Another one of my hack and slash jobs. This is something I improvised in a lesson— a student is working on some of the Pages o’ Coordination in 5/4, based on an Elvin Jones groove, and we made some fills using the accented triplet pages from Syncopation, alternating between one measure of groove, one measure of fill. There’s a good way of handling triplet stickings so you always come out on the right hand here, in whatever time signature.
First, we’ll be using the accented triplet pages from Syncopation, putting them into 5/4 time, playing the first five beats of each line, repeating, as I’ve brutally scribbled in here:
Here are all the one line exercises copied and pasted in into 5/4, jammed onto one page:
Get the pdf – Reed accented triplets in 5/4. There is another pdf to download below.
On the drum set, the accented notes are played on a cymbal, with the right hand, supported by the bass drum, and the unaccented notes are played on the snare drum— and later moved around the drums.
To get the cymbal notes onto the right hand, and to get in and out of the fill easily, we had to use some different stickings. Following some simple-ish rules:
All cymbal notes played with RH
All snare notes start with LH:
1-2 notes on SD: LH only
3 notes on SD: alternate – LRL
4 notes on SD: LH paradiddle or inversion: LRLL, LRRL
5 notes: alternate – LRLRL
6 notes: LH double paradiddle or inverion: LRLRLL, LRRLRL
7 notes: alternate – LRLRLRL
8 notes: LH triple paradiddle or inversion: LRLRLRLL, LRRLRLRL
You get the picture:
• odd number of SD notes = alternate
• even number = alternate with LL double at end, or RR double after first note
I prefer the second type of paradiddle sticking, but there are good reasons to do either. The timing of the next cymbal accent may influence what feels best to somebody.
This page illustrates all the above possibilities, in the two-measure phrase I described:
When the fill begins with snare drum, you can add bass drum to the last note of the groove measure— to begin the fill more strongly.
Get the pdf – Reed triplet patterns as fill with Elvin Jones groove