Along the lines of that jazz drill from a few weeks back, here's a rock/funk drill I'm playing— or universal backbeat-music drill. My wife, Casey Scott, is a songwriter, and is getting ready to record a new album, and I feel like my rock drumming needs some polishing— mostly a matter of touch and timing.
So here's what I'm doing to work on that. It has some moving parts, you can work out a way of doing it that suits your goals, and the tempos at which you want to do it. Use Syncopation pp. 34-37.
1. Grooves with cymbal variations
The book rhythm = mostly bass drum, except snare drum is on 2 and 4. If there's no 2 or 4 sounding in the book rhythm, add snare drum there. I play them with 8th notes on the cymbal, quarter notes on the cymbal, offbeat 8ths on the cymbal, offbeat 8ths plus crash cymbal on 2/4:
At faster tempos, I might also practice going into a half time feel, as in my funk drill.
2. 8/8 with cymbal variations
The book rhythm = bass drum, fill in remaining 8th notes with snare drum. Add 8th notes, quarter notes, offbeat 8ths on cymbal.
2. Accents on cymbal / fill with snare drum
Play the book rhythm on the cymbal, with bass drum in unison, fill in remaining 8th notes on the snare drum.
Play with all right hand, all left hand, and all both hands in unison. On unison version play left handed flams (rL) on one drum, or play hands in unison on two different drums.
Also play the cymbal with the RH, and alternate when there are two or more without any snare drum in between. Fill with LH flams or 16ths.
3. Accents on cymbal / fill with 16ths/sixtuplets
Alternating sticking.
1 comment:
Most of the jazz interpretation Syncopation stuff is too technical for me (I am a guitarist who owns a drumset, not a drummer), so I do a lot of this stuff. Here are a few additional things I do that are fairly easy:
1. Charlie Watts-style, same as the other cymbal variation stuff (snare on backbeats, play written rhythm on the bass drum). Play eighth notes on the hi hat, but don't play it on the backbeats, so the snare is alone.
2. Motown variations: play the written rhythm on the bass drum, but play the snare on all the downbeats. On these, I don't leave the bass drum out when it's in unison with the snare. Do it with the same cymbal variations (I mostly just do quarters and eighths).
3. Play the written rhythm on the cymbal, play 1 & 3 on the bass drum, backbeats on the snare.
4. Play the written rhythm on the cymbal, play every downbeat on bass drum and snare (more variations on the Motown groove).
Not sure if anyone will use these, but it's stuff I enjoy doing with along with the ones you listed.
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