Was working with a student on a couple of recent things: this sort of approach, using these pages as a rhythm library, playing along with the loop sampled from Tunji, by John Coltrane. These are […]
Category: fills
Alternating triplets, off the 1
Dealing with a lot of small items lately. We know all the big stuff, now we’re getting into how to practice it in a musically natural way, how to fit it naturally into a continuity. […]
Switching leads
Quickly sketching an idea to be developed at the drums here. We do a lot with right hand lead type stickings here— the right hand playing a mixed rhythm, accented, with the left hand filling […]
Filling long spaces – 01
First companion to the late very spaced-out syncopation exercise— playing the written part as accents on a cymbal, with bass drum in unison, and filling the space in between with continuous 8th notes, triplets (swinging […]
Timbale fills for Mozambique
Or any quasi-Cuban, Caribbean, salsoid Latin style. Mozambique is our default for thing for that type of groove. I’ve covered this way of filling before, here I’ll give suggested accents and stickings for a timbale-like […]
Reed tweak: paradiddle inversions – Jack’s option
This is a sticking variation on the 16th note RLLR-LRRL paradiddle inversion system, that was improvised by mistake by one of my students, age 15. We have a different relationship to mistakes on this instrument. […]
Reed tweak – figure on cymbals
Here’s a method for practicing filling in figures, that will work with most Reed systems, and involves accents on both the cymbals and the drums. For the examples we’ll use 8th notes accented to match […]
Embellishing the Reed linear system
I call it the Reed linear system, it’s a thing I started doing on my own years ago, using Reed— the book Syncopation. I imagine others do it, because it’s kind of obvious. I never […]
Fill phrase with RH lead on toms
We’ve got a good little fill unit going here lately— usually these might be taught with a single instruction, “groove first measure / RH lead second measure”, and that’s mostly enough, but, reading from Syncopation, […]
Free 8th note fills in 2/2
In the middle of a big fill unit with several students. Here are some sketches of single measure fills with 8th notes in 2/2, with minor embellishments, for moderate tempos. Stickings are left unspecified— you’ll […]
Reed tweak: expanding a fill phrase
Opening up a stock fill phrase I use with my students, reading, as ever, from Syncopation. A couple of easy moves for not being so barline oriented. This has a pretty energetic feel, with a […]
Fills with Stone
For a student, here is a summary of some things we did in a lesson— putting some singles exercises from Stick Control (pp. 8-11) onto the drum set. We’ll make a two measure phrase out […]