Bass Drum 16 th Note Syncopation Variation 1

Traditional

This you will hear in hundreds of songs on the first beat. Learn this and you will use it forever, it is a great way of laying down a great grooving beat.

5.3.2Bass Drum 16 Note Syncopation Variation 2

5.3.3Bass Drum 16^th Note Syncopation Variation 3

Traditional

Chad Smith uses this bass drum syncopation on beat 3 and 4 of the song

“Give it Away”

5.3.4Bass Drum 16 Note Syncopation Variation 4

Traditional Count

1 e + &

Right Hand on hi hat

X X

Left Hand on hi hat

Right Foot X X

Left foot on the hi hat pedal

— — — —

5.3.5Bass Drum 16^th Note Syncopation Variation 5

Traditional Count

1 e + &

Right Hand on hi hat

X X

Left Hand on hi hat

Right Foot X X X

Left foot on the hi hat pedal

— — — —

Now here are the four most common syncopated bass drum groove rhythms I know and use:

5.3.6Bass Drum 16^th Note Syncopation Full Bar- Variation 1

The first variation and in particular the first beat is probably one of the most used, as you can see the first beat uses the variation 1 from above and then is a normal 8^th note rock beat.

Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &

Right Hand on hi hat

X X X X

Left Hand on hi hat

X

Right Foot X X

Left foot on the hi hat pedal

— — — — — — — —

Traditional

5.3.7Bass Drum 16^th Note Syncopation Full Bar- Variation 2

This uses variation 1 and then you add other bass drum strokes and move them onto other off beats. In this case, the + of 2.

Traditional

5.3.8Bass Drum 16^th Note Syncopation Full Bar- Variation 3

This uses variation 1, I told you it was used a lot and then you add other bass drum strokes and move them onto other off beats. In this case, the + of 2 and the + of 3, and we don’t play the bass drum on beat 3. This is now starting to get seriously grooving and funky.

Traditional

Traditional

5.3.9Bass Drum 16^th Note Syncopation Full Bar- Variation 4

Again, this uses variation 1, but here I use variation 3 for beats 3 and 4.

Actually, this is the “Give it Away” drum beat by Chad Smith ☺. Get this up to speed and you will be doing really well and grooving

Traditional

Traditional Count

3 e + & 4 e + &

Right Hand on hi hat

X X X X

Left Hand on hi hat

X

Right Foot X X X X

Left foot on the hi hat pedal

— — — — — — — —

808 - 60 BPM - Bass Drum 16

^th

Note Syncopation Full Bar- V4 809 - 120 BPM - Bass Drum 16

^th

Note Syncopation Full Bar- V4

Here are some songs that use 16^th note bass drum syncopations:

Anastasia – “Left outside alone”

Pearl Jam – “Alive”

Chad Smith – “Give it away”, “Under the bridge”

Nivana "Smells Like Teen Spirt"

5.4 Some final words on Syncopation

Remember that the examples above are common grooves that I hear in songs all the time as you develop and become more comfortable you can make up you own beats, grab a piece of paper and just make some beats up and then just play what you have made up for a few minutes till you make it groove

Because you are only limited by your imagination in putting more complex beats together.

6.1 Disco/Dance 16^th Note Beats using hi-hat open and closing Now, listening to 16^th note based songs you will notice that a lot of them have the hi hat opening and closing in them.

This gives what many drummers call the, (And I kid you not here) the “pea soup” sound.

It is this sound coupled with the “4 on the floor” groove that to me gives this dance beat its very particular disco/dance sound.

This is really moving into intermediate to advanced drumming, but as the opening and closing of the hi-hat is so common and sounds so good, I thought I would include it here for your information because wasn’t something I couldn’t leave out. If this is a little too much too quick then just move on and come back later ☺.

To me the opening and closing of the hi hat with you left foot is a core drumming skill that once you have mastered you will be able to use in many other musical styles and grooves including jazz, soul and funk.

So on to the technical part of how to actually do that:

To show the opening of the hi hats in the tabs below, the symbol “O” short for Open is used (sort of understandable and simple I hope, as things should be for us drummers☺) When you see the open symbol “O” just lift you left foot up and then hold it to when you see the next “X” symbol, which means close the hi hats together.

This is how it sounds with an open hi hats

307 - Slow Basic 16

^th

Note Dance Beat with opening hi hat beat 4+

And here it is played faster

308 - Fast Basic 16

^th

Note Dance Beat with opening hi hat beat 4+

6 Using the hi-hat to groove up your grooves

Traditional

By doing this you are hitting the hi hat when it is open with your right and then left hand and then by closing it, this “chokes” off the top cymbal ringing and creates what us drummers call the “pea soup” sound.

Take this very slowly at first. It is a bit of co-ordination challenge to start with so remember

“To get there twice as fast, start twice as slow”

OK ?

Now 16^th note dance songs examples with lots of opening and closing hi-hats include Fatboy Slim, Faithless, Moby, Goldfrapp, and Franz Ferdinand.

The next stage in using opening and closing hi-hats and something that is used a lot in dance music is to open the hi-hats on the “off-beat” that is the “+” of the beat as follows:

309 - Basic 16

^th

Note Dance Beat with opening hi hat on off-beat and

closing on 2 and 4

Traditional

6.2 8^th Note Beats using hi-hat open and closing

There are many 8^th note rock and pop beat examples that do this too. A couple I heard the other day were “You Stupid Girl” by Garbage and also

“Laura” by The Scissor Sisters.

The classis Arthera Franklin funk song “Rock Steady” with the great Bernard Purdie on drums uses the “pea soup” hi-hat opening and closing in lots of place. You should listen to this song as Bernard’s playing on this song is truly sublime.

Also, all the drummer of James Brown used hi-hat openings, generally they would open the hi-hat on the

Here is a 8^th note beat with some pea soup:

104 - Basic 8

^th

note beat with pea soup on the “and” of beat 4

This is actually the beat from the Emmien song “Stan” that I introduced earlier in the 8^th note rock and pop beat section.

I will leave this with one last example in the Eminien “Stan” groove there are three bass drum hits.

103 - Basic 8 note rock beat – Stan Groove

Also, you can open and close the hi hat as follows with your left foot

105 - 8th note rock beat - Stan Groove with pea soup on 4+

The Moby albums of “18” and “Play” use lots of hi hat opening and closing, in particular, the song Natural Blues on the album Play.

Lastly, the drummers of James Brown and the drummers of Motown all use the hi hat to add to the great grooves either in very complex ways or very simple ways. Again, here I’ll point you to the “Coldsweat” groove. Here Clyde opens and closes the hi-hat on the 2^nd and 4^th beats just about throughout the whole song and coupled with the snare and bass drum syncopations it makes one of the greatest grooving drum beats ever. He, also, does the same with my favourite James Brown song "Sex Machine".

I can only advise you to listen, copy and play it to learn how to play great grooving drum beats and get your audience dancing!! ☺.

7.1 Expressing yourself as a musician

First up fills are a real fun part of music and being a drummer, they are the part of a song that as the drummer you can really help transfer the

emotions of the song to your audience by building anticipation (with your other band members) starting to play louder or softer, changing the main beat and then releasing it with a great fill

So OK, with that said I’ll show you some common fills that have been used thousands of times in thousands of songs!!!!

Who every said that drummers and musicians weren’t inventive ☺

Technically fills, (to me anyhow), are where we play more (or sometimes less) strokes within the context of keeping time in a song to “better” the song.

Before going on you really must take on board the concept that if you play a fill you must stay in time otherwise the groove and foundation of song, for the other band members and audience will be lost. If you lose time in the fill things can go horribly wrong for everybody. This usually happens when you try to play a fill that is too complicated for your abilities. A common problem us drummers all have!!!

To start with we will keep the fills simple from a sticking view point.

We are going to use the single stroke roll sticking that you learnt in playing a 16^th note beat.

However, just because a fill is simple from a sticking view point doesn’t mean that its impact is and can be any less than something much more complicated.

Later, I’ll show you, a great way of keeping that timing and foundation that is used by all the top drummers to keep time in fills, but for now we need to focus on the basic sticking of fills to get us rocking and rolling here.

Well to get you into this, here is an example of a fill you will have heard many many times before and probably 1000’s of time before.

7 How to play drum fills

901 - Basic 8 note beat with a 16 note fill around the toms

This is an example of a bar of 8^th note rock time 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + followed by a “fill” of 16^th note 1e+&a 2e+&a 3e+&a 4e+&a

So now then, before we get too complicated let start nice and simple first!!!

By developing the ability to play this a piece at a time we can build up to it.

Fill Number 1

First here is a standard 8^th note rock beat. (I have written it out with 16^th note subdivision as you will see why in a second)

Traditional Count

1 e + & 2 e + &

Right Hand on hi hat

X X X X

Left Hand on the snare

X

Right Foot on the bass drums

X

Left foot on the hi hat pedal in closed position on first beat

— — — — — — — —

Now without changing the position of our hands we are going to starting on the count of 3 to play a single stroke roll (just like as if you where play a 16^th note dance beat)

Traditional

And congratulations on playing your first fill!!!!

Fill Number 2

The next step is to move this fill around the drum kit.

Play the 8^th note rock beat on 1 + 2 + from fill number 1 and then when you get to the 3^rd beat move your right hand up onto the high tom and then follow it with your left hand to play a single stroke roll on the high tom.

Traditional

903 – 60 BPM Basic 8 note beat with a 16 note fill on high tom on beats 3 and 4

903a - 90 BPM Basic 8th note beat with a 16th note fill on high toms on beats 3 and 4

OK I hope that you can now see what I am doing here by increasing the variations and combinations of the different drums you will create different sounds for your fills.

Fill Number 3

From this basic idea of mixing 16^th note single stroke fills into you beats you can play the 16^th note fill for the whole bar and you get probably the most played fill of all time by playing a 16^th note single stroke roll around the kit.

So play 3 bars of time with a standard 8^th note rock beat

And then every fourth bar play 16^th note single stroke rolls around the kit as follows

1e+& on the high tom 2e+& on the middle tom 3e+& on the low tom 4e+& on the low tom

And here is how it sounds:

904 – 60BPM Basic 8

^th

note beat for 3 bars with a 16

^th

note fill around the toms

904a - 120BPM Basic 8th note beat for 3 bars with a 16th note fill around the toms

Fill Number 4

Now, remember how I have sometimes said less is more while here it is in action.

We can start to mix and match the playing of 16^th notes and 8^th notes

What we can do is actually to not “fill” in all the 16 notes and miss some out

Here is an example:

Traditional

Here we use the left hand to fill in between the right hand that continues to play the 8^th notes. By continuing to play 8^th notes with the right hand you will hopefully keep you timing and groove going in the fill.

I call this the "Grade 1" fill as it was the first drum fill I ever learnt when I started to do my drum gradings.

Actually, this is a good time to make the point (again) about keeping time in fills. It is very easy to get carried away and try to play too many strokes in your fills and obviously the more strokes you play the longer it will take unless you play them faster enough and if you can’t, you either play the fill wrong or you change the timing of the beat by slowing it down to play the fill.

So at the beginning, make sure that you play the main beat at a speed that you can play the fill in otherwise you may start to get into the very very bad habit of slowing the groove down during your fills.

The last thing with fills is that you can use any drum or cymbal to play your fill on and so as you get more comfortable with the timing and sticking of your fills and here is an example of my "Grade 1" fill played around the tom toms and finishing on some cymbals on beats 4 and 4+.

906 - 8th Note Rock beat with various drums and cymbals fill

7.2 Double Stroke and Paradiddle based fills

As part of 16th Note disco beats, I have introduced you to single stroke rolls, and how you can use them to play that beat or as fills. Now, is the time to introduce you to 2 other simple sticking patterns that you can use to play either beats or fills. They are the double stroke roll and the

parradiddle.

7.2.1Double stroke roll First up the double stroke roll.

The double stroke roll is two strokes with your right hand followed by two with your left hand

R R L L Here is an example:

Traditional

I play my bass drum and hi-hat on the quarter note beats to help keep time going.

A good count to get you going is to say out loud "Mama Dada" Try it and see ☺ . Also, you can go to my website www.learn-to-play-drums.com and hear me counting it out for you.

Now as the sticking here is the same as a single stroke roll you can play the same 16th note fills within quarter note and 8th note rock songs by play So play 3 bars of time with a standard 8^th note rock beat

And then every fourth bar play 16^th note double stroke rolls around the kit as follows

1e+& on the high tom

using the sticking RR LL 2e+& on the middle tom

using the sticking RR LL 3e+& on the low tom

using the sticking RR LL 4e+& on the low tom

using the sticking RR LL

If you start on the high tom and are leading with you right hand the fill with flow naturally left to right.

The variations you can play with the double stroke roll are many around the kit, you can split the hands between different drums, you can keep the right hand on the low toms and move your left hand between the snare, hi hat, high and middle tom.

Now, when you write this on paper (our type it into a word processor) it all seems so simple to play doubles, however, as you develop and want to get better and faster you will realise that you really have to work at you

doubles as you weaker left hand will not be able to play the two LL strokes as fast as your right hand.

The trick as always is start slow and slowly speed up but making sure that all four strokes sound even and at the same speed. Please don't get into the bad habit of play the two RR fast and the two LL slower else it will sound uneven and lopsided.

The great Buddy Rich (probably one of the greatest drummers ever) practised his double strokes the whole of his life.

The double stroke roll is the foundation of a number of other rolls and rudiments (e.g. 5 stroke, 7 stroke and 9 stroke rolls), where you finish with an accented stroke on the down beat to carry on with the main beat

Accents: This little sign below " > " means to play the stroke louder than the others, to do this raise you wrist up higher than normal and sort of flick you hand down. This puts more speed into you hand and the drum stick and makes the stroke louder when it hits the drum.

The sticking for a 5 stroke roll is

>

R R L L R

>

R R L L R R L

The sticking for a 9 stroke roll is

>

R R L L R R L L R

You can use 5 strokes as one beat fills like so

Play an 8th note beat and then on beat 4 play a double stroke roll and the last R will naturally fall on the first beat of the next bar

Play an 8th Note beat and then beat 4 play a 5 stroke roll as follows

>

R R L L R R and back to play a 8th Note beat 4 e + & 1 e + &

7.2.2Paradiddle based fills Now for the paradiddle.

The paradiddle is a combination of a single stroke roll and a double stroke roll

right, left, right, right and then reversed to left, right, left left sticking

R L R R L R L L

The paradiddle is great at making you work your weaker left hand Here is an example:

Traditional

I play my bass drum and hi-hat on the quarter note beats to help keep time going.

You can count paradiddles in the same way as double stroke rolls by counting out loud.

In this case, you count

Pa ra did dle Pa ra did dle

R L R R L R L L

1 e + & 2 e + &

Again, if you start on the high tom and are leading with you right hand the fill with flow naturally left to right.

Again, if you start on the high tom and are leading with you right hand the fill with flow naturally left to right.

In document The Beginners Quick Guide to Drumming (Page 70-121)