Daily best music in the world: more Parliament

From the 1979 Parliament album Gloryhallastupid, Theme From The Black Hole. Dennis Chambers is one of several drummers on this record; I don't know if this is him.

Daily best music in the world: not Bop Gun

Hey, there are other songs than Bop Gun on Parliament's Funkentelechy Vs. The Placebo Syndrome. Here are a couple of nice, light little numbers that maybe get overshadowed by that funk classic. The drummer is the great Jerome 'Bigfoot' Brailey, who is still around. If you're a fan, you can friend him on Facebook.

First, The Placebo Effect, with a little Beatles-like hook:



Funkier is Funkentelechy:

Transcription: Funkadelic — Trash A Go Go

More funk. This is Trash A-Go-Go, from Funkadelic's Cosmic Slop album. It's not clear who the drummer is; our man Tiki Fulwood is only credited on one track, and I don't think it's our other favorite P-Funk drummer, Jerome Brailey. Some of the other rhythm section players are listed as playing drums sometimes, and it does sound like it's probably one of them— it's sort of non-drummery.

Almost everything is played at a pretty even, strong, volume level, except for the few big accents. This is another case where the hihat and ride is not accented— just play 16th notes at an even volume. Despite the scary 32nd notes, there's nothing too technical here, and the parts should lay on the drums pretty easily.

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Transcription: Tiki intro

Hey, some time ago I promised you a new book— a collection of transcribed intros— before the end of the year. Work on that got sidelined as I was preparing for tour, and there's no way I'm finishing in the time frame I wanted. But I'll get back to it now, and see if I can't slam it out by January. You may also have noticed the style of my printed music has changed slightly; I've upgraded to Finale 2014, and the default styles are a little different than my old one. I'm trying to maintain as much continuity as possible, but some of these transitional things may look a little different as I figure things out. If there's one thing I learned from Joel Rothman, it's that continuity of style matters... you can always tell one of his books by just looking at the style of the copy...

So, here's another drum intro, from our man Tiki Fulwood. The tune is Good Old Music, from the first, self-titled Funkadelic record:

Yesterday we made big deal out of Fulwood not accenting the ride pattern on his hihat; here he does do that, accenting every other 16th note, and again, it sounds great. A good way for students to practice this would be to take make a repeating groove out of each measure, and run them many times.

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Audio after the break:

Groove o' the day: Tiki Fulwood — Red Hot Mama

Another GOTD by my favorite Funkadelic drummer, Tiki Fulwood. The tune is Red Hot Mama, from Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On, by Funkadelic, of course. The groove for the verse:

The song consists of a one-measure vamp on the verses, plus a two-measure chorus, played four times. As the song develops, Fulwood moves to the cymbal, and the bass drum part gets denser, with more variations. He also plays 8th notes on the hihat with his left foot when he plays the ride cymbal, which I haven't included in the notation:

The first thing young drummers learn to do to mature their funk feel, and distinguish themselves from those primitive rock & roll meatheads, is to accent the hihat, usually on the beat:

Once learned, it's easy to fall into doing this routinely, without thinking about the musical effect. But you can hear that on this song Fulwood plays his right hand dead even and strong, and it sounds great. For that matter, the ghost notes on the snare drum, the obsession du jour of Internet drummers, are entirely absent— aside from a few embellishments, and the fills, he plays the snare drum strongly on 2 and 4, with no filler. Also pay attention to the sound he's getting out of the snare drum; it's very strong, but it is definitely not the generic harsh crack currently in favor.

Audio after the break:

Groove o' the day: Take Your Dead Ass Home

This is pretty much definitional as to what funk drumming is. Here are another couple of Funkadelic grooves, from Take Your Dead Ass Home, on the album Tales of Kidd Funkadelic. The drummer is the unmistakable Jerome “Bigfoot” Brailey— get his sound in your ear.

As the tune progresses, he hits a fat, very P-Funk, crash on beat 1 every two measures.

This happens on the “limerick” sections, with some variations to support the ensemble rhythm:

NSFW audio after the break:

Todd's methods: Tiki's 32nds

This is a little loosy-goosy method I improvised yesterday afternoon while practicing along with Maggot Brain, by Funkadelic. There are several medium-tempo, 16th note-based grooves on the record, and the drummer, Tiki Fulwood, tends to double up his fills, using 32nd notes in them. most frequently in Can You Get To That. I don't automatically hear fills that way, and this helped me get some similar things under my hands.

This works while playing along with Can You Get To That, Hit It And Quit It, You And Your Folks, Me And My Folks, or Back In Our Minds. I'm sure Fulwood is playing the hihat with one hand, while I'm suggesting playing it alternating, but no matter. And the exercises are based on 8th notes in cut time, while the songs are 16th notes in 4/4; just put the backbeat in the exercise in the same place as it is on the recording and everything will fit.

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Oh, and if you're interested, David Aldridge has reprinted an excellent, extended piece on Fulwood at his excellent drumming blog— go read that, too.

Audio after the break, though there's really no excuse for not owning the record...

All the grooves from Maggot Brain

Many of these are highly variable, so it may be presumptuous to declare that I'm giving you all the grooves from this record, but that's the name of the series... I guess that's what I get for picking subjects in my sleep (this came on the headphones last night). Anyway, here in broad strokes are the grooves from Funkadelic's epic Maggot Brain, with drumming by Tiki Fulwood:

UPDATE: Not only should I not pick topics in my sleep, I should not transcribe when I'm on my first cup of coffee: Hit It And Quit It makes much more sense with measure three as the 3/4 bar, and the last measure in 4/4. That's what it is, in fact. So get out your pencils and move that barline one beat to the left- I'll update the original when the book comes out in 2013.

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Select YouTube audio after the break: