Drum Lesson 5 - Alternating Patterns Part 1

Hello my fellow drummers and musicians out there! It has been several weeks since my last post and like everyone else, I have been a busy person. For this lesson, which occurred on 4/17/2013 with my instructor Jack I. Hall at the Willis Music Store on Hurstbourne Lane here in Louisville Ky. Today's lesson focused on Alternating single strokes applied to the drum kit utilizing the kick drum, hi-hat and snare drum.

Here's the objectives: To use both hands on the hi-hat playing alternating strokes with the left and right hand's and second work on the coordination between the left hand and the right-foot; this not natural in our day-to-day life.

Let's get to it! The first measure below is mostly straight forward, all measures will be sub-divided (meaning two sets of notes repeats itself), sixteenth notes on the hit-hat, kick drum on the count of one and snare drum on the count of 2 and 4. Notice that on the count of 2 and 4, you have to drop you your right hand down to play the snare. In order to accomplish this a sticking pattern on the hi-hat needs to be applied: R, L, R, L.  The reason for this is sticks don't get crossed up and gives time for us to get the right stick back in position to play the next beat on the hit-hat.  This is very important! 

Alternating Patterns Part 1 - Measure 1

Notes: Each of the measures will build upon this set of notes for the remainder of the lesson. Also, if you don't know how to count sixteenth notes or need a refresher check my lesson out here on musical theory!

The second measure below, sixteenth notes on the hat, an additional kick drum is added on the count of the &'s of each set of notes (& of 1, & of 2, & of 3 and & of 4).

Alternating Patterns Part 1 - Measure 2

The third measure below, sixteenth notes on the hat, an additional sixteenth note kick drum is added on the count the a of 1 and a of 3.

Alternating Patterns Part 1 - Measure 3

The fourth measure, well remember what I said above about the left hand and right-foot coordination, well here it is. We have sixteenth notes on the hat as previous, the kick drum that was on the & count of 2 and 4 is moved to the e of 2 and e of 4. This means that the left hand will play the hi-hat and the right-foot will play the kick drum. Again, take this slow to work on the technique and the increase your speed when you are comfortable with being able to complete the measure several times through.

Alternating Patterns Part 1 - Measure 4

The fifth measure continues with sixteenth notes on the hat, that awkwardness of the left hand hitting the beat on the hat and the right-foot with the kick drum along with an extra kick drum being placed on the & of 2 and & of 4.

Alternating Patterns Part 1 - Measure 5

The final measure moves the kick drum again, this time is lands on the a of 2 and the a or 4. This means that you have a double kick moving from the count of a of 2 to 3 and from a of 4 to 1. For some reason, this measure gave me the most trouble due double kick on a of 2 to 3 and a of 4 to 1.

Alternating Patterns Part 1 - Measure 6

That is it for the fifth lesson, as you can see from the above, this is some good material that can be added to you practice work that will really get you going with alternating singles on the hi-hat, snare and bass drum and will work on the coordination between your left hand and right-foot. Remember, when practicing, start at a slowly, use a metronome and be patient. Happy Drumming to all and if you have any questions, drop me a message or email!

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Drum Lesson 4 - Part 1 : Dotted Notes

Wednesday April 3rd, 2013

  The start of April, and Spring is slowly setting in here in Kentucky.  I just had my forth lesson with my instructor Jack I. Hall.  He and I jumped right in at his studio at the Hurstbourne Willis Music Store here in Louisville Ky.  We started out with a review of the material covered in the last lesson (See Drum Lesson 3 - Intro to Paradiddles with Exercises).  I explained to him how I had trouble with a couple of the exercises which included ones where I had to hit the snare drum and the kick drum at the same time.  He had me pull out the sheet music from the previous week and play the last three measures.  We spent a few minutes on this, but then we went into the first part of today's lesson, dotted notes.

Dotted Notes

What are dotted note and are they used?

  Dotted notes are essentially a way to represent a time signature for a note that makes it easier to write on sheet music.  If you go out to the internet and do a search for Dotted notes, you will come up with endless explanations of what they are, what they represent, etc. I told my instructor that I really didn't know what they where, since I really have not encountered that many of them in the sheet music that I have been using.

  Jack pulled out his standard yellow sheets of paper and wrote Dotted Notes at the top of the page for a header. The definition that he included is:

  Take the value of the note with the dot and add 1/2 of the value to the note with the dot.

  Hmm...note much of a definition I thought and so he said himself, but really means the note that is represented with the dot, is just the note value plus a half; or one and a half times.

  So, examples?  Sure, what instructor would not include examples.  So take a look at the example image below, basic sixteenth notes on the hi-hat and a kick drum on the 1 and the a (first and last note).

  Notice how there are sixteenth note rest that appear in the bass drum line in indicate that we should not play the bass drum on the e and & (second and third notes).  In comes the dotted note to the rescue, if we replace the first sixteenth note with a dotted eighth note it would indicate that we have a dotted note which would increase the value of the sixteenth note by have its value.  Half of the value of a sixteenth note would be and eight note.  This means that the first note will take up the first three notes of the sixteenth notes and the next note would be the last sixteenth note.  Lets take a look at how it would be written by looking at the example below:

  Again, this is a set of sixteenth notes on the hi-hat (first line), no snare drum (second  line) and bass drum (third line) on the 1 and a (first and last notes). The thing that you should notice is that it looks cleaner than the previous example in that the rest are not being displayed.

Below I break down the dotted half, quarter and eighth notes to provide further examples in hopes to help everyone to better understand.

Dotted Half Notes

  As you can see, the first note is a dotted half note and takes up three note values.  A normal half note would take up two notes.  Again, counting in sixteenth notes (as discussed in my first lesson, 1, e, &, a, 2, e, &, a, etc), we would play the snare and bass drum on the count of 1, bass drum on the count of 2, bass drum on the count of 3 and snare and bass drum on the count of 4. Remember to count the e, &, a for all counts, they are just note played; same as having rests.

  The second measure in the above image starts off with snare and bass drum on the count of 1, dotted half note for the snare and quarter note for the bass drum on the count of 2, and bass drums on the counts of 3 and 4.

  The third measure in the above image starts off with only bass drum on the count of 1 and 2.  the count of 3 has the dotted half note on the snare and and quarter note for the bass drum.  The count of 4 only has a quarter note for the bass drum.

  To summarize, the dotted half note represents itself and takes up two other quarter notes.

Dotted Quarter Notes

  The above image has quarters notes and noted quarter notes.  The first measure count of 1 consists of a dotted quarter note on the snare drum and a quarter note on the bass drum.  The count of 2 has a quarter  note for the bass drum and a snare drum on the & of 2.  The count of 3 has a snare and bass drum as does the count of 4.

  The second measure count of 1 and 2 have a snare and bass drum with the snare of the 2 count being a dotted quarter note.  The count of 3 has a bass drum and the snare drum on the & of 3 (3, e, &, a).  The count of four has a snare and bass drum combo.

  The third measure starts off with the snare and bass drum on 1 and 2 counts then a dotted quarter note of 3 along with a bass drum quarter note.  The count of 4 has bass drum on the followed by a snare quarter note on the &.

  To summarize, the dotted quarter note represents itself and two more positions or two and a half quarter notes.

Dotted Eighth Notes

  Finally the dotted eighth notes.  The first measure count of one has a dotted snare eighth note and an eighth note on the bass drum along with a sixteenth note on the a.  The count of 2, 3 and 4 are the same having an eighth note for the snare and bass drum on 2, 3, and 4 and a snare drum on the & count.

  The second measure again is the same as the first except that we move the dotted note to the count of 2 and play a sixteenth note on the a.

  The third measure moves the dotted note to the three set of eighth notes and a sixteenth note is played on the a.

  To summarize the dotted eighth note, it represents itself and takes up three eighth note positions.

Conclusion

  This lesson covered what dotted notes are, why they are used and examples to support the use of these.   I also took it a step further and included a break down of the dotted half, quarter and eighth notes and examples to help clarify their use.  I hope that you were able to take something away from this lesson and will be able to apply it to what you are working on.  Off to the kit, I have plenty of practice to get in before my next lesson along with having to develop the second part of this lesson that will cover setting up to your kit. Also, I included a link to a good resource for the dotted notes just in case you need further examples.  Like always, you can leave me a comment or send me a message from the contact me link above and I will get back with you within 24 hours.

Resources

Enable Drums Website : Dotted and Tied Notes

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