Double time feel / half time feel

Hm, maybe being extraordinarily busy will force me to finally do some things that are actually accessible to people. Here's another easy thing, illustrating half time feel and double time feel using basic rock beats. Playing a double time or half time feel in this case means halving or doubling the feel rhythmically within the original tempo-- instead of playing the snare drum backbeats on beats 2 and 4, you play them on beat 3, or on the &s of every beat. A true double time or half time involves an actual change in tempo, and would be written the same as the original beat-- the first two measures of each line-- with a written notation telling you to play half (or twice) as fast.

Play each section with repeats and without, then play the entire page without stopping.

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Other people write things

OK, clearly this light patch is going to continue for a bit, so let's see what my blogging compatriots are up to:


Let's lead with pianist George Colligan, who has a few words on practicing:

It should be tedious if it's really worthwhile. Much of practicing is not fun. It takes discipline. I personally don't have a problem with people practicing while they watch TV! If you are doing maintenance exercises, or warm ups, or something like that, I think that watching TV might make the "medicine easier to swallow, " if you know what I mean.

And:

What is really important to you? Is it more important to go to the coast on the weekend and hang out with your friends? Or is spending some time on your instrument more important? Maybe you could do both. Still, you might find that spending quality time on your instrument means there are other things. 

Continued after the break:

Expanding on The Kenny Note

What we have here are some very basic comping ideas based on the so-called (by me only, I'm sure) "Kenny" note-- a snare drum punctuation on the & of 1 or the & of 3. A student is having some difficulties bringing his comping practice into his actual playing, and we had some success starting with this approach of starting with one note, and adding things to it:

You could also call this "jazz comping survival chops"; a bare minimum of stuff that will sound like a lot more than the sum of its parts, if applied musically. Memorize the patterns as you practice them, then throw the page away and improvise with them while playing along with a recording or singing a tune. In general you don't want to play them repetitively in actual music; mix them up, and put in more space (where you just play time) between ideas. Listen to recordings of Kenny Clarke or Connie Kay to get an idea of the level of density to shoot for at first.

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Delecluse revoiced for the drumset

This is a piece a lot of you current or former percussion majors should be familiar with-- Etude 4 from Methode de Caisse-Claire by Jacques Delecluse. I've made a three limb drumset study out of it:

I looks like a lot of stuff, but I was trying to address one basically one thing-- singles with the hands interacting with the bass drum; mostly with the BD at the end of the motif. It's fairly challenging but doable at the original marked tempo of quarter note = 100-- I suspect 80 BPM will be a more realistic goal for most people. Do your best to make the written dynamics. I didn't want to clutter up the page with the stickings, but a little later I'll scan and post my marked up copy. Try to keep it pretty strictly alternating, with no doubles or drags. You'll find that a lot of phrases start with the left hand. I'll record it for you when and if I have the time to get it to a satisfactory state. And it's subject to revision as I work through it and find things I like better musically.

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Playing today...

Off to play at the Cathedral Park Jazz Festival under the St. Johns bridge in Portland this afternoon, with Andrew Durkin's Proto-Human group. If you're in Portland, come on down-- we hit at 3:45.

Groove o' the day: Dry Cleaner from Des Moines

Extremely light posting again this week, obviously-- there's just a whole lot going on right now; so until Monday at least you'll have to amuse yourself by making another pass through our copious archives, or you can work up Peter Erskine's groove from Dry Cleaner From Des Moines, on Joni Mitchell's Mingus:

It's played with brushes on the snare drum. The toms are not played strongly-- it takes a close listen to even hear that he's playing them. The 16ths are lightly swinging.

YouTube audio after the break:

DBMITW: freight train

Several clips of Tony Williams during his early 70's "freight train from hell" phase:

With Stan Getz, along with Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke:

 

Continued after the break:

Survival chops: accented 8ths

This is never too far from my mind anyway, but playing a salsa gig this weekend it occurred to me how little advanced chops are required in most musical situations. What is usually required is bonehead familiarity with really obvious stuff, because a) when playing unfamiliar music with a band who doesn't know you, it's best to keep it simple, and b) usually it's the best thing musically anyway. Your artistry in this case comes from all of the elements of musical development other than playing more complicated crap; like playing functional but musically powerful parts with great timing, feel and sound, and getting the maximum effect with your dynamics and orchestration of the drumset, to name a few.

So what I'll be attempting to do with this series is identify and present as concisely as possible some key stuff needed for playing regular gigs. We'll start with a simple page of accented 8th notes, played in cut time:

Get the pdf

Practice suggestions after the break:

Groove o' the day: more Mike Clark

Wow, I think that's the longest we've gone without posting since I "revived this sucker somewhat" back in January, 2011. It's been a very busy week with tour junk, car shopping, and brushing up on my salsa drumming for an out of town gig this weekend, among other things. So the biggest thing I can manage right now is another Mike Clark groove, this time from Herbie Hancock's Death Wish soundtrack:

The hot drummer-on-bidness action is going to continue through the weekend, but hopefully we'll be back on regular posting on Monday or so...

YouTube audio after the break: