More Tiki Fulwood funk fills

Another item I was working on with a student, for everyone waiting for the other shoe to drop on that 2013 Tiki Fulwood/Funkadelic fills post. It's a fun, low-intensity thing to do with Syncopation pp. 22-27, played in cut time— all the funk stuff I do with Reed is in 2/2. 

Here's a basic groove to use as an environment— we'll play one or three measures of this, one measure of fill: 

The fill is just one measure of the book rhythm, played on the snare drum. You can start the fill on the 1, or after. The fill here is line 5 on p. 24 of Reed.  

We settled on going to the fill on the & of 2— that sounded hippest. It also makes a good lead in— you can jump in with that while they're counting off the tune. Here's the practice phrase: 

And the fill portion of some lines from Syncopation:  

It usually works best if you start the fill with the right hand, and alternate— most of the time that will have you land on the cymbal with your right hand on beat 1. Drill it with this Betty Davis practice loop. 

We were talking about fills, and how they're difficult to teach, and how most books on the subject are not helpful— too specific and too “drummery.” The later parts of my rock drill are helpful for a kind of non-specific textural thing with unisons and singles, which is a lot of what filling is. But a lot of it is just listening and getting a concept in your ear. Ringo Starr's thing is easy to mimic. What we're doing here, copying Tiki Fulwood's 32nd note fills on the slower 16th note grooves on Maggot Brain is another thing. Ndugu Leon Chancler's tom tom fills with George Duke is another one for me. Now we just have to listen to a lot more records and get about 50 more like that. 

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.

Get the pdf

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:

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.

Get the pdf

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...

Other people write good things

Of excellence.

I haven't been giving my fellow blogs enough love recently, but they've been producing a veritable tidal wave of excellent stuff:

Trap'd has a long post about playing with large ensembles, with an excellent list of the general principles of big band drumming- a must read.

The Drummer's Way has some words of wisdom from Jim Keltner. "How do I exist in a world of Colaiutas?" Companion piece: interview with Andy Newmark, in which he tells about watching Keltner record with John Lennon.

A "double shot" of Swiss triplets from Four on the Floor and Random Randy. Companion piece: my absurd Swiss triplets exercise.

Dave Aldridge writes about Funkadelic's Tiki Fulwood. Companion piece: my transcription of all of the grooves from Maggot Brain.

The Melodic Drummer writes more about playing brushes at fast tempos.

Rudimental Hands titles a post with some useful advice: never practice struggle.

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.

Get the pdf | get Maggot Brain by Funkadelic

Select YouTube audio after the break: