Very occasional quote of the day: figuring things out

Elvin Jones on Haskell Harr and learning the rudiments:

“I did go through [Harr's snare drum book] as a matter of fact. I went to public school in Pontiac, Michigan, so I didn't do anything extra. [...] I didn't have that advantage of being able to take private lessons, so I had to get everything that I had, at least up to that point, for myself. [...] So I got that book and that night I went home and sat over it and pored over it and read it from cover to cover, trying to make some sense out of it. Finally, all of a sudden I understood what it was. I knew exactly what it meant, what all of it (meant) from page one to the back cover. I pondered over that the next day, and so I learned how to do it. In two days, I mastered that book, and the rudiments.”

From an old interview in Percussive Notes— it now appears that you must be a member of PAS to access the archives, and I've let my membership lapse. What an excellent time to renew or join! 

Survival chops: triplets and 16th notes, accented

Here's a page of stuff that should be handy, with some accented 8th note triplets and 16th notes in 3/4 time. Playing 16th notes at the end of a run of triplets is something I do a lot; it's rather an Elvin Jones thing, and it gives you a lot of forward motion into the next phrase. It's like a little accelerando.

Putting them at the end of a three-beat phrase of mostly-triplets, as we have them here, is also helpful because it lets you start and end with the right hand. On the Internet it's an article of faith that you “have” to be proficient enough that it doesn't matter which hand you use, but in real playing it takes mental energy to end with the left hand, or to start with the left hand so you can end on the right.

Use an alternating sticking, starting with either hand. On the drum set, you'll use them most starting and ending with the right hand. I've also given some optional stickings; or you can pencil in your own.

Playing the patterns on the drums, you can put the accents on the cymbal, plus bass drum:

You can also stick the 16th notes either of these ways, with bass drum on the end:

Get the pdf

Erskine on Whiplash!

If you don't know your subject well enough
to convey the real emotion of it, there's always this. 

This is fun— they've interviewed Peter Erskine in re: the new smash sensation amazingly great jazz drumming education movie which is sweeping the nation, Whiplash:

Have you ever encountered an educator like JK Simmons's band director character before?

I've played under the baton of stern and demanding conductors, as well as the critical ears of some pretty tough bandleaders. I've always experienced equal amounts of praise and criticism from the toughest of them.

That's been my experience as well, more or less— the toughness is often balanced with something else, not necessarily praise. This comment from Erskine is very significant:

I'm disappointed that any viewer of the film will not see the joy of music-making that's almost always a part of large-ensemble rehearsals and performances. Musicians make music because they LOVE music. None of that is really apparent in the film, in my opinion.

He has some similar complaints to the ones I made about the movies early promo stuff:

What did you think of Teller's performance as a drummer?

It's a movie, and the actor did a good job. The drummer(s) who did the pre-record did a very fine job. Teller is a good actor. He's a so-so drummer: his hands are a mess in terms of technique, holding the sticks, etc., and no true fan of Buddy Rich would ever set up his or her drums in the manner that Teller's character does in the film. A 10" tom? Highly-angled? With a crash cymbal at that angle? Nope, doesn't wash. Besides, that "winning" drum solo performance at the end of the film is a very passé sort of thing. If the film takes place "now," any drummer playing like that at a competitive jazz festival --especially one in New York City -- would get a cymbal thrown at their feet by the ghost of Papa Jo Jones, or I'd do it for him. Now I know how professional photographers must feel when they see an actor portraying a scene like a photo shoot where the photographer never bothers to focus any of the shots he or she is taking.

Do go read the entire interview. H/T to Mike Prigodich for the link.

DBMITW: Portland song

New video by my partner Casey Scott!

Philly Joe plays an entrance: Oleo

Lots of action here this week, but here's a little something for you... the new Book of Intros is still on its way... finishing is always the hard part, and there's always more to do than you think...

Here's a very targeted transcription, to get one important piece of information: how someone comes in, and sets up a chorus of horn soloing. This is Philly Joe Jones's entrance with sticks on the second chorus of Coltrane's solo on Oleo, from the Miles Davis Quintet album Relaxin'. He plays a fill on the snare drum on the last measure of the first chorus, and plays some big accents with the cymbal and bass drum when the time starts:

The punches on 1 and 4 at the top of a chorus are kind of a universal thing in jazz, but they also seem very Philly Joe. He makes a big impression here, but he's not playing extremely loud; the accents in the last measures are lighter than the ones at the beginning. At this tempo, he plays the 8th notes completely straight on the lead-in on the snare drum, and swings them slightly when he's playing time. He does play the hihat, but sporadically, and it's not really important for our purposes here, so I left it out.

You own the record, but here's the audio anyway. The transcribed measures are after 1:50:

Things I learned at a Billy Mintz concert and clinic, and hanging at Revival Drums

Get it here.

I already knew this, but I was reminded of how great is the distance between things we can talk about and write about with drumming, and the actual music itself. The actual music is a living, instant process, and practicing it, and studying it, is just sort of nipping around the edges of understanding it. It's like science is to the natural world; it doesn't claim to be able to tell the whole truth about everything, just about things it can say kind of for sure based on its own method. So we talk about the things we can, given the limitations of our media— language, the Internet, the software, and an imperfect user, me— and we don't talk about the things we can't. And what we can't talk about is a lot of stuff. It's almost the whole real thing.

So I won't try to say a lot about the concert, except that there was significant music happening. The players' patience was striking. They were not always in a hurry to get to the next note, and certainly not to get to some big, obvious, emotional payoff; but the music was never boring, or especially long-winded. The tunes, I think all by Mintz, were beautiful— something Monk-like about them, which was reinforced by the playing of Roberta Piket, the pianist, without anyone being overly referential or obvious about it.

It made me realize that some other music which I had been immersing myself in for another post, is total f__ing jive bullshit. Suddenly it's about as admirable to me as someone delivering a truly impressive time-share sales pitch. I can't have the music be just about the players' talent, and how much stuff they know.

Other thoughts:

Billy had a funny cymbal set up with two 70s-vintage Paiste 2002 20" sizzle cymbals— maybe one was a ride and the other a “medium”, a crash-ride. I thought he picked them out of Revival's stock, but they were his. They're not light cymbals, and the sound is a little different than you normally hear in a jazz context, but they had a nice tonal thing going on between them.

Everyone needs to buy more CDs. Can we all agree to make it a habit? Go to a show > buy a CD. Here, go order a Billy record.

I finally found a budget (well, mid-range) cymbal that not only doesn't suck, but that is actually really good: Istanbul's Xist line. The quality of the sound is somewhere between an A and a K. Jose at Revival informs me that they're actually consistently good— unlike the Dream brand, which is in the same approximate price range, and is sometimes great, but mostly not.

Revival Drums is another reason why Portland rocks. Going there really makes me feel like I need to add about $1500 per annum to my gear budget. Highlights: the cymbals below, a really perfect early-80s Yamaha Recording Custom set for $1800, a yellow-sparkle Rogers double-bass set from the 60s, a rare Yamaha floor tom with a tensioning pedal for doing talking drum-like effects. Really surprised no one has snapped that up...

Another reason Portland rocks is the company Cymbal & Gong— Revival was carrying several of their— or his, I think the company is one guy— hand-hammered, K-type cymbals. I believe the cymbals are manufactured in Turkey, and C&G hand selects the ones that get their brand, and patinas them. They also have seconds that don't get patina-ed, and are cheaper. It sounds almost like a miniature version of the old Gretsch warehouse in New York here. Jose says Matt Chamberlain, the guy from Tortoise, and a bunch of other big rock people are buying these. I smell a CSD! feature here...

Anyone in Portland who missed the show can see John Gross and Mintz play a duo concert at Revival on Wednesday night, the 19th.

Daily best music in the world: earlyish Steve Gadd

Here's some really great funk drumming by Steve Gadd, from 1975, on a fairly obscure album: Mobius, by Cedar Walton. Gadd invented or perfected much of the drumming language that is now usually just called “funk”, which has come to permeate all of pop music, and his playing is so familiar it's become too easy to think of him almost as a stylist. Then you hear this and you hear how great he is, and everything that is missing from everything else in the world that came after him.

These two tracks really cover about 90% of what you need to know about funk drumming:



Another one after the break:

Billy Mintz clinic and concert in Portland TOMORROW

I don't know how many local readers I have, but if you're in Portland, you should go see Billy Mintz give a drum clinic, followed by a concert with his quartet tomorrow evening— follow the links for details. Billy is an amazing drummer somewhat in the Paul Motian vein, if there is such a thing: very free, very... painterly is a word you could use. He will often play like he doesn't know how to play the drums, but his stuff is actually very together. He's also the author of the drum book Different Drummers, which is an out-of-print legend, like Bob Moses's Drum Wisdom.

Dahlgren & Fine workout in 3/4

Here's a triplet workout in 3/4, using 4-Way Coordination by Marvin Dahlgren and Elliot Fine. The idea is fairly obvious, and has certainly occurred to a lot of people, but it might help for me to suggest some parameters.

The complete workout may not be immediately attainable for everyone, and you certainly won't be able to do it exhaustively in one session, but any part of it you complete— even just a warm-up— at any tempo, will be an accomplishment.

Using 4WC, play each four-8th note pattern by itself, repeated, from these lines:
p. 4, lines 7 and 8.
p. 5, lines 3, 4, and 9.
p. 6, lines 1, 9 and 10.

These are the lines that work the best for me with this exercise. But you can use any set of two lines of your choice: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, or 7-8, and so on. Doing the exercises this way covers all of the inversions, so there's no need to do all of the exercises in each section. And don't work yourself to death covering every last variation I suggest here— if you just make a reasonable-length workout out of it, and do it consistently for a reasonable period of days or weeks, you'll get what you need out of it.


The exercise:

Play each four-note pattern in a triplet rhythm, in 3/4 time. This pattern from page 4:

Becomes this:

When you can play one exercise this way 2-4 times perfectly at your chosen tempo, move on to the next pattern.


There are a whole raft of warmups and practice suggestions after the break:

NAKED CLICKBAIT: ten pieces of drumming equipment you should throw away TODAY!

I don't know, I just felt like writing an inane Buzzfeed-style listicle a few weeks ago, and I'm tired of looking at this in my drafts folder. Please don't be offended if one of your favorite things is listed here:

Don't do this.

Budget/student quality cymbals
I've pointed out many times that old, filthy, pro-quality A. Zildjians and early Sabian AAs are now dirt cheap. The only excuses for buying student cymbals are embarrassingly horrible: you like the metal to be shiny, you like for all the logos to be the same, or you are a disturbing virginity fetishist, and cannot use products that have been touched by human hands.

Double-bass pedal
Nobody wants to hear that noise, unless you're in a Metal band. Which you should quit if you're in. Go join a Buddhist monastery, find a shaman to lead you in an ayahuasca session, exorcise whatever demons are causing your pain, and learn to love. Especially, learn to love music the sole purpose of which is not to arouse feelings of intense negativity. It all starts with the pedal. Get rid of the pedal and you break the spell. And Cruise Ship Drummer! becomes a little more openly anti-Metal...

Third, fourth, fifth tom tom
Once the band is playing, people just hear a high sound and a low sound. This isn't the 70s— nobody is leaving spaces in their arrangements for big melodic tom fills. So let's end this charade. Special note: Wanted: 13" Sonor Phonic tom tom, or 16" floor tom, black wrap.

10" tom tom
Steve Gadd called, and he wants his personal thing back. Gadd is, of course, wonderful, and his distinctive, punchy little 10" tom tom won everyone's hearts back in the late 70s, but it really is a specialty sound. And the way you set up the drums, the 10 is always right there, so you're always playing this extra-high, bongo sound; and I am not adopting some weird-looking set up just to keep me from playing that drum too much. Just lose the thing. Special note: Wanted: 10" Sonor Phonic tom tom, black wrap.

See, yeah... no.

Second, third China-type
It's extremely rare that anyone remarks on the absence of a Chinese cymbal on a gig. So what are you doing with three of them? See the above thing about the double-bass pedal.

Vic Firth SD-4 Combo drum sticks
Every jazz drummer in the world uses these, but for my taste they deliver a thin tone, and they're too short—  playing above mf, they make you wave your arms around, and use more force than I would like. Try larger maple sticks— you can still play quietly with them. [2020 UPDATE: my views on smaller sticks have moderated somewhat since this post. I still don't like the Combos.]

Piccolo or “popcorn” snare drums
The sound of your snare drum should not send your recording engineer lunging to figure out which piece of outboard gear has just begun spewing random digital artifacts. Play a 14". Or a deep 13". And tune it normally. When in doubt, go to your record library, listen to your Police albums, and if your drum sounds significantly higher and lacking-in-substance than Stewart Copeland's, and you are not making a Reggae album, you are way out of line. Special note re: piccolos: the year 1990 called, and it wants etc etc... Special note re: popcorn snares: the year 2005 called, blah blah blah...

Drum rack
What are you still doing with that thing? Racks went out with mullets, wine coolers, and Winger. Call the dump and have them tow away that IROC Z-28 Camaro while you're at it.

Goofy, specialty hardware in general
If it's not covered by the cheapest end of the Yamaha line, you don't need it. With very few exceptions. They don't make a flat base cymbal stand, so, OK, if it's not also covered by the next-to-cheapest Gibraltar line (their dead-cheapest stuff is real swill), you don't need it. And no building clever things with multi-clamps! What matters is what you're going to play, and how.

Just get something
reasonably-priced
that looks like this.

That goes for extra-ridiculous bass drum pedals, too
Aside from a few new gimmicky things for playing Metal, which you should not own— or play— all pedals are the same today. Two posts, vertical spring on the side, little swinging cam, possibly chain drive? Sometime in the early 90s, everyone just said eff it, people, we're all going to sell slight variations on the Frank Ippolito/Al Duffy Gretsch Floating Action pedal from the 40s— that's the pedal that became the Camco, which became the DW 5000, and then everything else. For years all companies used a variation of that design for their crappiest pedal, until customers realized that their fancier, proprietary designs totally ate, and stopped buying them, which led to the great, late-80s fancy, proprietary bass drum pedal design die-off, after which the only thing left standing was the Floating Action design. Now everything from First Act to Axis uses the same mechanism. Pass on the Axis, or whatever is the boutique pedal du jour, and just buy the cheapest Yamaha pedal.

Bonus for drum corps people: Kevlar heads
They sound like garbage, and have stolen your balls. Break into the Ludwig warehouse and steal their remaining stock of Silver Dot heads. Tenors, get Remo Pinstripes. You will instantly have triple the power of every other drum line in the world.

VOQOTD: rudiments just made up by a couple of guys

Well, not exactly: many or most of them have been in use for a couple of hundred years at least, but the 26 Standard Drum Rudiments as a thing... read this letter to Percussive Notes by William F. Ludwig, Sr. (1879-1973), written a few months before his death, 41 years ago— he's writing in response to an opinion on updating the rudiments, but that's not important:

When I [!!!] established the 26 Rudiments as a standard system of drumming for the American school drummers in 1923, with Sanford A. Moeller [!!!], I did not imagine that they would last forever. But the system has held up very well all these 48 [!!!] years,  and it has proven itself by building the world's best drummers. I believe this is quite a record and naturally would like to see it continued. In the early 1920's no one was around who was even interested in establishing a uniform system of drumming and I felt it my duty, knowing what rudiments had done for me. It took many years to establish the 26 Standard American Rudiments and it was expensive [!!!] but the leading percussionists of that day stood by me.

The exclamation points are mine. As with a lot of things that seem carved in stone by God, with the beard, robes, and everything, it was really just a couple of guys deciding on an idea, and then marketing it to the point that everyone accepted it. I'm also always amazed at how compressed the history of American drumming is; in the 48 year span he mentions, we go from Baby Dodds to Jack Dejohnette— about the first decade of either of their careers.

A Reed method for 16th notes in jazz— reading 8th notes

Continuing our previous Reed interpretation for comping with 16th notes in jazz, this time using the 8th note section of Syncopation— pp. 10-11, or “Lesson 4” in the new edition.

The written rhythms on those pages are 8th notes and quarter notes; we'll be giving the 8th notes a dotted 8th/16th interpretation:

Just so we're clear, that is not a normal way of playing swing 8th notes; as a rule they should have a more rounded, triplety feel most often. If a horn player played a Charlie Parker tune interpreting the 8th notes with that dotted 8th/16th feel, he would sound unbelievably hokey, and you would fire him. So we're really using this interpretation only to generate drum ideas to go with the swing cymbal pattern, which may have that 16th note feel, at certain tempos, or where a certain vibe is called for; or for accompanying soloists using 16th notes. It's a fairly fine distinction. I just don't want you going into your next lesson with Joe Chambers and saying “Cruise Ship Drummer! told me to play swing 8th notes as a dotted 8th and 16th!”

We will be using that cymbal rhythm, more or less strictly. Play it accurately, but try to keep a legato feel:

To walk through the steps of the first interpretation, then: when reading the first exercise in Reed, p. 10:

We'll ignore the bass drum line, and play that main rhythm as follows:

In fact, the exercises are written in this form on pp. 12-13 of Syncopation, so you can use those pages if you want. But the next step of this method will require you to translate the 8th notes that way, so you may as well get used to it now, while the reading is easy.

We'll be orchestrating that on the drums as follows: play the exercise rhythm on the bass drum, and fill in the inside notes of the dotted 8th/16th rhythm— the e-&— on the snare drum. Fill out the written quarter notes as we did in the previous entry— in this example, the es and as:

Add the cymbal pattern, and hihat, as above [There is a typo here— there is a missing snare note on the a of 2.]:

More examples and another exercise after the break:

“Whiplash“ reviews coming in

The Keanu firing his gun up in the
air and going AHHH scene of the movie.

Well, the sensational jazz education/drumming melodrama Whiplash is now in theaters at last. You'll recall I abused it pretty severely before its general release, based on what most people would consider to be thin evidence— the howler-laden advance clips and photos, and the things people were writing about it. The reviews are starting to come in, and if Rotten Tomatoes's “Tomato-meter” is to be trusted, the thing is a SMASH HIT with the critics. In how it actually handles its subject matter, it is, to all appearances, living up to my expectations.

In case you haven't heard, it's a movie about a young drummer with the modest artistic vision of being as big as Buddy Rich, a jazz drummer the filmmakers have heard of.  He spends most of the movie on the losing side of a battle of egos with an abusive jazz studies professor.

People have sent me a couple of reviews which are worth reading. First, from Richard Brody at the New Yorker (h/t to Ed Pierce for the link):

The movie’s very idea of jazz is a grotesque and ludicrous caricature.

That's... not a good start.

In “Whiplash,” the young musicians don’t play much music. Andrew isn’t in a band or a combo, doesn’t get together with his fellow-students and jam—not in a park, not in a subway station, not in a café, not even in a basement. He doesn’t study music theory, not alone and not [...] with his peers. There’s no obsessive comparing of recordings and styles, no sense of a wide-ranging appreciation of jazz history—no Elvin Jones, no Tony Williams, no Max Roach, no Ed Blackwell. In short, the musician’s life is about pure competitive ambition—the concert band and the exposure it provides—and nothing else. The movie has no music in its soul...

Like, I'm pretty that firing his gun up in the air
to express raw emotion is one thing a highly-
trained FBI agent would never do. It's pretty much 
the last thing he would ever do with his weapon.

Brody addresses a scene I commented on before:

The core of the movie is the emotional and physical brutality that Fletcher metes out to Andrew, in the interest (he claims) of driving him out of self-satisfaction and into hard work. Fletcher levels an ethnic slur at Andrew, who’s Jewish; he insults his father, smacks him in the face repeatedly to teach him rhythm, hazes him with petty rules that are meant to teach military-style obedience rather than musical intelligence. [...] 

To justify his methods, [the abusive professor] Fletcher tells [our young egomaniac drummer] Andrew that the worst thing you can tell a young artist is “Good job,” because self-satisfaction and complacency are the enemies of artistic progress. It’s the moment where [the director] Chazelle gives the diabolical character his due, and it’s utter, despicable nonsense. There’s nothing wrong with “Good job,” because a real artist won’t be gulled or lulled into self-satisfaction by it: real artists are hard on themselves, curious to learn what they don’t know and to push themselves ahead.

Do follow the link and read the full review.

After the break, Brooklyn drummer John Colpitts, aka Kid Millions, has some things to say about it:

The useful from the useless

Here's something I've been meaning to get to. This question— edited slightly— came up on the Drummerworld discussion forum today:

I keep finding tons of new material on line, YouTube in particular, and am constantly practicing different things that I almost always forget (is it just me being thick?). How can I organize everything? Do people really assimilate all that amount of material and move on? Most of it seems to be— or is presented as— fundamental for your drumming. How can I discern useful from useless?

Great question: what are we supposed to do with all this drum crap, with which the Internet is literally teeming? Let's take this in parts:


A) Be working on your basic thing.

This is your foundation for judging if materials are any good for you, and for making sure you can get through them.

1. Learn some fundamentals. For novices, understand basic rhythm— like, be able to count and play pp. 4-31 of Syncopation on the snare drum. Be able to play moderate-speed alternating singles, doubles, and paradiddles. Be able to read basic things in 4/4, 3/4, and 6/8. Get a few lessons, and buy a beginning snare drum book, and a beginning rock book, and try to figure them out. You may be able to find similar things on line, but with a published book at least you know the author was compelled to give you some kind of coherent, progressive vision. No online product is a substitute for an in-person lesson with a competent teacher.

2. Be playing music. If you are already playing, it's easier to tell if certain given practice materials are going to help you with that. If you can play a rock beat without falling off the drum throne, you are ready to play music with people.

3. Also be watching music in person. Fifty guys on YouTube showing you the couple of flashy things they are actually good at is not a realistic picture of being a drummer. Hell, neither is a video of a good or great drummer showing you whatever. Going to a show and seeing how the drummer— any drummer— plays all the music in a 60-minute set is a realistic picture of being a drummer. Then you can judge better what materials are going to help you do that thing.

More after the break:

VOQOTD: Dejohnette on chops

The first of many valuable things I'm sure we'll be mining from the Percussive Notes archives. Here Jack Dejohnette, interviewed by Charlie Perry, says something we hopefully already knew, but which bears repeating:

P: You have an excellent technique. Did you devote a lot of time to developing it?

D: Let me put it this way: When I practiced, or played a gig, I tried for musical ideas. I wasn't out to be just a good technician but a whole drummer, a musician. My technique grew along with everything else.

P: In other words, you developed the appropriate technique and drumistic skills that were necessary to execute your ideas and function as a musician.

D: That was the idea.

P: Too bad more drummers don't follow that line of reasoning. Some of them, particularly the younger drummers, the students, become so involved with technique that they lose sight of the music. They function as technicians rather than musicians.

D: Yeah. Well, some cats use technique for an ego trip. You know, they play a lot of freaky things just to stand out. That's because a lot of people (audiences) are floored by “flash.” They say, “Wow, ain’t that something!” But sometimes it’s really nothing.

P: Just a bunch of notes played fast without rhyme or reason.

D: That’s about it! Another thing is that some drummers think the faster they play, the more they say. It’s like a cat who talks real fast and uses a lot of fancy words but talks nonsense. What the drummer, or any musician, has to say, should fit into the musical conversation. If it doesn’t, it shouldn't be said.

Percussive Notes archives online, and FREE

Well, the Internet just got a whole lot smarter about the drums, and percussion in general. I'm very excited to see that the Percussive Arts Society is now posting the archives of their quarterly publication Percussive Notes free online— you can download pdfs of their old articles. For many years, Percussive Notes and Modern Drummer were basically the only periodicals with any serious information about actually playing the drums, PN coming from a professional/academic perspective, and MD being geared towards amateurs and students, as well as pros. This is a sizable chunk of the total available literature of drumming, and it's now a) available, and b) free.

All professionals and serious students should be eating this up. In just a few minutes of browsing I found a bunch of great stuff:

An interview with Kenny Clarke, and discussion of his career by Norbert Goldberg 

Developing Snare Drum Rolls by Sherman Hong 

Max Roach's drum solo on Jordu, transcribed by Paul Garretson 

Interview with Elvin Jones by Anthony George Bravos 

Polyrhythms: Triplets in 4/4 Jazz Time by Peter Donald

...and much, much more— we'll be seeing a whole lot more of them in the future...

A Reed method for 16th notes in jazz — reading the quarter note sections

Over the course of a few posts I'll break down my method for developing jazz comping with 16th notes, using Syncopation by Ted Reed. 16th notes are used a lot in jazz, and drummers neglecting them can lead to fairly one-dimensional playing. In jazz this rhythm needs to be legato; if you articulate your 16ths the way you do in other kinds of music, they will sound quite bad. Play them the way the horn does on Confirmation:





First we'll look at some things you can do with the quarter note sections of Reed. We'll be ignoring the written bass drum part— the stems-down part— so any of the three two-page quarter note lessons will do. We will play the ride pattern with a dotted-8th/16th rhythm; again, don't play it too staccato. Try to make it flow. It looks funny when you see it written; this used to be a standard way to write and play the pattern, but you don't see it much any more:

The first two interpretations are straightforward: play the above time pattern along with the written melody line (the stems-up part in Reed) on the bass drum, while filling in a couple of different 16th note rhythms on the snare drum. For the examples, we'll use this written exercise in Reed:

In the book that's one measure of page 4 (Lesson One, in the new edition), line 7. Reading that exercise without playing the left hand, the time feel plus our bass drum part would look like this:

First, fill in the &-as on with the snare:

Then fill in the es and as:

Much more after the break: