Saturday, September 02, 2023

Round up of recent Reed tweaks

In the last few months we've done a number of tweaks to the basic right hand lead method used with the book Syncopation, and I thought it would be good to summarize them on one page. It's a good collection of stuff for rock and funk, and other straight 8th feels. The examples are all based on line 8 from p. 38 of Syncopation. 

The examples are: 

  1. Basic RH lead system. 
  2. Alternate sticking on runs of three or more notes, in either part. Click link for the exception on longer runs of notes. 
  3. Add LH flam on last note of filler on runs of two or more notes.
  4. Add LH flam (or double stop on two different drums) on every note of filler.
  5. Play all filler as alternating RH lead 16ths (see above link).
  6. On previous two: also alternate all runs of two or more cymbal notes; always begin with RH.
  7. Fill with paradiddle inversion on runs of two or more notes. 
  8. Play backbeat; SD accent on beat 3, replacing BD if necessary. Cym rhythm stays the same. 


Practical tempo range for this is up to around 200 bpm, or the cut time equivalent.

It's kind of hard to read crammed onto one page like this, but that's not how you do it. Learn the principle, and then practice it by reading out of Syncopation. 

You can develop these using pp. 6-7, 10-11, 30-33, 34-45. Depending on how simply you or your student needs to begin. A good practice drill would be to run all the systems with p. 38, or with any single long exercise from the above pages. You could also alternate one measure groove / one measure system— groove could be an ad lib beat, or a rock or funk beat based on the book rhythm, or the backbeat system above.  

There are some different possibilities for the filler substitutions as well. 

Get the pdf

No comments: