Monday, February 27, 2012

Stick Control implied rhythms

I hope you dig all of this Stick Control stuff; I just happen to be working with this book a lot right now. One of my reservations I've always had about it- about the way the first three pages apply to the drums, anyway- is that the musical content is hidden behind the sticking patterns. And I don't want to base my playing on patterns of Rs and Ls, I want to base it on common musical language. So what I've done here is give the rhythm suggested by the right hand part of exercises 1-72 from the front of the book; if you drop out the left hand, or accent the right, these are the rhythms that pop out. I've written the more syncopated rhythms jazz style (as in Ted Reed), with long notes on the &s wherever possible. For easy reference, I've put them in the same format as the original:



Keeping these pages handy while working with the Stone exercises on the drumset will get one seeing the rhythmic content behind the exercises in fairly short order. If like me you use Stone and Reed a lot, hopefully making the connection between the two will encourage some different ways of thinking about each. I would be cautious about the way you apply this to snare drum practice, however; hanging everything off of the right hand is a normal thing on the drums, but when working strictly on hand technique you want to be more balanced.

Get the pdf.

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