Counting system overhaul - 01

This guy gets it.

Severely long two-part nerd item alert— the following post is an embarrassing mess that will be perhaps useful/entertaining for music teachers and others who think about this stuff all day every day. All others proceed with caution. 

Last year I was taken to task online by another drum teacher, for my late innovations in counting rhythm— I was told my ways are convoluted, inconsistent, confusing. “We have a working system in place, if it ain't broke don't fix it and we don't need to count things we can't already count anyway, and by what authority...”, etc etc. 

So let's look at the current excellent extremely consistent and non-confusing ain't-broke methods for counting rhythm, with some kind of official acceptance somewhere, and I'll say everything I think is wrong with them. Next post I'll round up the way I'm doing it, which I've already written about piecemeal.

8th notes: 1&2&

Problems: fine

8th note triplets: 1 trip let 2 trip let, 1&a 2&a, 1 la li 2 la li

Problems: I prefer 1&a. Yes, the syllables duplicate a common 8th and two 16ths rhythm. We remedy that by teaching people the difference between the two. 

1 trip let is ungainly to speak— too many consonant clusters from syllable to syllable. And, frankly, I'm not a child, I don't need to say the name of the rhythm I'm counting. And by baking the word triplet into it, we've made it useless for counting a common equivalent rhythm: compound 8th notes. 

1 la li— part of the Eastman system— is just goofy, and had to have been cooked up by a vocalist. La is a syllable we make drummers/percussionists use to get them to play with a prettier tone, we don't use it to articulate rhythm. 


Compound 8th notes: 1 2 3 4 5 6 (maybe emphasizing the 1 and 4); 1&a 2&a, 1 la li 2 la li

Problems: With 1 2 3 etc we're counting a subdivision, not the main beat. We don't count 8th notes in 4/4, why do it in 12/8? I would rather use the trip let syllables, but that's a non-starter because compound 8ths are not triplets, though they are functionally the same rhythm. 

Sidebar: This is where pedantic individuals will make us have a long fight about the nature of a triplet, and of compound 8th notes. A three note subdivision of a beat is an ordinary kind of rhythm. It is native to 6/8 time, but foreign to 2/4 time, where it requires special notation— a numeral 3 printed above that beat. And it gets a special name: triplet. It's the same thing in either case: a single beat divided into thirds. There's no good reason to count it differently in different time signatures. 

16th notes: 1e&a 2e&a, 1 ti te ta 2 ti te ta

Problems: none, 1e&a is universally accepted, and easy to say, and is extremely useful for counting and understanding complex 16th note rhythms, let's do more with it. Exploit its familiarity.

I've never met anyone who uses the Eastman 1 ti te ta syllables, not even people who otherwise defend that system like it was handed down by Socrates from Mt. Vesuvius*.

* - ???  

Quintuplets: hippopotamus or other funny five syllable word, 1 quin tu pl et 2 quin tu pl et

Problems: Funny words are OK for getting the rate of rhythm in isolation, you don't use them in counting an actual piece. How are you going to refer to partials of a quintuplet, the mus of 1, the pot of 3? Not an everyday need, but if we're going to do this, let's do it right. 

1 quin tu pl et invents a pul syllable that isn't spoken in the word. And again, I don't need to pronounce or mispronounce the name of the rhythm to play it. And by saying QUIN TA PA LET we're sabotaging it for use with five note groups that are not quintuplets. Like, what are you going to say when you encounter a measure (or partial measure) phrased 5/16? 


Sixtuplets/16th note triplets: nothing, 1 trip let & trip let, 1 ti ta & ti ta, 1 ta la ta li ta

Problems: None are easy to say fast. The consonant clusters in the trip let way really bog you down here.

The Eastman la li etc syllables are phrased wrong, like a subdivided 8th note triplet. Correctly, 16th triplets are a triplet subdivision of an 8th note. The distinction is important. To make those syllables work you could vocally accent the syllables WUNtala TAlita. Saying 1tala &tala— if we must use those syllables— would be better. 


Compound meter 16ths: 1&2&3& 4&5&6&, 1 ta la ta li ta 2 ta la ta li ta

Problems: Same problems as with compound 8ths, but worse. Try using those Eastman syllables to count a complex passage of 8th and 16th notes and rests.  


Septuplets: none, but take your pick of funny seven syllable words: aboriginality, absolute immunity, algorithmic randomness, cryptozoological, grammaticalization, hematochromatosis, impermeability, Kierkegaardianism, kleptoparasitism, monomorphological, ultramodularity, Zoroastrianism

Problems: are you kidding

32nd notes: nothing 

Problems: There aren't many cases where I would want to count 32nd notes, but it would be nice to have an option. 

CONCLUSION: The beauty of this well-lubricated* system is that no syllables conflict, except when syllables conflict. It may not be “broke”, but these methods are totally inadequate for anything other than 8ths and 16ths in */4 meters, and 8th notes in compound meters. People handle these limitations by basically never counting anything other than that... not very well. So big areas of rhythm are permanently not understood very well by a lot of people.

* - By which I mean how drunk would a man have to be to think this amalgamation of practices amounts to a system? 

Speaking rhythm = knowing rhythm. The implications of that go beyond just knowing how to read a rhythm correctly. Even if we don't use all of these applications often, it's still worth having a system for it. Next post I'll round up my solutions to this musical crapperware. Mostly restating things I've written before, in the screed format I've embraced here.

What time signature it's “really” in

A little sidebar on the subject of time signatures, everyone's favorite topic to be confused about. We're resolving a lot of little outstanding issues here lately. 

Time signatures (I prefer the word meter) are a little bit of a slippery subject when you're talking about jazz music— which may be played in a different meter or time feel than is indicated on the original chart— or when discussing any music not played from a written arrangement. 

In those situations, the meter is, effectively, what is apparent from listening to it. We determine that by counting, and by determining whether there is a two-note (straight 8th) or three-note (triplet feel) subdivision. There are also stylistic conventions associated with certain meters, and broader conventions in all of music. And there are meters associated with certain rhythm section or drum grooves.   

A tune like All Blues may be written in 6/8 in The Real Book, or wherever, but it's typically played with a jazz waltz feel— 3/4 time— the performed drum rhythm is effectively in 3/4. Two measures of 3/4 waltz feel = one measure of 6/8 on the lead sheet. It has that famous little vamp figure, which can be counted in 6, or as two measures of 3. 

Making a drum transcription of it— where the drummer is playing a regular old jazz waltz— it would be stupid to try to write out a in 6/8 with an 8th note as the main pulse just to agree with the lead sheet. You could write it in 6/4, but to me 6/4 suggests a 2+2+2 or 4+2 phrasing. I would at least put a dashed imaginary barline in between measures.  

With a drum transcription, we're giving a representation of what the drummer played, with the time signature reflecting the phrasing of the drumming performance. If a tune is written in 4/4, but the drummer plays an persistent triplet feel* through out, why not write it in 12/8? 

* - Not simply swing 4/4 with a lot of triplets.

Time signatures and style indications also have certain implications for the performing musicians. 12/8 indicates a triplet feel. 8/8 means you're playing in 4/4, but they want strong 8th notes all the way through. 6/4 suggests 2+2+2, usually not 3+3. 6/8 may suggest an Afro-Cuban feel. Those may be the actual time signature of the written chart, or they may be given in the style description— like a tune written in 4/4, with “12/8 feel” indicated at the upper left of the page. 

If you decide a piece is counted in 4, with a straight 8th feel, how do you decide what kind of 4? Technically it could possibly be 4/4, 4/2, 4/8, 4/16, 4/32, and so on. The answer is: it's 4/4. 

I don't believe I've ever been handed a piece of music in 4/2. Usually, to me, #/2 meters suggest some fast activity in the equivalent #/4 meter. A piece with a moderato time feel, but with a lot of double time activity in the rest of the accompaniment, could be assigned a #/2 time signature. 

I've also never seen a 4/8 in the field, but it suggests an interpretation of 2/4 with persistent 8th notes. For example a lot of Brazilian arrangements are written in 2/4, with 8th notes as the beat, and a lot of 16th note activity. It wouldn't be unreasonable to call that 4/8, though I've never seen it done. Sambas also emphasis the 2 of the 2/4, so maybe that's not a great idea; bossa novas, which have a 4 feel, would be better candidates for that. 

4/16 and 4/32 would be used strictly for connecting complex changing meters. If you see them as the main ongoing time signature in a piece of music, it means that the composer hates you, and you should pack your drums and leave.  

I'll get deeper into that topic another time— what different time signatures suggest to me as a drummer. 

So there's more than one right answer, often, depending on what aspect you're considering— the paper chart, the general style of the performance, the drum groove. Sometimes there's just simple ambiguity about whether a tune is best counted in 4 or in 2. You may also have to consider rhythm activity in the accompaniment, and what other meters are used in the same piece. 

A player's analysis of drumming

For a long time I've been thinking about developing a system of analysis for drumming, like the harmonic analysis you do in college theory courses, deciding the function of every note in a composition. Doing something like that for drumming would require a different approach. I don't care about the theory aspect— this would be for clarity in thinking about our instrument, in teaching, listening, and playing.

Probably some doctoral student has already thought of this, but I'm not optimistic about the value of that for players. I've tried reading scholarly pieces on subjects in which I would normally be interested, and I couldn't do it— the academic language and format just wipes out whatever value they might have had for me.

In the broadest sense, this is about understanding “what is the drummer doing? What was the purpose of playing that? What's the function?”

We could start by thinking about the broad categories of playing: 

Composed parts 
The drummer is playing fixed, pre-composed “parts.” Often worked out in the studio with a producer, or by drummers who are just oriented that way. For example Dave Grohl playing on Nevermind, or Neil Peart playing his worked-out parts, or Terry Bozzio playing Frank Zappa's The Black Page. 

Reading performances

Big band drumming, studio drumming, show and theater drumming— professional situations where there are complex written arrangements. The drumming is largely functional within the arrangement, but the drummer has some freedom to interpret. 

Ad lib performances
The drummer shows up and plays. Perhaps this suggests that the drummer's musical personality may be featured, to some extent. Much of jazz drumming falls in this category. In rock, perhaps Mitch Mitchell or Keith Moon. 

Genre performances

A kind of ad lib performance, but the player mostly just states the genre. For example, Rockabilly, some Blues, Gypsy Jazz, some Latin styles.  

Tracked performances
Drumming performance is assembled in the studio in multiple passes, possibly some sequenced parts, possibly by more than one drummer. See: a lot of heavily-produced music since the 80s. 

Sampled performances
The drumming performance is digitally assembled by a producer— re-inventing a track a drummer recorded specifically for that record, or sampling the drumming from someone else's previously released record. 

We can also talk about broad categories of time feels:

Simple pulse
Think Motown, some Country, possibly Phil Rudd with AC/DC, or Ndugu Leon Chancler playing Billie Jean. 

Genre pattern
A stock pattern communicating a style— a jazz cymbal rhythm, a shuffle, a surf beat, DC Go Go, most Latin patterns.  

Composed pattern
A unique pattern created by the drummer for a particular piece of music, a la 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover, Changuito with Los Van Van.  

Quasi ad lib pattern
A partly or mostly non-repeating genre feel. A lot of modern jazz might fall in this category— Elvin Jones on McCoy Tyner's Passion Dance, Tony Williams on Walkin', from Four & More. 


Free groove

A mostly non-repeating time feel, not in a particular genre, for example an ECM-type feel— see Jon Christiansen playing with Keith Jarrett, or Bob Moses on Pat Metheny's Bright Size Life.  

Percussion
“Spacy stuff” as we use to say in high school— percussion colors. Think Tony Williams on Fall, recorded by Miles Davis. 

Free
Playing free texture not stating a particular tempo. Rashied Ali on Coltrane's Interstellar Space. 



We can also decide what the drummer is doing right now, on this part of this tune: 

Playing time
Playing a groove, of whatever description— genre, ad lib, composed, whatever.

Playing ensemble figures
Hitting drums and cymbals in unison with something the band is playing. 

Filling 
Playing between ensemble figures, filling open spaces in the arrangement. 

Breaking
Stopping and resting as part of an arrangement, or as an ad lib arrangement element.  


Laying out
Drummer doesn't play on this tune, or this section of the tune. 

Soloing
Or co-soloing. Or otherwise creating free texture. Maybe an intro, or solo break, or featured solo or duo. 

Of course many of these categories will overlap— not many will be strictly one thing or another. And I don't know if this really constitutes analysis yet. But it's a starting place for a conversation. I'll look at a particular recording on these terms soon, and see what that gives us. 

And maybe on another day we can get into this on a more granular level, looking at individual notes— which ones state the main idea, which are filling out a texture, which are embellishments or extemporaneous— and see if that kind of thinking has any value. 

Here is the deal with 6/8 time

I had an interesting interaction on a drumming forum recently— it's ongoing actually— there was an extremely long and frustrating conversation involving a whole lot of basic misunderstandings about rhythm and meter.

A user is studying for a college entrance exam, and asked for help answering this example question:

Correct the rhythmic groupings / beamings in the following two bar extract. 

Among the forum users' responses:

There's nothing wrong with the way it's written. [There is.]

It's fine, Portraits in Rhythm has tons of things written that way. [It does not.]

There DEFINITELY aren't enough notes to make a complete measure of 6/8. [There are.] 

Well, in West Side Story the rhythm varied between 3/4 and 6/8 so there's nothing wrong with it. [Exceptions do not invalidate the standard, and anyway most printed versions of Bernstein's America indicate 6/8-3/4]  

How can we know? The instructions don't tell you how to do it. [You're supposed to know.]  

A lot of confused replies about triplets [there are none], about how 6/8 is counted [not in 6], about accents [none], about where the snare drum backbeat goes [???], about note values changing depending on what you call “the beat” [they don't].  

Basically, nobody on the internet understands 6/8 time well enough to pass a college entrance exam, or if they do understand it, they don't know how to explain it clearly and concisely. As always, the most uninformed people are the most vocal in opining about it.


The deal with 6/8 time is: 
It is a compound meter, counted in 2. Compound duple is the descriptive name used in music theory.

Compound means a three note subdivision— a triplet feel, in drummer terms. The opposite of compound is simple, which refers to ordinary meters with a two note subdivision, e.g. 4/4, 3/4, 5/4, 2/2.

Duple means there are two beats per measure. Triple, quadruple, and quintuple meters have three, four, and five beats per measure, respectively.

The beat is the primary felt or conducted pulse in a piece of music. In compound meters like 6/8, that pulse is dotted quarter notes— which are three 8th notes long, which gives us the three-note subdivision.

In light of those facts, this is the correct answer the test writers above were looking for:

Of course there are exceptions— people like to talk their way out of being wrong by finding exceptions. Music in 6/8 played at a slow tempo may be conducted or counted in six. Or it may be played with a strong pull towards 3/4. The definition and notation above is still correct.


Why people are confused
This all gets sorted out quickly the first time you're forced to play The Liberty Bell in middle school band; you hear the music and you see it conducted, and even if the music looks crazy on the page, you figure out how it's supposed to go because the other kids were chicken and made you play snare drum on it*.

But many people are just trying to figure it out by themselves in the practice room, and they don't read in 6/8 often, if they read music at all. They think it is counted in six because a common hack explanation of time signatures confusingly includes the term beat: the top number is the number of beats per measure, the bottom number is what kind of note gets the beat. Obviously that is not the case with compound meters. Unfortunately, a lot of internet sources, including Wikipedia, use that explanation, and it won't go away any time soon.

There is no one-line explanation of time signatures that tells you both what they are, and how to count all of them correctly. What I tell my students is: time signatures tell you how many (top number) of what kind of note (bottom number) fit in one measure. That's it. I then usually explain how to count simple meters, and save explaining compound meters for later. It depends on how much I think the student can process at one time. Understanding it, and being fluent in reading it and playing it, is part of a process more involved than just giving a bumper sticker definition.

* - True story.

Common time

The pedant is a disturbingly-slender,
reedy-voiced, scrutinous man.

There's a lot of confusion about rhythm, making the subject an easy target for low-grade, often barely-informed pedantry. See any internet music forum, or rehearsal of college age players, or gathering of amateur musicians.

Your hard-core rhythm pedant doesn't care if it's easy for people to do actual musical work, he cares about textbook precision— his version of it, anyway, because he may actually know jack squat on the subject. He just likes bringing conversations to a screeching halt and changing the subject to one he's comfortable with: music theory pedantry.

Sure to drive such people bananas is the useful idea of common time functional equivalence— referring to rhythm functions by their values in 4/4.

Most drummers learn early in their education that:

Quarter notes = “one beat”
Half notes = “two beats”
Whole notes = “four beats”
8th notes = the hihat rhythm— a two-note subdivision
16th notes = hand-to-hand fast notes— a four-note subdivision
Triplets = the triplety things— a three-note subdivision

And so on. Simple, obvious references for rhythmic values. Students will be screwed for really understanding rhythm if they get too attached to them, but they're usable for initially getting it.

As you learn more, you discover that all of that always depends on the time signature. There is no blanket term for a one-beat rhythm, or for a two, four, or three note subdivision. For example:

In 2/2 (or cut time), a half note = one beat
In 12/8, a dotted quarter note = one beat
In 3/8 counted “in 3”, an 8th note = one beat  

In 2/2, a quarter note = a two-note subdivision
In 3/4 counted “in 1”, a quarter note = a three-note subdivision
In 12/8, a quarter note = a three-note subdivision over two beats, the equivalent of a quarter note triplet in 4/4.  

In 4/4, a three note subdivision = 8th note triplets
In 6/8, a three note subdivision = 8th notes

So, to talk about ordinary rhythmic concepts like beats and subdivisions, we either have to refer to the correct rhythm for the current meter (and interpretation of that meter), or we have to say two/four/whatever-note subdivision of the beat, and get into rhythmic terms that most people don't know. It's annoying, and tends to confuse students, and readers.

So for the sake of having a functional language for rhythm, I often use the common understanding of those rhythms, and refer to them by their values in 4/4.

This is not just for convenience because everyone is so poorly educated about rhythm; it's also an objective reference. 4/4 is called common time not just because a lot of music is written in it, but also because it's the native meter* for our system of notation. The whole note is the fundamental rhythmic value from which all the others are derived, and a whole note = one whole measure of 4/4 time. For our system of rhythm and meter, 4/4 is normal.

We're using 4/4 as a reference point in a similar way to other instruments using the major scale as a reference point when talking about modes and other types of scales. 

The point of this is that in drumming, we have some common rhythmic functions like the beat, and the two note subdivision, and the four note subdivision, and the three note subdivision, and quarter note, 8th note, 16th note, and triplet, respectively, are the best known words for those things.

So regardless of meter, I may refer to notes of a four note subdivision as “functioning like 16th notes.” That comes up most frequently in 2/2, where 8th notes are the four note subdivision. As I mentioned in this post, 12/8 inherently uses a three note subdivision, which I'll refer to as a “triplet feel”, and refer to the parts of individual beats of 8th notes the same way I do 8th note triplets in 4/4.

You do have to educate people on the correct terms and theory, so I don't make these references casually. That's what hacks do. I use the words feel and functioning as, and explain what is meant by them.

* - Meter = time signature = time. The terms are practically interchangeable. I prefer to say meter. Time signature sounds like it refers to the written indication that tells you what meter the piece is written in, but I don't know any musicians who make that distinction. Musicians say time signature or time or meter or meter signature. 

All about rolls

Some examples.

This is more or less the complete practical theory of drum rolls as I know it, as gleaned from about 38 years as a student, player, and teacher in a community of professionals associated with the University of Oregon and San Jose State University percussion departments, and with the Santa Clara Vanguard Drum & Bugle Corps. I'm going to refrain from using any notated examples; maybe I'll expand this post into an e-book I'll flesh it out with examples and exercises.



Basic definition
In drumming terminology a roll is a long tone, played by hitting the instrument multiple times for the duration of the written note— or for the intended duration of the note, if we're talking about an improvised or non-notated part. It's supposed to sound like a long tone, not a rhythm; the texture may vary, but to be called a roll it has to be perceived as a long tone.

In some older, rudimental usage I get the impression that it's intended to mean any steady rhythm at all using a hand-to-hand motion. That's an archaic usage, and I consider it wrong today.


Types

Single-stroke
Played with alternating strokes, one note per hand. The standard way to roll on cymbals, timpani, concert bass drum, mallet instruments, woodblock, and other percussion instruments. On percussion instruments it must be played fast enough for the resonance of the instrument to blend the individual strokes together to make a long tone; so more resonant instruments like concert bass drum, larger timpani, suspended cymbal or vibraphone may call for a slower roll speed, and drier sounding instruments like wood block, xylophone, or smaller timpani will call for a faster roll speed. On drumset the term is generally used to mean fast alternating strokes on the drums, without the strokes necessarily blending together. 


Open 
Also called a double-stroke roll, it's played with alternating strokes, two notes per hand. Machine gun-like, standard for rudimental drumming, and modern drumset for soloing, filling, hihat embellishments, and brushes.


Closed
Also called a multiple-bounce roll, orchestral roll, or buzz roll.  Played with alternating strokes, with multiple notes per hand, overlapping to make a continuous tone. Smooth-textured, standard for concert snare drum in all settings, and on drumset.

This meanings of open and closed are different from what they were in the past; traditionally they seem to have meant slow and fast— I believe that's a reflection of how military drumming was taught in the 19th century; it's archaic and has little to do with current musical reality.


Other types
The so-called “one handed” roll is really a drumming trick, and doesn't have any standard musical application on the snare drum or drum set; it's strictly for show. Some percussion instruments may use a one handed roll played by alternating between two surfaces of the instrument, like in the corner of a triangle or the mouth of a cowbell; there is a similar one-handed brush technique for snare drum using a rapid back-and-forth motion— functionally that is a roll, though I never hear it called that. Cymbal rolls can be attempted one-handed with a mallet if the other hand is occupied.

Three-stroke rolls are a type of open roll with alternating strokes, three notes per hand, usually in a sixtuplet rhythm. Strictly a modern rudimental thing, and not normally used in any other playing; drumset players with drum corps background sometimes use it in soloing as a sort of technical display. I find it to be musically uninteresting and useless.

Construction and notation

Ties, releases, taps, and accents
Usually a roll consists of the roll note itself, tied to a single note release. Rolls written without a tie end without a release, with a little space between the body of the roll and the following note. In Stick Control, George Stone presents untied rolls as ending with an unaccented tap before the next written note (exercises 13-24 on pages 11 and 12 illustrate this). Often rudimental rolls will start with an accented tap at the beginning. Orchestral rolls written with an accent, a fp, or an sfz will have the first, or first two, multiple-bounce strokes accented. In soloing on the drumset, some players will accent multiple-bounce strokes during the body of the roll.


Rhythm
There are two rhythm components of any roll: the written (or intended) duration of the roll itself, and the pulsation speed— the rate of hand motion— to make the roll. The rate of pulsation is determined by the tempo of the piece, and the instrument on which the roll is being performed; it has to be fast enough to make a smooth long tone on that instrument. Often it's assumed to be 16th notes, but depending on the tempo it may be sixtuplets, 8th note triplets, 8th notes, 32nd notes, quintuplets, or septuplets. Pages 38-46 in Stick Control are designed for developing rolls at different tempos, with different pulsation rates.


Notation
The current American standard notation assumes all rolls are 32nd notes. It's beyond the scope of this post to explain it in detail, but that's what those familiar roll-indicating slashes connote. Three slashes are used with whole, half and quarter note duration rolls; two slashes are used on 8th note duration rolls, and a single slash is used for single 16th note drags. The three slashes— or one beam + two slashes, or two beams + one slash— indicate the three beams used in notating 32nd notes. They're an abbreviation saying “play this note value for the duration of the note the slashes are adorning.”

It's bastard notation, because if the roll were literally played as 32nd notes, it would not be necessary to have a tie. The only time rolls are actually meant to be played as 32nd notes is when they're in open, rudimental form— but the tie is still used in that setting. Otherwise, what is meant by the notation is to play as many roll strokes as are needed to make the roll sound like a long tone.

A European convention is to notate rolls as a tremolo, with or without ties as in standard American notation.

Note: the PAS graphic at the top of the page distinguishes open rolls from buzz rolls by using the slash notation for open, and an italic Z for buzz; this is not standard throughout the drumming literature. The only place I've seen that to be the case is in marching percussion. In most standard literature, the slash or tremolo notation is used, and as a performer you are expected to know the right kind of roll to use for that setting— almost always either multiple-bounce, or single stroke, again, depending on the instrument.



Length

Drags
A drag is a single double stroke or multiple-bounce stroke. It can be a component of a ruff, or it can be played by itself in the middle of a run of notes— typically 16th notes or triplets, typically in a rudimental or drumset setting. There is also a specific rudiment called a drag, the definition of which actually varies, depending on who you talk to— I'm using it generically, not attached to a specific pattern.

There are probably a number of rudimental people who would use this term only in association with the actual formal rudimental pattern, who would consider my definition above to be wrong. But that was a common usage of the word by the corps people I learned from, who were all in the 70s-80s Santa Clara Vanguard orbit— SCV instructors, or former members who became instructors.


Ruffs
Technically not a roll, but it's in the roll family. In modern usage it's a short, unmetered, multiple-bounce stroke adorning a tap; or three unmetered single-stroke grace notes adorning a tap. There is some contention online about ruff terminology, and how they're executed, but I have no interest in that. Again, I learned this from Charles Dowd, who learned it from Tony Cirone and Saul Goodman, and that to me is authoritative.


Numbered-stroke rolls
Rolls with the familiar names 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, and 17-stroke. The names refer to a hand motion, counted as two notes per roll stroke plus one note for the release. With multiple bounce rolls, the name will not reflect the actual number of notes played: an orchestral 5 stroke roll is played with two multiple bounce strokes and a release, so you're not literally playing five notes.

There are also 6, 8, and 10 stroke rolls that typically have two taps: at the beginning and end, or both at the beginning or end. The terminology is not perfectly scientific, because there are versions of the odd number-named rolls that start with a tap and end with a tap, yet both taps are not counted in the name of those rolls. It may have to do with how they were used in traditional rudimental drumming— rudiments were not just patterns in the abstract, they were formalized pieces of verbatim musical content.

For what it's worth, the only numbered terms I personally ever use are 5, 6, 7, and 9. For longer rolls than that, I think of them only in terms of their duration and pulsation rate.


Long roll
A long roll is any roll longer than the ones for which we have numbered names.


So, that's a fairly exhaustive overview of my roll knowledge, at least as far as verbal information is concerned. Some people's textbook definitions will certainly differ from mine. For further study, I'll write a roll studies bibliography and post it another time. 

Triplets vs. not-triplets

This is a pretty fine point of theory, but it comes up a lot on this site, so I want to state my thinking about it, so I can link to it every time it comes up, and keep any lurking pedants off my back. People for whom music theory is a social weapon and not a practical tool. You know the type.

Basically, I'm freer in my use of the word triplet than are many other people with a college education. I want to explain what's up with that, and clarify some things about this whole area of rhythm and meter.

So, a definition: 

A triplet is a rhythm of three notes played in the space of two notes of the same value. For example, an 8th note triplet is three 8ths played in the space of two 8ths, indicated by that numeral 3 written above the notes. In music theory class, that and only that is correctly called a triplet. It has to be artificial to the time signature; a temporary three note subdivision in a piece written with mainly a standard, straight-8th, two-note subdivision.

Three-note subdivision of the beat: triplets

With compound meters (most meters with an 8 in the bottom number), a three-note/ternary subdivision is implied. It's native to the meter, so the rhythm above notated in 6/8 would not be triplets:

Also a three-note subdivision of the beat: not triplets

Those are just 8th notes. If I say 8th notes and the meter is 6/8, it means those triplet-looking things that sound exactly like triplets. Which is confusing to some people, because they are often not real comfortable with compound meters; in their mind 8th notes = those march-sounding 1&2&3&4& things, and these triplet-sounding 8th notes in 6/8 seem to be an entirely different creature.


Where I get into terminology trouble: 

Because I teach and write, I need to talk about individual beats and partial beats of this rhythm often, and the easiest, shortest, most understandable word for that is triplet. So I say triplet in that context. Middle note of the triplet. Last two notes of the triplet. In some contexts it's easier for the students' understanding to say it that way.

Yes, that really is the entire point of this post. Sometimes I say triplet to talk about a single beat of rhythm with a three note subdivision even if it isn't really a real triplet. I also often say triplet feel— which just refers to anything in music that sounds like triplets, whether it “is” triplets or not.

It's actually not a hard and fast thing that terminology must be consistent with the meter of the piece. Jazz-educated musicians may say (or a chart may indicate) triplet feel, 6/8 feel or 12/8 feel regardless of the written meter, and people are always clarifying points of rhythm using terms of a different meter. Latin musicians refer to the 3 side of clave as the tresillo— which means triplet; another example. Even in written music, if a piece in 4/4 has a lot of running triplets in it, the copyist may stop putting the numeral 3 over every single beat, and make a notation that the continuing rhythm is still triplets, effectively changing the meter to 12/8.

It doesn't matter. The point is, practical musical communication is often not correct to the letter as defined by music theory. There is usually more than one correct answer for describing a piece of rhythm, and often different terms are necessary to describe it to different people in different contexts.

Time signature figure-outer

Gah! What? 

I'm not sure my title is actually grammatically correct- a time signature "figure-outer" sounds like a job description, when what we are dealing with is more of a figurer-outer- a method to help the uninitiated to figure out time signatures. But since neither term existed until I made them up two minutes ago, I think I'm going to go with the one that looks better in the headline. The extra r in figurer is just a bridge too far for unfamiliar, made-up terms.

So. If we can proceed unhindered by the grammarians in my head, this is something that comes up often on the Drummerworld.com discussion forum- there are a lot of self-taught drummers there seeking help with basic musicianship. I've tried to make this as easy as possible for people with minimal musical knowledge, but I still am always surprised at the variety of misconceptions out there, and I can't anticipate them all. Most of the people who actually need something like this should contact a teacher- this topic can be put to rest in a single 30 minute lesson. Most likely this piece will be most helpful to inexperienced teachers who haven't settled on a way to communicate this to students yet, or for me when I need to deal with this question over the Internet again and again. So here we go:

1.   Focus your attention on a piece of music. Start with something easy. Turn on AM radio or buy some records if you listen to nothing but prog. Relax. Open your collar. Top hat and cane put away neatly. Remove spats and cravat.

2. Tap your foot in an even tempo along with the music, wherever it feels comfortable to you. It will likely be anywhere between the speed of a slow-yet-consistent saunter (or pimp roll, if you prefer) up to a brisk jog. We'll call that the beat. If you find it difficult or impossible to tap your foot evenly to a piece, set it aside and choose a different one.

3. Count the following out loud along with your foot tapping, and see which fits with the music: 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3, or 1-2. Count them over and over, so for example, when you're doing the last one, you would be saying "1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-etc". (Yes, that is bleeding obvious, but again, you'd be surprised at what is not obvious to a lot of people.)

Drumming/jazz glossary roundup

Here I have briefly reviewed a selection of drumming and related glossaries from around the web. Writing definitions requires a special type of mind and writing skill, and is a pretty tedious, thankless task, so there aren't many of them, and the quality is mixed. I've listed them in roughly descending order of value for drummers. If any of my readers know of others, please post a link in the comments!

I did turn up a number of nice world music glossaries, which will get a post of their own soon.


Drummer Café - music and drumming terms
Very good, though not comprehensive, and could a little bit of a polish with an editor. Original, practical rather than scholarly definitions. Deals with common advanced drumming terms, which users are most likely to need help understanding, not so much with basic things.

Sample entries:

half-time feel Playing any groove twice as slow as the regular feel, while the measures of music continue as normal. To achieve this, in 4/4 time for example, the back-beat would play on beat 3, rather than the normal fashion ... playing on beats 2 and 4. 

This terms is used in relation to the pulse of the music, which, 99% of the time, is the quarter-note.

ostinato A musical phrase repeated over and over during a composition. 

An ostinato on the drums would be a rhythmic pattern played over and over again. One approach might be to play a single pattern over and over again with the feet, while the hands solo over the top. Another example might be to establish a groove on the drumkit, while one limb improvises around the drums. When an ostinato is used within a solo, it typically takes on the role of accompaniment ... allowing the performer to play over the top of this regularly, reoccurring pattern. 

Ostinato drumming is nothing new; listen to Max Roach solo drum compositions. Terry Bozzio gained a lot of notoriety using ostinatos in his solo performances because of the massive set-ups he uses. There are countless drummers who use ostinato patterns in their playing. If we take the actual definition of the term ostinato ... we quickly realize that drummers, especially those from the Jazz genre, have been using ostinatos for over seven decades.