Creative Rudiments
Hello,
Watch this video featuring three simple drum exercises. They are really beginners' exercises although actually good for all musicians. In the video we look at you how you can use these rhythms creatively by playing along with some interesting music. – My One and Only Love recorded by John Coltrane among others.
Learning the drums involves a combination of rudiments, music knowledge and creative music-making. So in this exercise we just play two bars of eighth-notes, two bars of eighth-note triplets and two bars of sixteenth-notes.
Watch this video featuring three simple drum exercises. They are really beginners' exercises although actually good for all musicians. In the video we look at you how you can use these rhythms creatively by playing along with some interesting music. – My One and Only Love recorded by John Coltrane among others.
Learning the drums involves a combination of rudiments, music knowledge and creative music-making. So in this exercise we just play two bars of eighth-notes, two bars of eighth-note triplets and two bars of sixteenth-notes.
The first thing to do with all these rudiments is to set up a pulse on the kick drum. It does not need to be fast – just regular. Then add eighth-note patterns using alternate hands LRLR etc. Students learn these patterns really well by saying the sticking out loud so left-right left-right. When you play the triplets in the third bar make sure they are even, not short-short-long. Some drummers learn these patterns as words like tri-pa-let or cu-cum-ber
The same with sixteenth-notes cau-li-flow-er or semi–quaver.
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So when you have the feeling of that exercise try this. You break up the music into phrases:
So for eighths: [Play] Create your own rhythm using eighth-notes and rests. Triplets: [Play] Create your own rhythm using eighth-note triplets and rests. Sixteenths: [Play] Create your own rhythm using sixteenth-notes and rests. |
The Creation of Adam (Italian: Creazione di Adamo) by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564)
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Create!
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Next thing we want to play this with My One and Only Love. First find the basic pulse the one two three four then try just playing eighth-note patterns, listen for the triplets, then the sixteenth notes.
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Now break up the rhythm and play some creative musical phrases first in eighth notes, then triplets, then sixteenths. Try using different parts of the kit. Above all keep the groove with your foot, the basic pulse, it is a pulse although not a rigid machine-like pulse, but a breathing human kind of rhythm. While you are playing listen to the other instruments and feel the relationships between the different sounds. How do these sounds feel to you? Not emotionally so much as how does your body respond to these sounds when you play the rhythms in time and in the groove? Try to feel the flexibility of the sounds and keep your joints, your toes, ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, wrists, neck in fact your whole body just a little loose. Upright and full of energy but still loose not stiff.
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Therefore, this short rudimentary exercise is helpful for you not only to get control of the sticking technique, but also to feel the musicality of the drum-kit.
Next:
Go and learn about the music you are listening to. Whether like today’s track it is John Coltrane(1926-1967) or instead Max Merrit(b.1947) read. That means mean read music, which of course you should learn to do, but also read words about music. Biographies, theories, everything you can, because you cannot play drums all day can you?
Try to make up your own patterns to this music, and remember make the music groove, play every day and thank you for watching and listening.
