Developing Your Technique
You have now learned all the basic note values, rhythms and techniques used in playing Rock beats in a variety of styles. You now have enough knowledge to play in a band and come up with your own drum parts to fit most songs.
The counting and singing techniques you have learned should be made part of your daily practice to ensure that you understand everything you play and to keep developing the independence of all four limbs. To take your playing to a higher level, it is worth doing some technical work, particularly on sticking techniques such as rudiments and accent studies.
Accent Studies
In lesson 7 you learned to play accents on the snare drum using eighth notes. The following examples demonstrate accents on the snare drum using triplets and sixteenth notes. There are various ways of playing these examples, first use alternate sticking, then one stick per group (e.g., triplets in groups of three – RRR LLL etc) and finally one stick only.
These examples are only a brief introduction to accent studies. It is worth doing this kind of practice in a lot more detail until you can improvise an accented musical line within a line of constant eighth notes, or triplets, or sixteenth notes. There are many books available which deal with accent studies and stick control in general. Ask a good drum teacher or someone at your local music store.
Drum Rudiments
As mentioned in the previous lesson, rudiments are traditional sticking patterns and techniques. There are 28 basic rudiments which are different combinations of right and left hands. Studying rudiments will give you more freedom and control of everything you play with the drumsticks. Only a few of the rudiments are dealt with here, for a more detailed study of rudiments, see Progressive Drum Method by Craig Lauritsen.
The single stroke roll is the first drum rudiment. It simply means using alternate sticking. It is worth practicing this rudiment in all note values from quarter notes to thirty second notes, as shown here. Play it at a variety of tempos with your metronome, beginning at a slow tempo and then gradually working up to a tempo where the thirty second notes sound like a continuous drum roll. Play it through beginning with the right hand and then with the left hand.
The second rudiment is the double stroke roll. This one is executed by playing with one stick twice in a row and then swapping to the other stick (RR LL RR LL etc or LL RR LL RR etc). Once again, play it at a variety of tempos gradually working up to a tempo where the thirty second notes sound like a continuous drum roll. As with the previous example, play it through beginning with the right hand and then with the left hand.
The double stroke roll is particularly useful when playing fills because it enables you to keep each of your hands above a particular drum for the duration of two notes. This means you can play notes between different drums faster and means less movement generally. The fill in example 99 makes use of the double stroke roll.
The paradiddle is made up of two groups of four notes played RLRR LRLL if you start with the right hand or LRLL RLRR if you start with the left hand. Practice the paradiddle first with eighth notes and then with sixteenth notes as shown in the following example. To get used to the sticking of the paradiddle, it is worth saying the pattern out loud as you play (Right Left Right Right, Left Right Left Left, etc).
This one has a fill in the fourth bar which makes use of the paradiddle. Practice the fill by itself and then alternate it with the first two beats of the final bar several times. Then play the whole four bars, ending with the paradiddle fill.
Grace Notes and Flams
Grace notes are notes which have no real time of their own. Rather, they are heard as an expression added to the note they are leading to. A grace note is indicated by a very small note with a stroke through its stem.
This note is played immediately before the following note, which is held for its full value. The notes are connected by a curved line called a slur, which indicates that the notes are to be played as smoothly as possible. On the drums, this technique is called a flam, which is another drum rudiment.
Like the double stroke roll and the paradiddle, the flam is useful when playing fills, as shown here. Experiment with different note values and different combinations of drums when using flams.
Another useful rudiment is the flam accent. This involves a flam at the beginning of a group of three notes. The flam accent is traditionally written in ) time but can also be played as an eighth note triplet grouping in any simple time signature (e.g., * ).
This example shows a fill based on triplets which makes use of the flam accent.
As mentioned earlier, there are 28 rudiments in all, and the ones you have learned here are just the beginning. If you are serious about your drumming it is worth learning all of the others as well as studying them with a drum teacher to make sure you develop your technique correctly.
Putting it all Together
If you have studied everything in the book carefully, counting and singing as you play and using a metronome or drum machine, you should be well on the way to becoming an excellent Rock drummer. To finish off, here are two solos which sum up everything you have learned. The first one moves around the kit and is actually an intro to the second one, which is based on a groove.
Watch the notation carefully when you are learning this solo, as many of the bars look similar but contain slight variations.
Musical Form
The term "musical form" refers to the structure of a song or piece of music, e.g., verse, verse, chorus, verse, or 12 Bar Blues. Most songs you play in a band situation fall into two categories. One is the 12 Bar Blues form and the other is songs which break down into 8 or 16 bar sections.
When you are playing a song, it is important to think about the length of sections or verses as this largely determines the way all of the musicians will play. Listen to some of your favourite songs and notice the way the drum part changes, e.g., fills, crash cymbal etc at the end and beginning of verses. Listen also to dynamics and interplay between the parts.
A great way to practice getting control of the form of a song is to sing the lyrics as you play your part. In fact, singing either the lyrics or the bass line is great for your coordination and independence as well as making you much more aware of what your drum part is ultimately fitting in with and complementing. Another useful exercise is to actually count the bar numbers as you play.
As an example, if you are playing a song in * time, instead of counting 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4, you could count 1 2 3 4, 2 2 3 4, 3 2 3 4, 4 2 3 4 etc. After a while you will begin to know instinctively where you are in the song. A few typical examples of an 8 bar form and a 12 Bar Blues form are demonstrated in the following diagrams. Each one has chord symbols written above it just as you would find on a song chart.
8 Bar Form
12 Bar Blues
