Never enough 7/8

Hey, it's what I'm working on this week. I can't help it if it's not especially high-priority. This is an easy Stick Control-based method in 7/8 time. Together with the other pages, including a couple more that are yet to come, and a reasonable amount of practicing, you should be in pretty good shape to survive an encounter with a fast 7/8.

I haven't broken down the method completely for you here, but it should be apparent enough if you are ready to practice it. We're playing a four note cymbal rhythm with the right hand on the cymbal, and playing the bass drum and snare drum in unison with it, based on the sticking patterns on the first thirteen exercises in the first section of Stick Control. R means bass drum, L means snare drum, so if the pattern in the book is RLRL, you'll play bass-snare-bass-snare, in the same rhythm as the cymbal part. Look— compare the exercises here with the same-numbered exercises in Stone:

At the bottom of the page are some examples of variations you can do with each of the patterns, which I recommend. Get all the patterns together as written, then do whatever variations you can come up with, with each of the patterns. On the second page of the pdf, there's a set of exercises for developing a lick which you'll certainly use a lot in improvising in this style. I've put the hihat on the 1, but you could also put it on the fourth 8th note of the measure— the “2” of the lopsided 3 that is 7/8.

I should probably get you the practice loop I'm using, hey? It's coming...

Get the pdf