Half-time feel funk: intermediate method

Here's the next phase of our little half-time feel funk method, using Ted Reed's Syncopation. We'll use pp. 29-30 out of Reed, with the quarter notes, 8th notes, and 8th rests, along with the page of bass drum grooves from before. Make sure you first play through all of the bass drum grooves along with the foundation hand part  (that's the first example on today's page), as well as the basic method from last week. We'll use the same sticking scheme as before: the right hand plays all the notes on beats 1-4, on the hihat and snare; the left hand plays any notes on the &s.

We'll still play the snare drum on beat 3, when possible; where there are rests on 3, we'll catch the snare drum on the closest note(s) to beat 3— often on an &, using the left hand. See the examples on the page, and play all of the options when you practice the exercises.

As you start moving the snare drum part around to accommodate any rests on 3, there will be some conflicts with the bass drum parts— I usually try to avoid playing a lot of unisons with the snare drum and bass drum— you can either choose to play the unisons, or drop out the bass drum where there would be a unison.

The last example on the page shows a way of making a fill— just play the end of the phrase all on the snare drum, or toms, and drop out the bassd drum. When doing the practice routine, you can do that on the 2nd/4th measure of each line, or just on the last measure of the line.

With this method and the previous one, the immediate goal is to be able to play straight through all of the exercises on the pages indicated, without stopping, with each of the bass drum patterns from the grooves page. The big test will  be to play the 48 bar exercise on page 31, with several of the bass drum patterns— whichever are your favorites.

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