A drumming blog written by Todd Bishop.
Four alternative ways of playing the rudimental piece Three Camps, that I'm practicing this week, accented 5 stroke rolls, flam accents, flam drags, and flammed 5s.
Learn each measure individually, then play them in the form given at the top of the page. Chop out.
Another set of Three Camps-form exercises in 3/4, for the drum set. The first two have alternating triplets between the snare and bass, the last two are based on a dotted quarter rhythm, with an extra note in there.
Still digging this format— it makes you practice one thing for as long as you're supposed to, with minor variations. Good alternative to practicing out of Reed and having to deal with a lot of reading.
Check out the forms carefully— the circled bass drum notes are added or swapped for the snare drum on some of them. Learn each two measure phrase, then put them in the form to make the complete exercise.
Continuing the thing from the other day, here are some drum set variations on Three Camps, in 3/4 time, in a jazz waltz feel. I practice this same type of thing using my book Syncopation in 3, which you should own, but it's nice to have a clean, structured shot at some simple variations on one idea. And the Three Camps format makes you practice it for about as long as you should practice it.
Practice each measure by itself, then put them together in the form given at the top of the page. Add hihat on beat 2, or beats 2 and 3, pencil it in on the a partial on 1, and on beat 3, Elvin-style. Anything. Scratch out that middle bass drum note on the D part of the dotted quarter version if you want— it doesn't fit the pattern, exactly.
Practice it with my loop of All Blues.
I wrote this to isolate some things used in my main uptempo Reed method— which I continue to find an excellent method. This is good if you need to polish a few of those bass drum patterns in a more focused way.
I've simplified the structure somewhat— the third camp just repeats the last two measures of the second camp, backwards. The piece really needed that tiny bit of variety, and I find this a little dull to practice. I'll probably skip the whole last section altogether. Still, it's better than just practicing a one measure pattern over and over again, right?
More of Three Camps adapted for drum set, with a 16th note SSBB pattern, in a jazz feel. Let's call this an advanced page, because there's a little extra 16th note filler on the snare drum that many won't have worked out, and there are a few notes you have to follow. It's not easy to just read it. Follow the instructions, learn them, memorize them, throw the page away.
We're getting fairly remote from the original piece, but who cares, the exercises are good. With this particular version the normal thing on the 'D' measures— the beginning of the third camp— didn't work so well, so I deviated from the logic of the original a little bit.
Note that on “Basic, starting on 2” you have to continue the SSBB pattern on beat 1 of the last measure of the AABA and CCBC sections. On both of the “syncopated” versions, there are circled notes that you play only on the A* and C* measures, as indicated in the form written beneath each variation.
To reduce visual clutter I haven't indicated a hihat part. Play it on beats 2 and 4, or play it on all of the &s for a double time feel.
I'm telling you this is a good system. It gives you the thing, some basic variations on it, starting on 1 or 2, straight and syncopated, and it makes you do it for as long as you should do it. Basically that's what you should do with every single identifiable idea you play on the drum set.
This is the inverse of what I posted last week— we're playing a jazz time feel, with the bass drum playing the major TC accents, filling in the remaining notes of an inverted quarter note triplet on the snare drum. And there is an accompanying Reed-type method to develop all of this further.
It's fun doing the standard left hand moves with these pages, playing a rim click on the snare drum— gives a nice Elvin-like texture.
I started doing these because I wanted a composed drill, like Alan Dawson's Rudimental Ritual, that I would actually play. It has worked out really well. This entry is the same as the first one, except the snare drum fills the remainder of the the quarter note triplet— whatever isn't covered by the bass drum. It's similar to the new Reed method I outlined last month.
Learn them, paying attention to the different form for each version, memorize them, find a practice loop you like, and drill them.
Another page of Three Camps interpretations for drumset, based on a 4/4 funk shuffle groove, with a normal jazz rhythm on the cymbal. These focus on pretty normal vocabulary for that type of thing. I wrote it to go with a practice loop of Ummh by Bobby Hutcherson, with Mickey Roker playing a nice deep shuffle groove.
The foundation groove is the B portion of each drill— practice that by itself, if you need to, before playing the drills. Unlike the other TCFDS pages, these all use the normal form of the piece— there are no starting-on-2 or syncopated versions.
Here's that track— I'll post my loop soon:
Another page working on normal jazz drumset vocabulary using Three Camps— we're sort of inverting the basic version, except I've taken a few liberties with it to make a normal Elvin-like texture out of it.
I really like this whole method, and I think it is really worth your while to learn it, figuring out all the correct form for each version. It's easy when you do it. It's really good for people who like clearly-defined lesson assignments, or for undisciplined people like me who tend to drift into creative practice rather than practice things thoroughly.
This is the basic form of Three Camps for drumset, converted into 16th notes. I continue to dig this format for practicing jazz coordination. For me the main attraction of this page is the Elvin-like thing we see at the end of measure C of the first version, and throughout the page. We really get to polish that sucker.
You can play these substituting the left foot for the bass drum— in that case ignore the written hihat part. Doing it that way, at faster tempos I might eliminate the second note of any double— on the a-1 or a-3 in measure D of the first version, for example. Play the hihat on the a, don't play it on the 1.
You could also mix things up by playing the 1e-a rhythm (on whatever beats it occurs) as a triplet, as in the original triplet version of this page, and play the full beats of 16ths as 16ths. That's a thing Elvin Jones does a lot.
• Basic, with the bass drum playing the same accents as the original piece.
• Basic form with the accents displaced one beat, starting on beat 2.
• Syncopated, with the original accents moved to the &.
• Syncopated, accents on the & starting on beat 2.
3rd | 2nd | 2nd-coda
3rd | 2nd | 3rd | 2nd-coda
