In a past lesson I showed you quintuplet or fivelet rolls. If you haven’t seen that lesson yet, follow this link > Chicken In a Fivlet Roll. We will continue with a quintuplet roll drum lesson by adding accents. Will Taylor is an author, educator and session musician based in London, UK. Find him online…
CHICKEN IN A FIVELET ROLL
This is a great way to learn how to play fivelet rolls based on the classic Chicken in a Roll exercise. If you haven’t seen that lesson yet, follow this link > Chicken in a Roll. Will Taylor is an author, educator and session musician based in London, UK. Find him online at willtaylordrums.co.uk. SUBSCRIBE TO…
CHICKEN IN A ROLL
Hello again! This is a classic drumcorp/marching band exercise, Chicken in a Roll. This is a great exercise for working on your single to double stroke rolls. It’s a basic roll using 8th to 16th notes and the sticking is laid out below the exercise. I’ve played the exercise using four tempos. Below is a guide to…
BUYING YOUR DREAM DRUM KIT
Like it or not, the drumming industry accounts for a very small percentage of the human population. In fact, stats show that musicians in general only account for a tiny part of internet traffic and of that very undersized piece of information highway, we drummers account for all but a sliver. The upside is that…
METRONOME – FRIEND OR FOE?
There are many ways to go about using the metronome to develop our musical skills. I want to share my own thoughts on working with it, and how we can maximize our practice time. I also want to state that keeping good time is everyone’s responsibility, not just the drummer’s. GETTING STARTED When I have…
BE HERE NOW
We each want many things and for us drummers it could simply be learning that new hot lick or perhaps for the majority of us it’s landing that big gig. Regardless of whatever it is, we only have so much control over what happens and what comes our way. We can try to achieve our…
DOUBLE BASS BUILDING BLOCKS – PART 2
I hope everyone’s legs are feeling good after Part 1 of this lesson Double Bass Building Blocks – Part 1. If you are practicing this stuff you should be noticing some great results by now. Here is another building block using 1/16 note triplets. Once again, start slow and try one line at a time….
DOUBLE BASS BUILDING BLOCKS – PART 1
Here is an exercise I have been shedding a lot lately. This is designed to help build speed, control and endurance. Start by playing each line twice. Then progress to playing each line 4 and 8 times each. Start at a slow tempo and move slowly up to the faster tempos. Record your max tempos….
POLY-RUDIMENTS
This lesson is actually a warm up I do before a show, but it can also be a very effective practice routine during those days where you know you won’t get a ton of time to practice and still want to feel like you challenged yourself in some way. I am calling this routine poly-rudiments,…
BASIC BRUSHES
Brushes are fun to play and it’s a good idea to learn how to play them. You never know when you’ll need to dredge ‘em out of your stick bag. They’re fun to play and give you a whole different feel when drumming. The first thing you should remember is that you can use each…
MAMBO
The Mambo is a very complex rhythm of Afro Cuban decent. We will try to comp four different percussionists parts; the Bass drum is our Surdo, the Hi-hat foot is our Shaker, the bell of the ride is our Mambo Bell & the Cross Stick and Toms are our Congas. The Ostinato that is being played…
CHACARERA OVER HI-HAT
The Chacarera is a groove from northeast Argentina, especially Santiago del Estero. It was originally played with an instrument called the Bombo leguero that is made of wood and leather and is between 13 to 18 inches in diameter. In Europe and the USA this kind of rhythm was made popular by Argentinean guitar player…
BEMBE
The Bembe is an Afro-Cuban groove with a 6/8 feel that can also be interpreted in 4/4 with triplets. The style originates from the word “Bembes” which is an African term for religious gatherings that involved singing, dancing and drumming. Murray Creed is the creator of the Victoria Drum Fest as well as an educator,…
THE PORT HOLE DELIBERATION
The kick drum port hole is a modern invention that came about in the ‘60s when multi- track recording and close micing techniques became commonplace. Mass market appeal materialized when the studio technique of cutting a hole in the front head began to be utilized for live sound reinforcement. Sound technicians began to use the…
EMOTIONS GONE OVERBOARD
This article is written for all of us (and we have all had these moments; it is human nature), who ever thought that we were more important than the music we are playing. Ego is a very strong word and can be extremely prevalent in an artistic environment where our creativity can be judged at…
DEVELOPING THE DOUBLE STROKE ROLL WITH YOUR FEET PART 3
“Repetition is the mother of learning” therefore yet again, I still don’t think we, as drummers, take practicing our feet as seriously as we should. I hope you’ve had enough time to practice all the exercises from Part 1 and Part 2. This is the third time we are getting together to tackle the uneasy task of making…
ACCENT TO PARADIDDLE
This exercise is focusing on accent to taps to accented paradiddles. It’s a simple 1/8– 1/16 note piece, but we are using odd groupings of 5,7, and 9 and then filling in the gaps with single paradiddles and then double paradiddles. For those who don’t know, a single paradiddle is RLRR or LRLL and a double is…
8TH NOTES MAKE THE GROOVE GO ROUND
If this exercise appears to be something you’d learn in your first drum lesson, that’s because it is. It’s a simple three-bar exercise that is repeated. The main point I want to get across is, as simple as it seems it’s actually quite hard to play well with a relaxed grip, good technique and precision. …
DEVELOPING THE DOUBLE STROKE ROLL WITH YOUR FEET – PART 2
As drummers, we usually don’t take practicing our feet as seriously as we should. Having said that I hope you’ve had enough time to practice all the exercises from Part 1. If you haven’t, click here to get a refresher. As I mentioned last time I have developed them to help your feet get more comfortable with…
JAMES BROWN’S “COLD SWEAT”
Interesting facts about Cold Sweat. The horn line is based on Miles Davis’ “So What.” The band set up in a semicircle in the studio with one microphone and recorded live in the studio in one take. Written by Brown’s bandleader, Alfred “Pee Wee” Ellis. Complete version of the song is over 7 minutes long. Murray…
DRUM GEEK 