Wednesday, May 18, 2022

Uptempo rock practice phrase

Here's a quick one— a practice phrase combining two practice systems from the rock drill I posted recently, that's good for fast tempos. It flows really nicely. I give you so many open-ended practice systems, it's nice have some with a narrower scope. You can do this with Syncopation pp. 34-45, maybe 30-31.  

There's nothing to it: play two-measure phrases—  six beats of groove, two beats of fill.

On the groove portion: book rhythm = bass drum, except hit the 2/4 on the snare drum. If there's no 2 or 4 sounding in the rhythm, add it. Add quarter notes on the ride cymbal.

On the fill portion: book rhythm = accents on the cymbals + bass drum. Fill in 8th notes on the snare drum. Use alternating sticking starting with the right hand. 

Here: do the two things I crudely circled from the rock drill page: 


So here is how you would play the first three lines of p. 34 of Syncopation: 



Accent the snare drum during the fill, and accent the 1 after the fill. Or whatever sounds good for that pattern. Use convenient cymbals for each hand— ride or right side crash for right hand, left side cymbal or open hihats with the left hand. 

And here's how you play the first two lines of Exercise One on p. 38: 



Practical tempo range for this is about quarter note = 130-200+. After you've done the p.38 exercise, and can sight read the other full page exercises easily, you should have a pretty good flow with this kind of thing. 

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