Page o' coordination: cymbal on the &s

Please forgive my lack of posting— I've been spending this last week on video and cymbal related stuff. As I mentioned before, soon we're a) adding video, and b) selling Cymbal & Gong cymbals through the site. A C&G sales trip to Germany is also in the works, so if you live there and have any interest in some very nice traditional K-type cymbals, please let me know. If you live anywhere in Europe, for that matter.

Here's a fairly rare Page o' coordination in 4/4, that should develop some refinement in the timing of your jazz cymbal rhythm. The cymbal is on the swing & all the way through, with a normal hihat part, and left hand independence part. You should also play the left hand part on the bass drum.

I imagine most students aren't going to get to the point of doing the usual left hand moves with this page. It's going to be a major timing challenge for a lot of people, and just “feeling” the syncopation isn't going to work— you have to know where the downbeats fall. Listen to your metronome, and make this rhythm between the click you're hearing, and the cymbal rhythm you're playing:

Instead of using a metronome, you should also try counting the quarter notes, and make the same rhythm between the cymbal and your voice.

Get the pdf