Displacing a groove - 16th notes - 02

Part 2 of the previous displacement thing. This is the kind of thing that's so obvious I don't like to put it on the site, but it's an intermediate step to the next thing, and it's not totally without value. Play it a few times, and take advantage of its easiness to work on your sound and accuracy. The goal is to learn a certain creative move based on a basic beat— once you know it's a thing you can do, and can execute it with confidence, you can move on. It won't take long.

Again, it's not a terrible idea to play each pattern alternating with pattern 1. You can do both of these pages with the various standard cymbal rhythms— quarter notes, offbeat 8th notes, 16th notes, 16th notes alternating, 1 &a-2 &as.

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Drum lessons with Todd Bishop IN SEATTLE

Actually this is about the neighborhood
where I'll be teaching.

UPDATE: Bumping this to the top again. Get in touch if you have any interest.

Announcement for my Seattle followers:

I may soon begin teaching in your fair city.

I'm talking with Mark Di Florio, a great drummer and teacher, about taking on a portion of his student load as he is moving to Los Angeles at the end of the summer. This will put me in Seattle one day a week (probably Mondays), teaching at a music store (TBD) somewhere within the Ballard-Northgate-U District triangle.

If you would be interested in private lessons please get in touch— I need to put together several hours of lessons to even be able to do this, so your call now may make the difference with it happening.

And let me assure you: we get into some pretty heavy stuff on the site, but I am delighted to work with all levels of students to help you play better and have more fun with the drums. In fact, I encourage you to contact me especially if you think you're a hopeless case. I can fix you up.


Email Todd | call or text message (503)380-9259

Practice loop in 6/4: The Free Design

A fun practice loop, in a fast 6/4, sampled from The Free Design, by Stereolab. Tempo is about quarter note = 217 BPM.





The rhythm for the bass vamp:

Have fun. This loops seamlessly, if one were to use one of those audio-ripping browser extensions, and put it on one's mp3 player... 

Displacing a groove - 16th notes - 01

This is an easy funk exercise, getting acquainted with rhythmic displacements that happen routinely in funk drumming, while relating them back to a simple groove. When this word displacement comes up, it's usually suggestive of some kind of rhythmic trickery, for people who are too cool to play things other people can follow. That's not what we're about here— we're just learning one simple creative move for use in normal, groove-oriented playing.

Play each pattern four times, then move on to the next one without stopping. If you have any difficulty with any of the patterns (I'm guessing, the ones without a bass drum on 1), you can alternate it with pattern 1— repeat pattern 1 and the problem pattern one time each for a minute. Most people won't need to work this to death; you can play through the page in 5-10 minutes, during 1-3 practice sessions, and you will have learned everything it has to show you. Like a lot of fairly dry exercises, this will be more fun if you play it with a practice loop.

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Groove o' the day: James Gadson - Shout It Out

Another “enhanced” groove o' the day (that is not a thing), from a Patrice Rushen record, this time with the great James Gadson on drums. The record and tune is Shout It Out, and it's very 1977, very LA. By now you'll recognize the presence of Tom Scott's a-little-too-cute saxophone stylings. I've written out a few bars from the middle of the tune, at the end of a breakdown, so you can see the fill he plays to get back to the groove, a few little fills, and a bigger fill at the end of the phrase:

The tempo is about quarter note = 77 BPM . Gadson plays four tom toms here— probably a normal 5-piece set plus two concert toms— 8"/10" or 10"/12". Ndugu Leon Chancler played a similar set. Since we've been listening to some Ndugu recently, note the difference in approach here: Gadson's fatter, cleaner sound; this is more of a straight funk performance— Chancler is perhaps more of an improviser.

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Groove o' the day, ENHANCED: MORE NDUGU

This is how it goes around here, I get into a certain thing and do only that, and the blog content becomes unbalanced. What do I care, I love Ndugu Leon Chancler's playing. You can take these transcriptions as follow up on the Playing Funk Effectively post— they illustrate some of the things I was talking about there.

This is a short transcription that is mostly groove, plus a few very cool fills, so we'll call it a “Groove o' The Day ENHANCED”, like that's a thing. It's the intro from a tune called Haw Right Now, from Patrice Rushen's Prelusion album. There are a bunch of great LA players on this record.

Chancler does a number of hip things here: the opening fill, the crash on the & of 4 in the middle, the audaciously long fill at the end. All a little unusual in small ways, revealing of the player's intelligence, and COOL-SOUNDING.

I don't know what's going on at the beginning of that ending fill— it looks like it needs to lead with the left, but the last four beats seem to be a mixed sticking with the right hand on the toms, left hand on snare drum. The specifics aren't real important.

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Transcription: Ndugu Leon Chancler - Blues For Walls

I say that every time I post something about him: Ndugu Leon Chancler has to be the player I love the most, for the least exposure to his playing— for years I just had the one record, Reach For It, by George Duke. Here he is playing behind Oscar Brashear's trumpet solo on Blues For Walls, from the Hampton Hawes record of the same name— it should be interesting in light of the funk post from the other day:

The transcription starts at 0:36 in the recording. Swing the 8th notes— they're not triplets exactly, but they're close. And whoops, we're in half time feel, but I forgot to make the time signature 2/2 rather than 4/4. The tempo indicates half notes, anyway...

Ndugu appears to be playing a five piece set here— at least there are no more than three tom toms being played in the course of any one fill. Cymbalwise, there are hihats, ride, crash, and China type. Hihats are played half-open for most of the tune. Where there is an accent on a hihat note, usually the open sound is also a little more pronounced, which makes sense. Watch out for cymbal accents tied across the barline— often he'll crash before the downbeat, and play the bass drum again on the downbeat, but not the cymbal. There are a few filler ghost notes on the snare drum; it's possible he's doing more of that than is written here, and it's just not audible.

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Three Camps - isolated parts and complete piece

UPDATE: Jeez, I'm getting sloppy. Typos in the pdf fixed....

You know, I've never settled on a really satisfactory presentation of Three Camps— the very famous, very old rudimental snare drum piece. It's much simpler than it ever looks on the page, written out, which I take as evidence of its history as an oral tradition.

But I'll keep trying. Here I've written out each individual measure of the piece— there are only four different, closely related things that actually happen— and the complete piece. Don't be thrown by the varying staff lengths, it's meant to be played straight through with no stops.

Usually the piece is played with rolls, but I've written as just accented triplets, which is excellent for developing your singles. I suggest trying that with brushes. Quarter note = 260 would be a good goal. Play the unaccented notes as open drags if you want to play it the traditional way. I'm using the modern ending, with a fp and a measure of crescendo, instead of the goofy old school tag used in Wilcoxon, Mitchell Peters, and elsewhere.

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Playing funk effectively

Here are a few tips on playing funk and related music, focusing on how to project to the audience and facilitate groove among the musicians while playing live unmiked, at a moderate to moderately strong volume— a very common situation in your gigging life. The present dominant style, heavily influenced by Steve Gadd and David Garibaldi, has been around a good 40 years— actually internet drumming is kind of milking it to death and running it into the ground, choose your metaphor. So it's good to go back to fundamental principles and create our own way of playing this music by listening to some other drummers, and thinking about what we're actually doing here.

First, some listening. Start this sucker up while you read:

In no particular order of importance:


A solid tone
The tendency today is to tune the snare drum high and play hard rim shots on it, mistaking savagely aggressive attack for... I don't know what, emotion? Depth of funk? We're looking for a chunky tone out of every part of the drumset— snare drum, bass drum, hihat, toms. Play so your important notes— hopefully all of them— project to the back of the room, while maintaining a balance with the band.


Play with the butt(s)
I almost always play with the left stick backwards, to get a fatter sound out of the snare and toms. Increasingly I'll do that with the right stick as well, for a more solid tone out of the hihat. And not just for volume— I actually do this more often on softer tunes and lower-volume gigs. At normal, non-slamming volumes you have to have pretty good dynamic control if you're going to move to the ride cymbal without flipping your stick— you have to be able to play your right hand softly while maintaining your sound with your bass drum and left hand.


Stop trying to be funky
Everybody has their favorite things to play to prove they're not as white as they look, but don't go to that stuff automatically. Lay down a solid 2 and 4, and 1 and 3, and hihat rhythm, and see what the music asks you to add or change from there— if anything.


Whither ghost notes
I know it's the hot topic du jour, and they sound cool when you're playing by yourself, or when somebody samples somebody else playing them, but they don't necessarily do a whole lot in real playing. They're ghost notes— by their nature they're not really heard, especially when there's other activity in the venue, the drums aren't miked, and the balance within the band may not be perfect. It just becomes more clutter. And with all of that left hand activity, there's not a lot of time to think about what you're doing, and to maybe decide to do something different. Clear out some of that junk and give yourself some room to think between snare hits.


Accents/dynamics on fills
It's a good idea to play your fills on the toms a little stronger than the surrounding music, since the toms tend not to project. You want to continue expressing the groove with your fills, so try forgetting about accenting— those unaccented notes are just holes in the groove. See how playing the entire fill at an even volume works for you— a minor case of Ginger Bakeritis can be helpful. (Caveat: see Ginger Baker's actual playing for examples of the pitfalls of taking that too far.) You may crescendo.


Accents/dynamics in general
People who want to be good musicians are always looking for ways to distinguish ourselves from that other rabble of drumming meatheads, and often we'll do that by playing a lot of subtle internal dynamics— ghost notes, accents, accenting the hihat rhythm. But often the most effective thing is to play fewer notes and play them at an even volume.


Don't just jam
A very bad thing a lot of people do— not just drummers— when playing any kind of R&B is to go into mindless jamming mode. Don't do that. Play the tune, and always be going somewhere— what you're playing may sound static to a casual listener, but you're actually very keyed into to the dynamic shape of phrases and sections. Discourage other players from going into jamming mode by controlling the dynamics— mainly, you have to figure out how to back the volume down so the rest of the group knows they're supposed to back off with you. It's often a difficult challenge, because the players who just jam also tend not to be aware of other options, to not know the material, and not be very good listeners.


Listening and groove
I used to think if I listened very hard to the other players, the band would find a groove that is correct for that particular set of musicians on that particular day. It didn't really work. Instead— unless the other players are exceptional groove players, or are extremely well rehearsed— try being somewhat detached and self contained with regard to the time. When the others realize that the foundation is solid, and the little (or big) inaccuracies in their own playing are not messing up the groove, they relax and start playing better themselves. It does take a delicate touch, because you can't just obstinately hang onto your perception of the tempo when the rest of the group is obviously someplace else.


Groove and the grid
A common piece of advice is to groove by thinking about the grid— an overlay of undifferentiated 16th notes or 8th notes— I don't believe that by itself is enough. Instead, think about expressing the grid through the single rhythm created by your interlocking parts. This means you know how to count rhythms, and you are aware of how everything you play lines up and fits together. Thinking this way you have to know what you're playing, so you may have to simplify (at first) and not play on autopilot. But groove is extremely important— more important than you playing all your stuff.


Feel
Younger players and fairly-serious amateur players talk a lot about this, but much of the above advice leads away from focusing on this cherished “feel” idea, and more into playing somewhat mechanically. Frankly, most of the time people aren't hearing your wonderfully subtle feel as you imagine it, they're hearing a weak performance. Just know what you want to play, perform it, and your true feel will emerge.

I say this with the caveat that sounding too mechanical is extremely difficult, and you'll probably never get there. But increasingly I see examples of people pulling off that feat, and sounding bad as a result. You just have to judge for yourself if what you're doing breathes and sounds like music, or if you've taken a good idea too far.


Don't double-time
Finally, for now: don't go into double time at every opportunity, and discourage the other players from doing it. That frenetic faster 16th note stuff doesn't sound as cool as you feel playing it.


Blog post links for today's listening:
Transcription of Ndugu Leon Chancler playing Earth by Joe Henderson
Transcription of Ngugu Leon Chancler playing Watch Out, Baby! by George Duke
Drum grooves by Tiki Fulwood, from Maggot Brain by Funkadelic
Transcription of Ivan Conti playing Linha do Horizonte by Azymuth
Transcription of Roger Hawkins playing Chain of Fools by Aretha Franklin
Commentary on Harvey Mason playing Breezin' by George Benson