Rhythm fills - dotted quarter and half note space

Minor little item, that can be done by itself as an elementary thing, or that can be used along with Syncopation. I wrote it to work through some fill alternatives within a right hand lead Reed system. 

Each numbered line has the same basic idea filling the space between dotted quarter notes, and half notes. 

Stickings are whatever you want— alternating, natural, RH does cym/LH does snare, mixed diddles, whatever. For people doing the page as a standalone thing, it would be a worthwhile exercise to make the cymbal hits alternate— using whatever sticking you must to make it come out that way. 

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Reed tweaks: 16ths doubled

This is a small change to a very basic Reed method, that makes it a lot more interesting, to me. I don't seek these things out, they just happen while I'm practicing. I play with it for a minute, and realize there's a usable system for it. If it's worth doing, I'll put it on the site. 

The basic method is to play the book rhythm on the cymbal, with bass drum in unison, and fill out the spaces with 16th notes, alternating sticking. It's like Wipeout, with all of the accents falling on the right hand. It's rather dumb and I never practice it.  

Here we will play two 16ths on the cymbal/BD for each book note— where there was a note on a numbered count or an &, we'll play #e or &a. With a big exception for notes spaced an 8th apart, you do that only on the last one. We're only doubling the notes that have some space after them. Sticking is still alternating, RLRL throughout.  

Below is the rhythm as written in the book— that's Progressive Steps to Syncopation— then as it's played with the simple interpretation, and then how it's played with this interpretation: 

And here's how you would play the first line of the p. 38 exercise: 

I should point out, the idea here is not to pile on more practice obligations— it's to give us options, and make normal things more useful, and more interesting to practice, and more relevant to whatever we want to do as individuals. 

Syncopation p. 37 in 16th notes

Continuation of this item, in which I transcribe exercises by Ted Reed into 16th notes. Here I've done the famous page 37 exercise. I won't be doing any other pages because that would be obsessive and excessive hahahahaha. I don't want to start being that. A few note values have been altered, but this plays exactly like the original piece. The dashed barlines show where the barlines were in the original.

Stick this in your copy of Syncopation, and use it instead of the regular book occasionally, when doing my funk applications, so you don't forget how to read 16th notes. You could also use it to get your 16th note comping together.

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Syncopation rhythms in 16th notes

This is a library item— you can print it and keep it with your copy of Progressive Steps to Syncopation. I've transcribed the one-line syncopation exercises from Reed into 2/4, doubling the rhythmic values. Just so we have a Reed equivalent based on a 16th note subdivision. 

Just practice from these pages instead of the equivalent exercises Syncopation occasionally— any time it makes sense. You could also apply to these rhythms all of the interpretations from my Funk Control series.

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EZ Tony Williams-like method: another setting

Here's something that was leading me into a very modern, hiccupy, vaguely Chris Dave-like jazz concept. I was practicing along with the Coltrane recording of  Big Nick, a medium-slow swing tune, and found myself doing this variation on my EZ Tony Williams-like method— double-timing it, so the rhythms are predominantly 16th notes and straight 8th notes. It's easy conceptually and technically, very modern in effect.

Read the original method, then proceed. We're using Progressive Steps To Syncopation, pp. 32-44— the “Syncopation” section. Here's the first line of the well-known p.37 exercise from that book, as played in the original method— in a fast 4, with straight 8th notes. Short notes (untied 8th notes) on the snare drum, and long notes (quarter notes, tied 8th notes) on the bass drum, with cymbal in unison with everything:

With today's thing, in a medium 4, but with the Syncopation part double-timed, it would be played like this— the dashed barlines show where the barlines were in the original part:

With 16th notes in jazz you want to think legato, but be sure your coordination is clean— it's easy for things to get mushy around those hihat notes on 2 and 4. So, legato, but not sloppily executed.

It's a good idea to also play the interpretation with a straight quarter note cymbal rhythm:

...and with a regular jazz beat on the cymbal— with a dotted-8th/16th rhythm on the skip note:

See the original method for ideas of what to do when you get into multiple 16th notes in a row on the snare drum— I prefer to play them alternating on the snare drum— without the cymbal, of course. Bring the cymbal back in on the first bass drum note after the run of 16ths on the snare. Or wherever you like.

Chaffee linear phrases in 3/4 - 16th notes - 01

I've been trying to figure out why I never did that much with Gary Chaffee's linear system; I find I'm a lot more interested when I vary the rhythm, and when I'm not always starting with the right hand. Hence today's companion to this earlier page of one-measure triplet phrases— we'll do the same thing here, with 16th notes: basic one measure phrases, starting on each note of the first pattern in the phrase.

If you need a refresher on just what the hell we're talking about here, see this explanation of the concept, along with our other posts about this type of thing.

Play these with both hands on the snare drum (not fun), moving around the drums systematically (semi-fun), or freely (actually fun), or with one hand on the hihats and one hand on the snare drum. Do be careful to maintain the stickings as you move around the drums.

You can practice the exercises repeating endlessly; or play them as fills with a time feel, playing a groove in 3, with one or two measures of the patterns ending with a bass drum and cymbal accent on 1 as you go back into the groove. You can also play them as fills with a groove in 4/4— just start the fill on beat 2. Nothing stopping you from mentally rebeaming these and playing them in 6/8, too, should you be working in 6/8 right now...

This system is designed to be playable really fast, but don't just work for speed. It will take some work to sound good and maintain the groove when playing them at slower funk tempos, too.

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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:

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:

Learning to comp with 16th notes is a necessary misery.

Here I'm elaborating on what some comments in a Drummerworld.com discussion on these pages/recorded example from Jim Chapin's Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer:

I could just be trying to drag everyone else into my particular personal hell, but I think everybody hates the 16th note section in Chapin. I have three different 1986 assignment dates marked in my copy because I basically flat refused to work them up. OK, it's a minor hell.

My operative theory/makeshift dogma at the time went something like: 1) I'm an Elvin man! I don't want to be messing with my nice triplety ride interpretation by introducing that nasty dotted-8th/16th thing, 2) the patterns don't swing, 3) double time is wack. 16th notes suggest double time, and double time is wack!

I don't know what I was about with that last part. I was a little dogmatic at one point about double time being nothing but a CS means of evading moderately uncomfortable tempos. I did eventually learn that 1) Elvin plays a lot of 16th notes, and I did not in fact have a nice triplety ride interpretation to mess up 2) ideas are not swinging or non-swinging, it's how and where you play them, and 3) double time is and is not wack, but it also simply is.