This Elvin thing is turning into a real epic– well, a very small epic, maybe, if you think about it- and I still have to complete the transcription. Here are the tom moves I would apply to the left hand part on yesterday’s post– you can/should do these with any other left hand coordination materials, too, of course.
Key:
S = snare drum (normally, or as a rim click)
H = high tom
L = low tom
Between two drums:
S H S H
S L S L
H L H L
Away from/back to one drum:
S H S L
H S H L
L S L H
Up and down the drums:
S H L
S L H
You can extrapolate your own patterns if you have one of those monster drumsets with three tom toms. I like to do things the easy way, so I do the moves when there’s plenty of time- I don’t split the doubles between drums. Depending on the number of notes in the rhythmic pattern vs. the particular move above, there will often be a little polyrhythmic counter-melody generated by doing these- it’s a good idea to count out loud and keep track of the four measure phrase in that case. When doing this Elvin thing, for example, count 1-2-3, 2-2-3, 3-2-3, 4-2-3.