Bag of Tricks: Hat and tom fill

This is a cool fill I stole from one of the million "hit" pop bands in the nineties. It's a very low-key way to emphasize the 4 and land on 1.

Here's the 16th note version:

And the sextuplet version:

Happy drumming!

Bag of Tricks: Simple Jazz Fill

Here's a simple idea to get you going. This fill isn't exactly subtle, but if you really lay back on it, it's pretty swingin'.

Try to keep the unaccented snare drum notes down (soft) as much as possible. You can then use the accents to develop the "melody" of the movement around the kit, and you don't have to play loudly. Remember that, in terms of dynamics, the more you can whisper, the more a normal voice will sound like shouting. It's all about contrast.

And, finally, the sticking. I like to play the first triplet alternating, starting with the right hand (so R L R), then play L L R the rest of the way.

Happy drumming!

The Weight Room: Breaking down the Flam Tap

The rudiments are a great tool. They can also be a great challenge. I find that when I plateau or "hit the wall" with a certain rudiment, I need to break the figure down to its basic elements and figure out what's holding me back.

For example, last summer I hurt my knee really bad. It felt awful and didn't bend right, and I was absolutely certain I was going to have surgery. But when I visited the doctor, he gave me a thorough checkout and put me through a bunch of tests before declaring that the problem had nothing to do with my knee, but started with my hips and my hamstrings. What? If that was the case, then why did my knee hurt so badly?

Turns out that weak hip flexors and hamstrings, in conjunction with stiffness or inflexibility, manifests itself as knee pain. So I spent about eight weeks in physical therapy working and stretching my hips and hammies, and my knee pain magically went away.

In music, this idea plays itself out in many ways, but we'll look at just one specific rudiment to demonstrate the concept of breaking it down to its key elements.

So, the Flam Tap. It looks like this. (It goes without saying, but the grace notes are played by the hand not playing the main note.)

As you can see, this is a double stroke exercise, right right? (Bad drummer joke, couldn't help myself...) Actually, it's a triple stroke exercise. You see, the right hand will play a main note, a tap and then a grace note before the left hand plays a stroke, and so on.

So, if you want to make your Flam Taps faster, make your triple stroke faster, like so:

Play the first two measures all with the right hand, then repeat with all left hand. I like to do the exercise a total of four times - right, left, right, left (Coldplay, anyone?) - then end with a right hand downbeat in the last bar. 

As always, start slowly and gradually increase the tempo. Stay relaxed, especially as the tempo climbs. Remember that tension is the enemy of speed and control.

There are a lot of ways to approach this exercise, so I'll give you a few ideas.

• Keep all notes the same height and dynamic
• Accent the first note and play the last two the same
• Play the first two notes down, and accent the last note
• Play all three as a diminuendo
• Play all three as a crescendo

After you work on this for a while (a week or so), you should notice an increase in your Flam Tap speed and control.

Happy drumming!

Don't know what to practice? What?!

So, I'm with you. I really am. When you finally do have the time, what do you spend those precious few minutes on? Well, tonight I took less than five minutes to look on one of my favorite drumming sites, and here's what I found:

http://www.drummagazine.com/lessons/post/six-handy-notes-patterns-to-use-around-the-kit/

Make sure you take some time to really smooth out the sticking and accents on the snare drum before you move around the kit.

Then, as always, apply it with the click first, then with some music, and then just have fun!

The real lesson here is that you can find a million things to practice if you want to. Find something, and go after it!

Happy drumming.