanding of jazz drumming you want to have a good idea about what to play in your time portions of your body. What I mean by time, I’m talking about the patterns that give out the time which would be your ride cymbal, your left foot hi hat, or your hi hat foot.

The best place to start with jazz playing is to understand the pattern or what we call the ostinato to play in jazz. That would be a pattern on your ride cymbal playing one, two, and three, four, and one, two, and three, four. It sounds like this.

Typically you want to aim for the body portion of the ride, and you want to get a nice tone from your cymbal rather than just hitting it really strong. I’m also using thinner sticks to get a little bit more of a jazz tone to my playing. Typically what you’re going to start doing is playing two and four on your left foot with that. Just playing, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. As you play them together it sounds like this. One, two, ready, play.

Now, as drummers, we spend a long portion of our time developing independence and coordination against that pattern. The best thing to do would maybe start with just some quarter notes on either the bass drum or the snare drum against this pattern. In addition, notice that I’ve tuned up my bass drum and tuned my snare drum down to create more of that jazz tone we’re looking for.

What I’m going to play right now is just quarter notes on my bass drum against this pattern boom, boom, boom, boom or one, two, three, four so you can hear what’s called a walking bass line against it. One, two, three, four.

In addition I’m now playing heel down which is just the pivot from my ankle, and I’m playing it lightly. It’s called feathering the bass drum just to back off of it. You could do the same thing with snare, separately, to develop your snare hand against that pattern. One, two, three, four.

And though there are infinite patterns that you could play against that in addition to changing that time pattern, that right there is a good place to start to develop the independence you need for jazz drumming.

Transcript

When you play the drums for hip hop music, you have to keep in mind that a lot of the influence of your drum parts are going to come from pre-programmed parts, such as something from computer or a drum machine or whatever that might be. So a lot of your parts need to almost sound like they would come from somebody who pre-programmed them. A lot of it has to do with tuning, your approach, your feel, so on and so forth. For this groove, what I had done was brought up the pitch of my snare drum, and I put a little tape on the snare to really bring it up high. And I kind of muffled it down a little bit to sound almost like something that was programmed.

There are a lot of variations you could do with your cymbals, like using tape on the cymbals or different effect sounds on cymbals, smaller cymbals, cymbals that come with jingles or holes in them. And a variety of companies make effect-type cymbals. You could also do different things with your bass drum, tuning your bass drum in different ways, maybe making a little more open sound. But the idea is that you want to sort of incorporate the sound of what you would program into live drums.

You also want to listen to some drummers that play live with these type of bands. Tony Royster, Jr. plays with Jay-Z, Questlove who plays with The Roots. And get an idea of how live drummers approach the hip hop feel. In general, what you want to play for hip hop is you want to take basic beats and sort of incorporate a swing when you play them. Rather than something that’s straight and even-timed, you want to have an overall pulse or rate of juk-a-juk-a-juk-a-juk-a-juk-a underneath it.

Now there’s many variations of hip hop rhythms, but it’s a good place to start. What I’ll do is just take a normal groove, doont-jat-ga-doon-jat, doont-jat-ga-doon-jat, and I’m going to play it with a little bit more of a skip or a swing feel to it. Doont-jat-ga-doon-jat. Sounds like this. One, two, three, four.

And again, just keep in mind there are so many variations with hip hop drumming, especially coming from programmed grooves. You want to just get an idea of how they sound and how the tones are and try to replicate them on a real kit. And again, just a good place to start is take a normal groove and begin to swing it to try to obtain that feel.

Transcript

I’m going to give you some tips about playing in a rock band. There are so many different approaches you could take with the type of rock that you are trying to play, whether it’s pop rock, hard rock, metal, progressive rock, or whatever it might be.

One of the important things is to try to play for the music. Try to be a member of the band, and not just a solo instrument. People start to overplay or play extraneous parts. It sort of separates you from the music.

Another important thing is that a lot of rock drummers get criticized for not having enough good time, grooving, and feel. It’s important that when you get your patterns down, after having studied drums for a while, that you work on things like technique and getting some dimension into your playing, so that you will have groove and feel for the music. Remember, your parts has to suit the music. It is not there just to suit a drummer.

Another important tips is how to develop a good sound for yourself, when you’re playing rock or are in a rock band. You don’t want to get up and just start playing and thrashing away at the drums. You want to make sure you’re hitting them the right way. You want to analyze how you’re hitting the hi hat. Are you hitting it half-open, or tight? Is it fitting the music? You want to see if you’re hitting rim shots, which is that rim in the middle of the snare, at the same time, or you’re missing it, and being inconsistent.

You have to remember that when you record, you have to be consistent with how you play, and be really even with your time and your sound.

You want to think about things your foot technique. Are you playing heel up or heel down? In a rock situation, you want to play heel up to really drive into the drum and get that sound.

Just remember tips such as playing with good time, having good feel, having good sound, and also fitting the music first before you fit your parts.

Transcript

One of the more important aspects of playing the drums is to increase your hand speed and your control. And as with a lot of topics, there’s so many ways you could do this, with anything from studying rudiments, which basically are your what would be scales to piano rudiments are to drums, to picking up books that are aimed at developing your hands. There’s very famous book called “Stick Control” by George Stone that gives you a variety of hand exercises and repetitive techniques to go over to increase your hand speed and control.

With me, what I suggest is using a lot of variety of muscle groups in your hands and your arms. When I work on a full stroke, I talk about the different muscle groups that make up a stroke, and that is an arm motion, a wrist motion, and a finger motion. And you could start with just eight notes per hand and work on these muscle groups, starting with maybe some fingers, which we talk about just basically not moving any part of your arm or your wrist and moving around your thumb to create a finger stroke. Something like this.

A little bit faster.

And then working into wrist strokes, which would be more from just this and maybe even holding down your fingers on the stick for a little while ti just get your wrist moving like this.

And then finally working on some arm strokes. Now this might look a little silly, because you’re over-using your arm. However, if you work on that, and especially coming from this area of your arm using your shoulder, you’ll move your entire arm a little bit faster like this.

Now these individual muscle groups are not necessarily new techniques for you. It’s just to work up the muscle groups so that they all come together as one. It’s almost like throwing a ball. You throw your arm back. You release the ball. And you have all muscle groups involved. So when you do a full stroke, all your muscle groups are involved.

The more you work your muscle groups in combinations with both arms, the more you’re going to get control and speed from your hands.

Transcript

Drum solo tips could range anywhere from something really simple to something really busy. I think what would be a good suggestion for all of you thinking about drum solo tips is to listen to some of the best drummers out there that partake in longer style solos.

Drummers from anywhere from the band Rush, like Neil Peart, up to John Bonham from Led Zeppelin. And even a lot of jazz drummers. Elvin Jones and Tony Williams. To get an idea of what they would do in a situation like a jazz jandra or like a rock jandra or something that would be an open drum solo. There’s so many different ways you can go about this.

Another thing to think about is how developed your hands are and how developed your feet are or your hand to foot coordination. To sort of build up your library of things to play in a solo. Or things to play over the top of a band.

There’s so many different ways and approaches you can take with this. But just starting with some theory concepts would be good to lead you to the right direction.

I’m gonna just give you an idea now of something you could just start with basically to get an audience into what you’re doing and just feel what you’re doing. A good idea is to start with maybe just four quarter notes on the base drum and to play a little bit on your floor tom or play around your toms a little bit. Just to get them involved with what you’re feeling and what you’re doing. And just to kind of give them the idea that you’re not just playing a standard groove anymore. You’re now outside the box a little bit and playing something that would highlight the drummer a little bit more.

What I’m gonna do is just start with some four quarter notes and play a rhythm on the floor tom. Move around the toms a little bit and give you an idea of where to start. One, two, three, four.

[Playing drums]

And again, just do some research and some listening and some background on some of these drummers and some different styles to see what will influence you in your playing situation.

Transcript

I’m going to talk about the tuning for the toms. Now, I’m here with just one tom, but it’s a pretty universal process with any tom that you’re going to tune. As with any drum, it has a bottom head as well as a top head. The bottom head is called the resonant head, as it’s supposed to resonate, and this is what we usually call the playing side head.

Typically, what I want to talk about, at first, is just what we do with the resonant head. Remember in order to tune, you’re going to take your key and you’re going to place it on top of the tension rod, and I usually tune it in what’s called the star formation, where I start here, move to here, here, here, like this so that you don’t tune down one side of the drum at the same time.

Normally, I would start with the resonant head because we want the resonant head to be in tune and fine-tuned before we put the playing side head on. Because this resonates, I normally in any style, and in any head I normally the resonant side head a little bit higher pitch, than the playing side head.

So, what I’m going to do now is sort of tweak this a little bit. Right now, I’m doing it by feel. I’m not doing by any sort of pitch or tune. Whenever you can fine-tune it in a way that you fine-tune is you take the finger. You would put it dead center of this, and tap over the opposite tension rods, like this.

That’s pretty close in tune. This one might be a little bit higher. So, what I’ll do is lightly tweak this and I’ll even bring this down. And, there you go, it’s in finer tune. You would do that across the drum until you strike it and don’t get any sort of over-toneness from the head. As you turn the drum over and you work with the playing side head, for our rock style, you’ll probably want to keep this relatively low so that you have a fatter tone from the playing side head, and a fuller or a warmer tone from the resonant side head.

If you’re playing jazz, you’re probably going to crank this up pretty well. In addition, for a rock style, you’re going to use most of the time, a clear head. I’m using a style of head called the renal pin stripe, which is a two ply, or two layer head. Then, if I were to play jazz, I would probably use a white coated, something called an ambassador where it’s single ply and we tune it up real strong.

Right now this head sounds pretty good in this position. That’s because this is a little lower tune than what you have here. If I was going to play jazz, I would now tune each tension rod a lot higher. I’m going to go through this in the star formation again. Crank these up pretty well, again, mostly by feel for now. Then you can go through with the fine tuning process I just mentioned. Then you play this and you notice it’s a much higher, twangier sound.

Now, it’s going to be a little warmer than that if you have a white coated head, and if it’s cranked up that high. That’s generally the type of tone you want in that style. So try different things. Analyze the type of style you going to be playing in, and try different combinations and see what works.

Transcript

I have the snare drum here, and I would like to talk about the tuning of this individual drum. It’s important to know how vital the tuning of the bottom head is, for a snare drum. This here is the bottom head with what’s called the snare strainer, or the snares themselves, and this is what creates the snare sound. Right over here is what’s called the snare throw-off, and when you pull this off, it’s going to take these snares off, and you get more of an open or tom-tom sound. And, when you put it back on you have your snare sound again.

Now the bottom head is called the resonant head; it’s supposed to resonate. And, I think in any style, for me at least, I usually tune the resonant head up pretty strong, pretty high. And what you would do is take your key, place it over the top of the tension rod like this, and just like any tuning situation or tightening situation, you would do righty-tighty or lefty-loosey. Now, I normally tune in what’s called the star formation, which is, you would think, across the drum like this. A lot of times if you tune on one side, it sets one side of the room down too much, and you want to have an even tune throughout the whole drum. So you would start over here; move to this one. Go to this one; move to this one. And again, I’m tightening this pretty high to allow the bottom head and the snare to resonate. Now notice I have an Ambassador Hazy on here, which is a clear head. When I turn this over, I have a coded head. Coded heads are a little bit more popular on the front side, or the playing side, of the snare drum. Now this particular snare drum has what’s called a black dot underneath, and it muffles the head a little bit, and gives a little bit more punch in a rock situation.

If you were in a jazz situation, you’d probably get a coated head without this dot, which is just a normal coated Ambassador Remo. What I’m doing is tightening these as well, same type of tuning motion, star formation, and I’m bringing it up in tune to prepare for a rock or a groove situation. And what you’re going to get as I put this on the stand is a nice strong sound for the snare. Now if I was going to bring the dynamic down and play in a jazz genre, I would probably bring the tune down a lot. This is a little bit high pitch and a little too bright for jazz situations, so I would go back tuning. Is now I would loosen this in the star formation and bring it down to sort of a medium pitch, medium to maybe a medium-loose. I’m taking each one down about a, almost a full half turn to a full turn.

Now one last thing is you have a tension device over here, right at your snare throw off, which tensions the snares either tighter or loser. If for a tighter sound, you bring it up to the right. For a loser sound, you would bring it down and you find the desired position.

So try some different tensions, depending on what style you’re playing, and see what works for you.

Transcript

As you can see, I’m just sitting here with a bass drum because I’d like to talk about the tuning of the bass drum itself. The most important part to understand is that you’re dealing with two heads as with another drum as well. So you have to take into account not only balancing out both heads but also the size of the drum, and what style of music you’re playing in and those sort of things, to really understand the tuning of the bass drum. Starting with the front head there, sometimes called the logo head, typically what you want to do is tune that head up pretty tight so that it has an overall wide-open sound. Sometimes you have a hole in it so the sound escapes a little bit more. But you want the drum to have a little bit of body, and you want it to ring. You might try some different things of bringing it down, bringing it up, but overall you want it about a medium-tight to a tight on that side.

Now the back head here, this is an important head, because this is your playing-side head. In a rock situation you’ll probably want to bring the tune of this head down so it has a little bit of a fatter tone. And if you’re playing jazz, you want to bring it up so it’s more wide-open. In addition, we have a blanket inside the drum which is going to muffle it a little bit more. So you want to keep the muffling in there for a rock tone, and you want to bring it out for a jazz tone.

The way you tune it is you basically have a key, and the key is going to slip over the tension rods like this. And it works like any device of screwing something in, where you go “right tighty” and “lefty loosy.” So right now I have it tuned for a rock drum, which is a large, flatter, fatter, bigger sound, and it sounds like this.

Now if I’m going to want to tune it for jazz, what I’ll do is probably bring the front head up even more. And I’m going to crank this head a lot. Now keep in mind too as jazz drums are typically smaller than this. This is a 22-inch drum. It’s 18 wide, so it’s going to have a lot of body. A jazz drum, you’ll find 18-inch in diameter and probably 14-inch in body. So it’s going to be a much smaller drum. And as you bring it up in tune, it will really have a wide-open sound. So now that I’ve brought this up a little bit more you’ll hear a difference in tone from this drum just based on the fact that I have tightened all these tension rods.

In addition, what I’m doing is pulling the bass drum beater off the head a little bit, so it rings a little bit more. There’s also an issue with the choice of heads. Right now I have something called a Powerstroke 3 on here, which has a little bit of muffling inside the head. And when I bring it down, it really creates that fatter tone. If you were going to have a jazz drum or a smaller drum, you’d want to probably put a coated head, or a coated white head. And you’d want to bring it up so it rings a little bit more. So that will give you a good starting position for tuning for the bass drum.

Transcript

What I’d like to talk to you about right now is the general idea of tuning a whole drum set and how it refers to different styles of music.

Tuning is an art form within itself. You have to know some of the systems of tuning and how to make it sound better on each one of your drums. I’m going to go through that a little bit now.

Generally, on an overview of tuning, if you’re playing in more rock oriented style, typically, not always but typically, you want a little bit of a higher pitched snare drum and medium to lower pitched toms, with a low pitched bass drum. You want more of a punchier sound from these drums. A little bit higher sound from these drums.

If you are leaning toward more of a jazz style, it’s typically the opposite. Where you lower your snare drum a little bit more and you raise the pitch of everything else. Your toms will be cranked a lot more and you really bring up your bass drum.

Tuning also has to do with the size of the drums, too. In rock drums, you’re going to have bigger drums. A bigger bass drum, longer and wider, or bigger in diameter toms, and usually a deeper snare drum, about six and a half inches deep or what this is, which is a five inch deep snare.

And with jazz, you’re going to have typically more shallow drums or smaller drums. An 18 inch base drum, some smaller diameter toms, sometimes a smaller diameter snare drum or a smaller in depth snare drum.

So every bit of tuning that you have to do really coincides with the size of the drums, in addition to the type of heads you use. With rock you’re going to use more clear heads and sometimes a two-ply head which is two layers of a head. Whereas in jazz, sometimes you use a single-ply, one ply head so it rings a little bit more and you get a little bit more of a twangier sound.

In addition, you want to make sure you have a drum key. And a drum key usually fits right over a tension rod, like so. And it works the same as a normal screw which would be righty tighty, lefty loosey. And there’s ways of tuning the bottom versus the top. Typically in a rock style you’re gonna have a tighter bottom head and a looser top head, to have that depth of sound with the sort of length of tone after. And in jazz, you’re going to really bring up both heads to have that twangier, more open drum overall.

So if you do a little research on the different styles of tuning, you’re going to fit that style a little bit more.

Transcript

I’m going to talk about a technique that we use on the drum set called a crash cymbal choke, or just a choke in general.

Typically what this means is when you strike your crash cymbal, which is the cymbal off to this side of your body, you’re striking it as you would normally strike a crash, which is on the edge of the crash, and on an angle with your stick. But instead of just swiping through it, and letting it ring out, you’re choking it with your opposite hand. Choking it meaning cutting off the sound. The trick is to strike the crash first, and grab the cymbal immediately after.

Just as well with the normal crash, you are playing the bass drum under it at the same time. So, you’re basically striking a normal crash with the bass drum, and then grabbing it right after. Something like this.

[plays drum]

So the purpose of a crash cymbal choke is that you’re duplicating what your band is doing. At the end of a phrase, or even the beginning of a phrase sometimes, they’ll cut off a chord or a certain section of a song, and you basically want to cut off with them, taking away any sound that might be bleeding over. Sometimes it happens again, at the end of a phrase or the beginning of a phrase.

What I’m going to do now is basically play a four bar phrase with a groove, and at the end of that where I would normally place a crash cymbal on one of the next phrase, I’m going to play that, but shortly after I’m going to cut off the sound. It’ll sound like this.

One, two, three, four. [plays drum]

Again, you’re aiming to match what your band is doing by cutting off all sound possible with the opposite hand. Give it a try and see if it works for you.

Transcript

I’m going to talk to you now about basic form for a pop song, and there are many ways you can go with this just based on the song you’re playing, or the style of music you’re playing, but we’re just going to talk about a generic pop song right now.

Typically, what you’re going to find is that you have sort of an introduction, and then you’re going to sort of get to the body of the song. And the body of the song usually comprises of a verse, normally a prechorus, and a chorus And that usually happens a few times, usually twice. After the second chorus may come a bridge, or some sort of solo, like a guitar solo or a keyboard solo, or a piano solo, even a vocal thing. And then often times it returns back to another verse or prechorus. It usually ends in something called a double chorus where the chorus happens twice and typically ends after that. That’s your usual form for a pop song. There are, of course, many variations and ways to get in and out of that, but that’s a good place to start.

From a drumming perspective, it’s up to you to outline how that works. Either section has a certain amount of bars that you play; eight bras, typically, sometimes four bars is typical, and what you would is vary what you play depending on the section. A lot of times in a verse what you’re going to find is you’re going to play a tight high hat and a standard, easier, lighter groove. When you get in to a prechorus, it might pick up a little bit and go into a looser high hat or maybe even perhaps the ride cymbal. And then when you get into a chorus section, you’ll probably go to the ride cymbal and come off the pattern that you were doing before. While this is going on, you’re outline the sections with four bar phrases, fills, crash cymbals. What I’m going to play for you right now is a four bar phrase in each section. I’m going to start with standard pattern on a closed high hat and go to a little bit of a busier or looser pattern for the prechorus, and finally end up in a pattern for our chorus on the ride cymbal, with maybe some left foot action in there. And I’m going to start with some easy grooves and some easy fills to work off into the end of the section. It will sound something like this.

One, two, three, four.

[plays music]

And that’s just the general outline for a verse, for a prechorus, and chorus. In a regular song, you might get more sections, might get longer sections. But that’s where you want to start with how to build ideas through your song and complement the music.

Instructions

• Step 1: Fill variations Trying adding variations to it by keeping the order of the fills the same, but move the notes around the drums to the snare or high-top.
• Step 2: Understanding fills Understand what a fill is: a transition that bridges two phrases of a song.
• Step 3: Playing fills Try playing a fill over the last two beats of a phrase, using a count of eight notes on the third beat and a count of sixteenth notes on count four. Essentially, the entire fill will sound like: three and four e-and-a.

Transcript

When you talk about two beat drum fills you’re talking about a fill that takes place over two counts of measure at the end of a phrase.

Remember that the definition of a fill is something like a transition where you would bridge two sections of a song together, or two phrases of a song. What I’m going to play now is a drum fill that takes place over two beats of the last measure of your phrase. So if you’re talking about four counts in a measure you’re talking about counts three and four of that measure. One, two, three, four, it’s going to take place over that. On count three I’ll give you a set of eighth notes, three and.

On count four I’ll give you a set of sixteenth notes, four e-and-a. So that the entire fill will sound three and, four e-and-a. And following the fill, because we’re ending a phrase, we’re going to strike a crash on the downbeat of one of the following measure to complete the phrase. I’ll play the entire phrase two times with the fill and the crash that’s following. One, two, three, four. [drum playing]. In order to add some variations to that you can keep the rhythm and the fill the same. But what you can do is start moving your notes around the drums. On count three on those eighth notes, three and, I’ll stick those on the snare drum. And on count four, on the four e-and-a, I’ll put those on the high tom.

So it’ll sound something like one, two, [drum playing]. It’ll sound like this in the groove: One, two, three, four, [drum playing]. And finally I’ll set up both of those groupings around the drums so you can hear how it sounds with some various surfaces. I’ll play the fill sounding something like this: [drum playing]. With the groove and the phrase it’ll sound like this: One, two, three, four, [drum playing]. So if you’ve studied reading variations and rhythms you can basically take any combination and try to move them around a two beat fill like that. Around different surfaces, on one surface, whatever works for you.

Try some different things.

Instructions

• Step 1: Understand what a fill is Understand what a fill is: a transition that bridges two phrases of a song.
• Step 2: Simple and complex fills Know that a drum fill can be as simple as one note or as complex as many notes. Also, a crash cymbal typically follows a drum fill on the beat 1 of the following phrase.
• Step 3: Playing a fill Try playing a 1-beat fill in count 4 of the measure using sixteenth notes so it sounds like “four-e-and-a.”
• Step 4: Fill variations Trying adding variations to it by keeping the order of the fills the same, but move the notes around the drums to the snare or high-top.

Transcript

An important thing about understanding how to play the drums is experimenting and defining what a drum fill is. Now, if I had to stick a definition on it, it would basically be a transition, and what I’m talking about is a transition between phrases. If I am playing a groove for four bars, or eight bars, or a certain section of a song, what you usually do it transition and connect phrases by a drum fill. In a drum fill could be as simple as one note, or as busy as a full bar of information.

You could experiment with some different things, and most importantly what usually follows a drum fill is a crash symbol on the beat one of the following phrase. What I’m going to play right now is a one beat drum fill. Now, when I talk about one beat, I’m talking about one count. If you count a full measure, you’re talking about beats one, two, three, and four. I’m going to play a drum fill and count for the measure, and I’ll play just four 16th notes, four a and ah, four a and ah, so you can hear what I’m talking about, and what I’ll do is follow up the four a and ah with a crack on beat one.

I’ll play the entire phrase twice, four bars, one beat drum feel and a crash at the end. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. [plays music]

To get more variation in what you’re playing, you don’t have to change the rhythm that you’re playing, or the beat, or the time. You can change the surfaces that you’re playing on.

So as you know, you have other surfaces to play, you have toms, you have a mix of toms and snare, even base drum. So, what I’ll do right now is play the same notes on the upper tom, so you hear how it sounds with a tom-tom involved. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.

[plays music]

And finally, I’m going to take the same rhythm and the same fill and I’m going to place it over four different surfaces using the snare and the toms. Each stick I play will hit one surface at a time, for e and ah. When I play it, it will sound like. In a groove, it will sound like this. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.

[plays music]

So, remember this is an example of a one beat fill. A fill that falls on just count four, or the last count of a measure, and I just played one example. There are so many different variations. Try some different things on that count four and see what works for you.

Transcript

Right now I want to talk to you about the roll of the crash cymbal when
we’re talking about the cymbal off to the side of the drum kit.

Now if you know anything about drum setups, drummers often have a variety
of crash cymbals around their drums, but on a standard beginning kit it’s
usually off to the side of your drum kit. The roll of the crash cymbals is
really important because where it usually falls is at the end or at the beginning of
a phrase to separate portions of a song.

From a technique standpoint, you’re going to strike the edge of the crash
cymbal on an angle with your stick, and you’re going to drive straight
through it to create a full bodied sound. In addition, you usually – not
always – but usually play a crash cymbal with your bass drum. It’ll sound
like this. [demonstrates].

Now at the beginning of a phrase the crash cymbal usually substitutes for
beat one of your right hand or your high hat hand which would normally be a
high hat stroke. You’d insert a crash on that note, and you’d play a
certain amount of bars or measures. The crash cymbal is going to outline
how many measures you are playing in a certain section of a song.

Right now I’m going to play a standard rock beat. I’ll start with the crash
cymbal, and I’ll repeat it at the beginning of the next four bar phrase. It
sounds something like this. One, two, three, four [demonstrates].

In addition, you can use a crash cymbal for certain accents or notes that a
band would be playing in a song. For instance, breaking away from your grove
and playing it with the band. What I’m going to do right now is hit a crash
on the end of every two of every measure. One, two, and three, four; One, two, and three, four, so that
you can hear how that sounds. One, two, three, four [demonstrates].

There are so many different variations and places you could place a crash
with those type of accents. You’d have to listen to your band and the
people that you’re playing with to see what matches up, but a great place
to start is to, at least, begin with outlining the sections of your song
and placing the crash right on one of the beginning of each phrase.

Transcript

Another technique you could use on the snare drum with a groove is something called a cross stick. And a cross stick is also known as rim click. But, not to be confused with a rim shot. Now a rim shot is a stroke on the snare drum where you use the full motion of your arm to strike the middle of the drum and the rim at that same time. But a cross stick is entirely different. A cross stick actually brings the sound of your snare down in dynamic. Now what we’re talking about is now holding the opposite side of the stick. What you’ll do is, flip the stick around so that there’s about an inch back here and the tip is back here. You’re going to hold it like that. What you’ll do is, you’ll lay your hand directly on the snare. What you want to aim for is about an inch of distance here between the tip and the rim. The fat portion or the back end or the butt end portion of the stick will be over the rim.

As you strike this, you’re rolling back on the tip and sometimes you’re bringing your hand off the drum if you’re high enough on the stick. You’re going back down on the drum with your fingertips striking the surface of the drum and it sounds something like this. [makes clicking noises]

What you’re aiming for is a click sound or the sound of two pieces of wood striking together. Sort of the body of the snare at the same and the sound of the rim at the same time. Now the way this works in a groove is that you would basically just substitute whatever you’re playing on the snare, or the snare pattern on two and four or other notes for the rim click. Now it sounds something like this on two and four. One, two, three, four. [plays music]

So remember our cross stick is going to bring down the dynamics of your groove especially in a rock situation. But using a cross stick is also going to work in styles such as jazz, a lot of Latin styles and a lot of reggae and Caribbean styles as well. So try some different variations and see what works for you.

Transcript

I’d like to talk a little bit about hi-hat variations in a normal rock groove. Now, just like bass drum variations and snare drum variations, there’s so many different variations you can come up with this. But I’m going to just show you a couple different approaches you can take. Now, when we talk about open hi-hat variations, we’re talking about lifting the toe portion of your hi-hat foot off the pedal or up to create the hi-hat to open up as you strike it.

Now, what I’m going to do here is I’m going to play a normal rock beat, bass drum on one and three, snare drum on two and four, eighth notes in our right hand or our hi-hat hand. One and two and three and four and. And on the last and of the measure, on the and of four, I’m going to lift my toe up to create an open hi-hat stroke and then bring it back down on the downbeat of beat one. It’s going to sound something like this. One, two, three, four. With open hi-hat variations, you can place them all different points of the measure, on different ands, on even partials of sixteenth notes to create many variations.

Another step you can take is to actually just change your hi-hat pattern altogether. Instead of playing eighth notes or downbeats, we could just play upbeats. And what I mean by upbeats is just the ands of the measure. One and two and three and four and. And that’s going to create a totally different feel to your groove. It will sound like this. One, two, three, four.

Another way to vary your hi-hat patterns is to add partials of sixteenth notes into your hi-hat hand. So on this pattern, I’m going to add a sixteenth note at the end of the measure. One and two and three and four and uh. One and two and three and four and uh. It will sound like this. One, two, three, four.

So if you want to get adventurous, you could take a pattern like that and play that in your hi-hat hand for the entire measure. And what you would get is something like one and uh, two and uh, three and uh, four and uh on the hi-hat over the top of your normal rock beat. It’ll sound like this. One, two, three, four.

So remember, as with bass drum and snare drum variations, there are so many ways you can vary your hi-hat. But start with some of those ideas, and see what you can come up with.

Transcript

Another approach you can take with your drum beat variation starts with a snare drum. Normally you’re going to start with varying your foot. Your bass drum foot is what is linked up with your bass player, and it’s a good place to start those variations. However, to really mix up what you’re doing on the drums with your grooves, you can move to some variations on the snare.

Now the snare drum usually falls on beats two and four of a measure. One, two, three, four. And if we’re keeping everything simple, we’re still talking about a basic beat where your bass drum’s going to be on one, two, three, four, the one and the three of the measure. And you’re going to play eighth notes on the high hat. One and two and three and four and.

You can start by moving your snare drum around on some eighth-note variations in the measure. For instance, on this groove, I’m going to put a snare drum on two and the and of two immediately following, as well as the four. So it would be one, two and three, four. One, two and three, four. That’s actually a beat called the mersey beat, which originated in the 60s with early rock and roll and surf music. And that will sound something like this. One, two, three, four.

[plays snare]

So another variation you could do with your snare drum is to take it off of a main numbered rhythm, like a two or a four, and put it onto an and. And this is often called a displaced rhythm, where in this groove I’m going to take the snare drum and put it on the and of two only and then four. So it would be one, two and, four. This groove will sound something like this. One, two, three, four.

[plays snare]

Now if you start moving the snare drum to partials of a sixteenth note, partials I mean like an E or an uh, you’re going to get a whole different vibe and groove to your playing. What I’m going to do in this rhythm is I’m going to add an uh of two, two E and uh, on the snare drum to my groove. That will sound something like this. One, two, three, four.

[plays snare]

And finally, I’ll show you a variation where you add two sixteenth-note partials in a row, an uh of two, and an E of three. So it’s like one, two, E and uh, three, E and four. One, two, E and uh, three, E and four. And that sounds like this. One, two, three, four.

[plays snare]

So remember, there are countless variations of this as well that you can play. Start with some of those ideas, and you’ll really come up with some nice things on your own.

Transcript

Once you’ve learned your basic rock beat, which entails eighth notes on the high hat (one and two and three and four and), beats one and three on the bass drum (one, two, three, four), and beats two and four on the snare drum (one, two, three, four), now what you want to think of doing is varying your bass drum for different bass drum patterns or ideas. One of the more important things is to listen to what your bass player is playing so you can vary with him as he changes his parts. You want to be really tight and execute those changes well with him.

There are countless ideas and changes you could make with your bass drum, but a good place to start is to sort of center your notes around what you’ve played before. For instance if your bass drum was on one and three before, maybe you add some notes around that. Let’s try a variation where you put a note on the and of two right before the three, so it’d sound like one, two, and three, four. One, two, and three, four. The groove would sound like this. One, two, three, four. [drums]

If you continue with some of your eighth note variations what you could do is put your bass drum on some of the ands of the measure. When I say ands we’re talking about the upbeats, the notes that fall between the counts, like one and two and three and four and. In this variation I’ll put a bass drum note on one and then the and of two and the and of three. And that would sound like one, two, and three, and four. One, two, and three, and four. The groove would sound like this. One, two, three, four. [drums]

If you really want to get adventurous you could start moving towards variations of sixteenth notes, or what we all partials of sixteenth notes, and those are the notes that fall between the eighth notes on e’s and uhs. This variation I’m going to put a note on the uh of two and three. So it sounds like this. One, two, a-three, four. One, two, a-three, four. Here’s what this groove sounds like. One, two, three, four. [drums]

Finally, you can change your bass drum to fall on some of the sixteenth variations like e’s, like one e and uh, two e and uh. In this case I’ll put and e of three into the measure. So it’d sound like one, two, three-e, four. One, two, three-e, four. Here’s how this groove sounds. One, two, three, four. [drums] So remember there are countless variations with your bass drum, and it’s good to start in those places just to get some ideas. Remember, listen to your bass player and try to match him exactly to help the grove.

Transcript

I’m going to cover the standard rock rhythm or the basic rock beat for a drum set. And this is a good place to start if you’re just learning how to play the drums. And basically where you’ll want to start with the surface is that you want to play eighth notes on the hi-hat, which are counted as one and two and three and four and. You’ll play beats one and three of the measure of the bass drum, on one and two and three and four and. And it will sort of a call-and-answer effect with the snare drum, which falls on beats two and four. One and two and three and four and. The hi-hat part will sound something like this. One and two and three and three and four and.

Now notice I played accent on my down beats on the one and two and three and four and. This is something that may take some time to develop. So at first if you want just to play straight eighth notes with no accents, that’s an option. That would sound like this.

The snare drum that falls on beats two and four would utilize our rim shot, where you strike the middle of the drum and the rim at the same time. One and two and three and four and, one and two and three and four and, one and two and three and four and. You also may want to practice that without a rim shot to strike the center of the drum, in case somebody needs a less punctuated snare drum

And the bass drum pattern is on beats one and three, and you’re going to use a standard heel-up technique, your heel in the air striking the pedal with the ball portion of your foot and using your entire leg. On one and two and three and four and, one and two and three and four and, one and two and three and four and.

So with the correct techniques, the entire rhythm sounds like this. One, two, ready, and.

One last thing you may want to try to develop is the same rhythm played off the ride cymbal, where you would move your right hand or your hi-hat hand to the ride and perhaps even play quarter notes or some sort of note value along with the groove that you’re playing. So what I’ll do now is play the same groove off the ride and play quarter notes on one, two, three, four with my hi-hat. One, two, three, four.

So although there are many different variations of rock rhythms, and this is just the beginning, this is a great place to start to understand grooving.

Transcript

The technique of a rimshot is when you strike the snare drum primarily, and you catch a portion of the rim, with the head of the drum at the same time. To get a good snare drum rimshot, especially in a groove, what you want to do is use a full stroke, and aim to strike the center of the drum with the tip of your stick. But also catch the rim with the fat part of your stick, with the body of the stick at the same time.

So you’re basically aiming to strike the snare in that position. And striking both surfaces exactly at the same time. It’s going to sound something like this.

The rimshot is used to basically bring out the sound of your snare drum, and really open up the dynamics of your groove, especially in a rock situation. In other styles like jazz, or Latin, you might not play it as much. But if you’re grooving and in a rock feel, it’s something you’d want to try to develop.

One last thing to bring up is not to confuse a rimshot with a cross stick or a rim click, and that’s another technique to bring down the sound of your snare drum stroke, if you don’t want a full stroke off the head. And what that is is actually holding the opposite side of the stick, like this, and laying your entire hand on the snare drum, picking up the back end of the stick and setting it down, to obtain a click sound. It’s a very different sound. Remember the rimshot is there to really bring out the dynamics of your stroke.

Transcript

If you’ve studied a ratamacue before, we’re talking about the drag notes before a series of four notes, and an accent at the end. And if you’ve studied the double ratamacue, it adds an extra drag to that set of notes. Well the triple ratamacue adds yet another drag. So you have a drag, a drag, and a ratamacue [makes sound]. And just like the other series of ratamacues you’re gonna start with your strong hand up, as if you’re setting up for a flam or a drag. You’re going to drag your weak stick. And then you’re gonna go through the series of notes, accenting the last note, and then finally alternating. I’ll play this open, and you’ll hear how it sounds slow, and move it up faster.

As with your other ratamacues you can play this version closed or buzzed. Where you use your drag hand as a buzz stroke rather than an open stroke. I’ll start it slow, and I’ll speed it up.

So just remember, if you’re playing a triple ratamacue you’re talking about adding another drag onto the series of notes that were either a single ratamacue, or a double ratamacue. Drag, drag, ratamacue. Then accent on the last note, and alternating.