Incrementalism is the word du jour around here— lately we’ve been all about supplementing/altering some basic Reed systems in small ways, to make a living, evolving thing out of it, and not just pure formula.
Today’s thing introduces some alternating stickings to a rock drill I wrote about in 2019:
• Book rhythm = cymbal (with RH) + bass drum in unison
• Fill spaces with left handed flams, or double stops, on drums
Here’s the second line of Exercise 1 on p. 38 in Syncopation, played that way— for clarity, I put the filler notes as double stops, and given the sticking for the cymbal part only:
For today’s thing, we’ll alternate the cymbal part when there are two or more notes in a row— always starting with the right hand. Single cymbal notes are always played with the right:
We want to maintain it as primarily a right hand lead system— with left handed flams (rL), when flamming— because that gives you some options on the filler:
Whatever you can do with one-three 8th notes worth of space, starting and ending with the right hand:
If you’re one of those “weaker hand” guys, you could always learn the baseline system so the left hand is doing all the cymbal hits, and then do all these same variations.