Sunday, October 30, 2016

FUNK CONTROL: alternative set 1 - complete

I'm working out the format for putting this “Basic Funk Ideas” series into book form, tentatively titled “Funk Control.” The top of the page, labeled “Basic rhythm and iterations” shows the source rhythmic idea for the page, along with the other forms of it, from which we create the exercises— you don't need to practice these, just understand how they relate to the starting rhythm. I've changed the presentation to give all of the variations for one pattern on one page.

Anyway, here's a new page of stuff, using a pattern, and a few variations, which is not on the previous pages:




Same suggestions as always: learn the exercises individually, then play them in combinations, playing each lettered exercise 1, 2, or 4 times each. On variations N-P, move around the drums freely; you can also improvise the sticking for variation N.

With all my materials I like to be able cover one page completely in half an hour or less, but this system is a little long for that. There are 120 total combinations of patterns, and blasting straight through them at quarter note = 80 bpm, playing each measure one time, takes 6 minutes. Playing each combo twice would take 12 minutes; playing each combo and measure twice would take 24 minutes. I like practicing them playing each measure 1x and 2x, so at that tempo the shortest possible session would be 36 minutes. Doing additional repetitions where you actually practice takes longer than that, so you may want to split each page into two practice sessions; you could do combinations starting with A-E the first day, and F-P the second. Or do it in three sessions: A-C, D-G, and H-O.

UPDATE: Oh, there's a typo— the sixtuplet sticking at the top of the page gives a 6-stroke roll type sticking, but we want to do all of the accents with the right hand. It should be RLL RLR LLR LRL, if you want to pencil it in. The stickings in the actual exercises are all correct.

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