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Friday, October 10, 2014

Philly Joe Jones three-beat triplet lick

Following up the Philly Joe Jones drum intro transcription from the other day, here are a few exercises for getting together that three-beat triplet lick we saw there. I've included two stickings: alternating, and a paradiddle-diddle lick shared with us in the comments, by Portland drummer Ed Pierce— I believe his source for that was drummer/author John Riley, so we should give him a little hat-tip as well.




Swing all the 8th notes on the page, so they fall roughly on a triplet grid. Observe the accenting on the lines starting with regular 8th notes; if you play the house top accent a little stronger, the pattern will swing a little more. In jazz, you can use these a lot in the tempo range of around quarter note = 120-220+.

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5 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:43 AM

    I can't remember where I got it from initially, but I had always played it as the rll, paradiddle-diddle too. I found trying to replicate his phrases in three like this, that he does so often, seemed to feel a little cleaner and sound a little closer to the way he phrased it with that sticking. Great piece Todd. Would love to hear your take on the head of Philly Mignon after your intro transcription. What an amazing tune! Cheers!

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  2. Has anyone tried this sticking for the famous lick?
    RllrrllrrLrrllrrllR
    Once I got the pattern down it gave the lick a really relaxed flow even at very fast tempos, without accidental unwanted accent, which can occur with the other sticking.

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    Replies
    1. Is this played as a 16th note triplets. How do you count this? Thanks.

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  3. Philly Joe played it in a jazz context, so it would have been 8th note triplets in 4/4, as written-- usually at a pretty fast tempo. No reason you couldn't play them as sixtuplets at slower tempos, though.

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