Gary Chaffee’s Patterns series of books was a thrilling discovery to me as a student— a new, very modern system of stuff, that fit my ideas of what I wanted to be doing at the time. I was real into Vinnie Colaiuta for a couple of years, and Chaffee seemed to be the foundation of what he was doing. Ultimately I found the mathematical approach mostly wasn’t working for me, and I don’t use the books much any more. But they’re a major item in the literature of drumming; it’s a cohesive thing, and its own thing.
I think his system of linear patterns is his most important thing, and second to that is his system of stickings, which is detailed in volume 2 of Patterns. I’ve been playing through it this week.
The first part of the book deals with accented singles, one to four accents, organized in terms of even and odd spacings, beginning with some basic combinations, and then some short solos in 8th notes, followed by some full page solos summarizing all of them, in two to 8 note subdivisions— 8ths, triplets, 16ths, quintuplets, sixtuplets, septuplets, 32nd notes— followed by three full page solos with combinations of all those rhythms.
Next are the compound stickings, which are grouped roughly as:
- R or L accent plus doubles
- RL/LR plus doubles— paradiddle/paradiddle-diddle like
- RLR/LRL plus doubles
- RLRL/LRLR plus doubles— double/triple paradiddle like
- RLRLR/LRLRL plus one double— a single seven note pattern
Again, with short solos in different subdivisions, with the different possible accents on the single notes. No stickings are indicated on the solos, you have to know them and do them on the fly. I pencilled in which hand the accents would fall on, on some of them.
At the end of that section, there is a list of possible phrases for all the different groups of stickings, to make 1-4 measures of triplets and 16th notes in 4/4 time. Stickings are listed by sticking group, and number of notes, like:
5A-5A-3A-3A
5C-5C-3A-3A
7A-3A-3A-3A
6B-6B-4B
Which seems to be the crux of the system, thinking in terms of additive rhythms. I was never able to make a functional way of playing out of that. Ultimately,
There are about ten pages on applying them to the drum set, both for groove construction, and for filling/soloing. I never did fully understand how it was intended to serve me in music, beyond that. The accents are essentially musically arbitrary, and lean into an abtract kind of playing that doesn’t sit well in all music— accenting the middle of the triplet, for example. That wasn’t good for me as a student, when it came to doing functional fills. Later on I was more concerned with how I might want to be catching certain accents in a piece of music, and wasn’t able to work out a way of doing that systematically.
So, for me, the whole thing demands pretty substantial development beyond what’s in the book to make it serve some normal musical demands beyond just creative groove making and soloing.
The stickings I’ve found most useful are the sided ones: RLL, RLRLL, RLRLRLL— those are easy to improvise with. As are a few that are the same as some normal rudiments, or close variations on them, since we’re already used to working with them.
Materials where they follow a mathematical logic are always trouble for me— the order of stuff may make mathematical sense, but it’s actually almost random in terms of learning it, and doing it a playing system. The beginning of Stick Control is that way, as is Dahlgren & Fine. You could say that I learned something by being forced to figure it out myself, but not a lot of people do that.
What the hell, I guess not every drum author works for me. And it’s a big enough job just putting together the idea and writing it and putting it out. I should be more grateful. Writing what I want is my job.
I think ultimately with this book we’re training the hands broadly to be able to do unexpected things. With the quintuplets and septuplets— apart from gaining fluency with them, the more immediate effect will be to get our hands off a normal grid timing, fine tuning touch and timing. This is really good for orchestral rolls, which will often not use a regular 16th or triplet pulsation— which is what all the tuplet stuff in the back of Stick Control is all about. And it’s all good for concentration. Same with the mixed rhythm solos— you need to exercise some control, and you can’t do them thoughtlessly. Learning how to play the quintuplets and septuplets themselves is for me the least of it.
And we haven’t even gotten to the true mayhem, where we begin doing tuplets over 2 to four 4 beats, and tuplets nested within tuplets. I did work through that stuff, and even tried to deploy it in nature— it takes a high degree of polish for people to assume you’re not just playing wrong. At a certain level of out-there, we need to ask what we’re even trying to accomplish creatively, what are we contributing with that, how does it actually serve us and the music we play.
I did play some of the book— badly, at times— in my first little “Twitch” stream. Follow me there if that kind of thing floats your boat, I’ll probably do more, and certainly more with some more interesting things.
I am happy to help you with any of the materials on the site, and with anything else drumming related— contact me for private lessons, online world wide, or in person in Portland, Oregon. All levels of players, and all people, are welcome.
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