UPDATE: I included an example practice sequence. And, having actually practiced it this way: it is the way. Yes. Do this.
A little writing experiment, here is the shortest possible summary of the harmonic coordination pages in the book 4-Way Coordination, by Marvin Dahlgren and Eliot Fine— pp. 15-18. It’s one of the harder things in drumming literature, not least because of the way they conceived it, and presented it. It’s really hard to read, and they put it in a difficult order. It’s very punishing.
I’ve reduced that to some accent patterns, played with different stickings, with parts for the feet based on the accents. We then simply play all combinations of whole/half measures of accent patterns with all whole/half measure stickings. Yes, that’s a lot. We’ll leave for another day the question of how much of this a person should even do, and why.
Here’s the sequence for practicing that— all combinations of A/B parts of the measure with all combinations of A/B parts of the sticking:
Our chosen orchestration (which is not in the original book), is to play the accented notes on a cymbal, with the bass drum in unison, and play the unaccented notes on the snare drum, with hihat in unison (played with the foot). Which makes it harder, in a way, but also easier— playing the cymbal/bass drum together is a normal part of playing. The SD/HH (with the foot) together isn’t such a normal thing, but those unisons will be a convenient way to discipline the left foot.
From a writing perspective, this form will be adequate for the real nutjobs. If I was writing for general usage, I’d try to serve it up in an easier form— making it easier to read, and also putting it in progressive order, somehow. Probably a page like the example page above for each combination, which creates its own problems— how many people ever play through 56 pages of anything? Better to see it all on one page.
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