———————————-Get Your Drum Lessons Here!—————————
I’ve been teaching for over 40 years and have created and accumulated a lot of teaching material. This is where I will share some of that material.
Tools: posted 12/6/11
THE BEST TIMEKEEPING TOOL IS:
click on this article link:
_________________________________________________________________________
Beginning Jazz Skills: posted 12/3/11
Up-beat Jabs with Jazz Ostinato
by alan hall, all rights resereved
Wanna play jazz? If so, you gotta develop independence in your limbs. The “jazz ride” pattern is the rhythmic pattern at the heart of jazz drumming. It is written here in “normal” straight 8th form, however it is played with a triplet feel: i.e. anything on a down beat sounds the same as with a straight 8th feel, BUT anything on the “and” or “upbeat” is played as if it was the third partial of an 8th note triplet, sounding slightly later than the normal “upbeat”.
This is what we call using a “swing” feel and it applies here to both the fixed jazz ride pattern (in the jazz ostinato) and the snare drum hits (jabs). The complete “jazz ostinato” here includes the hi-hat on beats “2″ and “4″, along with the jazz ride pattern on the cymbal. The 3/4 ostinato has a slightly different ride pattern with hi hat on beat “2″.
The basic instructions:
Step One-Play the jazz ostinato at a slow and comfortable tempo with no tension. Establish the pulse, feel the groove.
Step Two-Say aloud, or establish in your mind, the count which reflects what you’re playing on the cymbal: “1″- “2″ -”and”- “3″- “4″ – “and”
Step Three–While holding that ostinato, try to play the first jab here, which is on the “and” of beat one, on the snare drum. Once the first jab can be played 8 times in a row with no mistakes you’re ready to try the next jab, and so on down the page. One measure at a time. Once all individual jab measures can be played 8 times in a row, try going from one measure of jabs right to the next and so on, otherwise know as “segue-ing down the page”.
question: is this first jab going to be played WITH any other limb? answer: NO. it is in between the first cymbal hit (on beat one) and the second cymbal hit (on beat two).
Ask yourself these 2 question before you attempt each jab,or set of jabs: Which cymbal hit is this jab supposed to hit with? or which cymbal hits is it in between?
_________________________________________________________________________
THE KEY TO THE KINGDOM OF DRUMMING:
In order to play any drum exercises efficiently, you must work at a tempo at which your brain and body are in synch. In other words, the tempo should be slow enough for the brain to process the skill your asking your body to perform. If you go too fast for this synch up, you will be practicing mistakes, NOT skills.
_________________________________________________________________________
GROOVES YOU GOTTA KNOW
Cuban: Cha Cha and Mambo
Brazilian: Bossa Nova and Samba
Here are these grooves written out for you to work on: