In a lesson the other day I realized I don't really like any of the sixtuplet funk materials in my regular books. Joel Rothman's are pretty good, Funky Primer are pretty not good, Jim Payne's and Roy Burns/Joe Farris's are focused on a shuffle rhythm in the hihat which is its own different particular thing.
So I rewrote p. 22 from Funky Primer, which is pretty good, and converted the 16th notes to 16th triplets. In the lesson we tried to do this on the fly as an interpretation, but that was a little too weird. The rules are not totally consistent, it needed to be written out. So here:
Play the accents at normal backbeat volume, play the other snare drum notes very softly. Those sixtuplet filler notes sound bad played too loud.
A simple system here, that nevertheless has a number of possibilities, that I was playing using with my own book, Syncopation in 3/4, along with the Bill Frisell / Where In The World loop in 9/8. It's fast filler for slower triplet-feel tempos. I was also sloppy in writing this, creating an opening to make your own decisions on how to do it.
Here are the basic things you do with any single beat of rhythm in Syncopation. As always, we're interpreting the top line rhythm from the book, ignoring the bottom line part.
So if you see this rhythm in the book, you'd play:
There's nothing sounding on beat 4 there, so you fill out the entire beat with the triplet 16ths*. Also note the sticking on beat 3— the basic interpretation has all of the cymbal notes played with the right hand, but you can alternate when there are two cymbal note in a row with triplet spacing. You can then make the quick move to fill the middle of the triplet with either hand, or leave it open, as in the next example.
You don't need to play wall-to-wall notes— you can introduce some space to mostly do only five stroke singles as filler, like so:
Let's review the options for this rhythm:
The basic thing, alternating all the 16ths:
With some space added:
If you have any problem with the timing of the 16th notes, play the fill as left handed flams, triplet rhythm— a good thing to practice in its own right:
After that's very solid, you can adjust the timing of the left hand to make the 16th notes.
* - Sidebar: about 16th notes in a triplet-feel environment The 16th notes here are played at the same rate as ordinary sixtuplets, but we're playing them off of a three-note, 8th note triplet subdivision, like 16th notes in compound meters— 6/8 or 12/8:
Regular sixtuplets and 16th note triplets in 4/4 have an implicit 8th note subdivision:
The rhythm is exactly the same, but with this system we're basing them off of 8th note triplets rather than 8th notes.
For awhile I was campaigning to get this RLLRRL sticking called “Swiss sixtuplets”, based on an overheard conversation from drum corps days, when George Tuthill and Alan Kristensen, two corps legends, were talking about rudiments. George was my corps director and Alan was the drum line instructor. George mentioned that Swiss rudimental drummers routinely played sixtuplets this way, instead of as singles. I haven't found any evidence of that being the case, but I wanted to try to force a piece of my personal lore into the drumming literature anyway.
Whatever: this is a companion for the recent Three Camps in paradiddle-diddles; taken together they're an opportunity to really smoke your major sixtuplet stickings. You should be able to do these fast.
Normally when playing this rudiment I accent both of the singles— the R at the beginning and the L at the end; doing that here messes with the integrity of the piece. Accent that trailing L lightly, if you must.
Another page of this modern funk method— we're going to need a better name for this thing, as we're getting well beyond basic. This is turning into quite an epic. Normally, working on fairly demanding materials, I like to practice a full page at a time— working through a full page of stuff pretty thoroughly in 15-30 minutes of practicing. With this we're now looking at about 15-30 minutes per numbered row of exercises— doing all the combinations, using all three pages. So you could take nine days to get through the whole thing; it is a solid method and I think it is worth that level of commitment— I encourage you to actually do that.
The method, again: After getting basically familiar with the patterns by playing them several times individually, begin combining patterns as follows, playing each lettered pattern 4x, 2x, and 1x:
AB, AC AD...BC, BD... CD...
Do that across all the pages, so you'll be combining all patterns from the same numbered row on all three pages. Not a small assignment. It wouldn't be a bad idea to play through each page by the vertical column, just playing the patterns 4x each. No need to do combinations when working that way.
Our relation to the original patterns is getting slightly less obvious, so here's what's going on: Column A is a groove with a baiao-style hihat rhythm; column B has the cymbal in unison with the bass drum on beat 1, in unison with the snare drum on beat 2; column C has open hihat on single bass drum notes, and on the second bass drum note of any doubles; column D is alternating sixtuplets, playing cymbal accents in unison with the bass drum— this will be harder to do at faster tempos, so I would cut that from the routine rather than let it prevent me from doing the system fast.
I'm liking this format— like Stick Control for funk drumming— so we'll see a few more of these. This page takes the same series of patterns from the last two items (“mixed stickings” and “four iterations”) and does some more orchestrations/modifications/interpretations with them. Whichever word you like. We're getting a little beyond basic, though; maybe standard is a better word; these are all standard tools for funk/fusion drumming since the 70s.
Column A uses a new ride pattern; Column B does the inverted, hands-together thing with open hihat, John Guerin-style, with both feet in unison on the close notes; Column C puts the pattern into a sixtuplet rhythm, with a basic cymbal pattern, and Column D does the sixtuplets with RH/RF in unison, and the left hand filling in on the snare drum. I said before I wasn't going to explain these things— if you play them, the relationship of the patterns to the basic idea should be obvious.
Combining the patterns is the whole point of this— we want to be very fluent going from one thing to another. For each line of exercises, after playing each measure individually several times, play every two-measure combination of measures: AB, AC, AD, BC, BD, CD. It's not a terrible idea to do both “iterations” pages together, so you'll be doing all combinations of columns ABCD from both pages. That takes considerably longer to get through, so you may only work through a couple of numbered rows per practice session.
For each of those combinations, play each measure 4 times, then 2 times, then 1 time... playing each of those ways four or more times. So to thoroughly cover, say, the AB combination:
||: A - 4x / B - 4x :|| - repeat 4 or more x
||: A - 2x / B - 2x :|| - repeat 4 or more x
||: A - 1x / B - 1x :|| - repeat 4 or more x
You could do combinations between lines: 1A/2A, 1A/2B, 1A/2C, etc. I think it's unnecessary. It will demand plenty of practice time just doing it the way I suggested.
Except where there are open hihats specified, the cymbal parts can (and should) move freely between the hihat and ride cymbal. Feel free to catch a crash cymbal on any transitions you want. Stickings are always RH on cymbal / LH on snare drum, except where indicated.
Or as I usually call them, “Swiss” sixtuplets— that's my own coinage, based on an overheard conversation between two drum corps legends, George Tuthill and Alan Kristensen, who were my corps director and percussion instructor in 1984-85. George was mentioning to Alan that Swiss rudimental drummers play sixtuplets not as singles, as Americans do, but with the RLLRRL sticking. I don't know if that's accurate, or even if I heard him exactly right. It doesn't matter; I still call them that. Usually in the US they're referred to as six-stroke rolls,
I guess we'll put this in the old “survival chops” series; these are very easy to play, and fun, and you will quickly come to rely them as a primary go-to lick for soloing and more dense fills.
Hopefully the formatting isn't not too hard on the eyes. When using these on the drumset, try catching a cymbal on some or all of the accents, along with the bass drum. A hip, fusiony lick of Dave Weckl's is to play the second double in the pattern on the bass drum. Have fun.
I'm just cranking them out today. I've been using the last paradiddles around the drums thing so much I decided to write up something similar using another familiar solo pattern, the six stroke roll (as it's often called) in a sixtuplet rhythm: RLLRRL. What they really are is a paradiddle-diddle inversion. I've written them in 6/8, but you can play them in 2/4 as sixtuplets, or as 16ths in 3/4, giving a 6/8 feel, or as 16ths in 4/4, for a meter-within-meter thing. Or as triplets within a fast 4/4. I'll write up an outline of the possibilities when I have the time. This rudiment is usually played with accents on the singles- I suggest playing these with and without them.
Refer to the paradiddles post for more ways of practicing these.
This is something that came up in my practicing yesterday, and I went ahead and scribbled out a page of it for you. These sound good fast, but it's also a good idea to ask "what would Andy Newmark do?" and play them at slower tempos, or in half time, focusing on getting them to sit nicely. You should also take it a few steps further and figure out your own rhythmic variations and bass drum parts.
