Carlock is playing the new Brooklyn series of Gretsch Drums and has a new Signature model stick from Vic Firth.

This idea comes from checking out Steve Gadd on “Samba Song,” from Chick Corea’s “Friends” album. It’s a fantastic example of how you can take patterns you already know and manipulate them to create great sounding drum grooves or licks.

First off, what do we mean by a “reverse” paradiddle? I think of a reverse or backwards paradiddle as the pattern that results from starting in the middle of the paradiddle pattern. Starting with the single paradiddle sticking: RLRR LRLL, we reverse it by playing it as the following: RRLR LLRL. You can also start the “backwards” or “reverse” pattern with your left hand, like this: LLRL RRLR.

To apply this idea to a samba, simply play the reverse paradiddle with your right hand on the hi hat and left hand on the snare, and play the samba bass drum pattern with your bass drum foot beneath it. When playing with my right hand on the hi hat, I choose to omit the left foot part of the standard samba feet pattern (the “ands” when thinking in sixteenth notes, or “two” and “four” when thinking in eighth notes). No left foot necessary. I just like the way it sounds better this way.

If you move your right hand to the ride cymbal, you might consider adding the left foot back into the mix.

Check out the PDF, which lays out a bunch of exercises for you to try.

Here’s the PDF: 10 Exercises To Develop The Reverse Paradiddle Samba

The key to making this sound really cool is to move the accents around with your left hand on the snare. Make sure that the unaccented notes are played very quietly and you’ll have a smoking samba that sounds much harder to play than it is….

Take a page of beat exercises you’ve been working on….good examples would be The first page of the eighth note beats in “The Funky Primer” or the first page of beats in “The Mini Monster Book of Rock Drumming.”

Before you can play the game, you must have spent a good amount of time working on each exercise on the page….make sure you can play each exercise. If you are still struggling with the mechanics of each exercise, you are not ready for the game.

The idea is to play each exercise multiple times, and then, without stopping, go to the next one, and play that one multiple times. Continue this until you go from the first exercise on the page to the last. If you can do this, without stopping, you win.

The rules:

1) You win the game by getting to the end of the page.
2) No stopping.
3) Pick a tempo and stick to it.
4) Play each exercise multiple times before going on to the next one.
5) No mistakes.
6) If you stop, or make a mistake, you have to go back five exercises. (if you mess up on exercise #7, you have to go back to #2)

Two other versions of the game
1) Go backward, from the last exercise to the first
2) Go forward AND backward: from the first to the last, and then from the last to the first.

At first try to play the game without a metronome…..when you can play the game successfully without a metronome, start using one to add a level of difficulty.

This game will solidify your ability to play the beats you’ve been working on, and force you to practice a lot. Plus….it will be fun.

The “low hanging fruit” of the eights is the 7th one. It is considerably less dense than anything else he plays during the performance. But for me, it is proof of the notion that one can play simple but appropriate vocabulary when soloing and sound amazing doing so. I love this break so much that I memorized the entire eight shortly after stumbling on the video. The 7th Eight can be found at 2:10 in the video, which is embedded below. Check it out.

The transcription is here: tony williams awesome footage eights number 7

It truly is sublime–reminiscent of the solo Tony took on the studio version of “7 Steps To Heaven.” Not fancy, but pure jazz drumming language through and though. One of the only Tony Williams solos that could be called easy; yet it sounds amazing. Hope you like it. And yes, I’m working on the rest of it too.

Here’s the Video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

At first, I did not believe it. I thought it was some sort of April Fool’s joke. But I checked out Ludwig’s Facebook page and they posted a photo of Vinnie playing Ludwig drums (see photo, above left) with the caption, “welcome home.” Then I went to Vinnie’s website and looked at the link section. The Ludwig and Paiste logos are displayed on that page (see the link here: Vinnie’s Website: Links Page)

Looks pretty legitimate to me. Huge business move for Ludwig and Paiste. Exciting change.

The Topic: Heel-Up Doubles

Recently, I’ve been working with a lot of students on a heel-up technique for playing two notes in a row–quickly–with a single bass drum pedal. This technique is an essential skill and will enable you to play a lot of great grooves as well as fills that incorporate the bass drum. In this post, I’ll address this technique in three ways, 1) describing the mechanics of the technique I recommend, 2) showing you a video of how this technique looks (courtesy of a great Dave Weckl video), and 3) providing you with a written exercise sheet (the PDF,”9 Exercises To Build Bass Drum Double Strokes”), that you can print out and use to give some structure to how you practice developing the technique.

Please note that this is a heel-up technique. For quiet double strokes with the bass drum (ie for jazz or any other time when quieter playing is required) a heel-down method is preferable, but that is not addressed in this article.

The Technique: Some Call It “The Slide”

The technique I use to achieve this (there are several ways) has been referred to as “The Slide,” but I prefer to think of it as the “Rocking Technique” or as the “Front-Back Technique.”

Front-Back refers to the mechanics of the motion, which require one to push down with the
front of the ball of the foot, followed by the second stroke created by rocking the foot backwards and then pushing through the back of the ball of the foot. At fast tempos, the foot does actually “Slide” up the foot board. However, the essence of the technique comes from the “Rocking” or “Front-Back” motion, and that the “Slide” is a RESULT of those motions. This is why I don’t really like to call the technique “The Slide”—the implication is that sliding is the essence of the motion, and it is not. Sliding is a result of the correct motion, not the cause of it.

The Mechanics in Words

Let me describe the mechanics in more detail, and then we’ll have a look at how Dave Weckl does it on video. In heel up technique, the ball of the foot remains on the pedal board, and I like to have my foot situated down the pedal board (ie. towards me) a bit. The toes are not pushed all the up the pedal so that they are almost touching the head of the drum. On modern DW pedals, one way to look at this is that the toes are located just at the bottom edge of the DW logo.

Here are the mechanics. I lift my heel up by engaging my thigh muscles. The front of my foot stays on the pedal. I push down through the front of the ball of my foot to get the first stroke and let the beater bounce off of the bass drum head. As the beater is coming back towards me, I rock my foot back, in a scooping kind of motion, so that my heel is now moving down towards the pedal, and the back of the ball of foot now pushes through to get me another bass drum stroke. When I get up to faster tempos doing this, the foot slides up the pedal as a result of the front-back/rocking motion.

The Mechanics on Video

Clearly, the way to really understand this is to have a look. I’ve looked around on the web, and through my video collection, and this Dave Weckl clip shows the motion pretty close to the way I do it. The only thing I don’t like is that Dave never slows it down so we can dissect the details of how it works slowly. It’s from an ’80s release, “Back To Basics.” This clip includes a lot of information about Dave’s approach to bass drum technique, but for us, of particular interest is his take on doubles with his bass drum foot. This part of the video begins at 4:38.

Dave explains it differently than I do, but I hope that the combination of his video and explanation and my explanation will help you get to a place where you can execute this technique. The way I’ve been explaining this to my students (front of the ball of the foot/back of the ball of the foot) seems to work for them and hopefully it will work for you as well. Here’s the video…Have a look.

How To Practice This Technique

Before you open up the PDF, “9 Exercises,” let’s talk about some ways you can structure your practice to focus on mastering this technique. You can play any beat that you like that has two bass drum notes right next to each other and try to apply this technique to those patterns. But before even trying that, you might simply put down your sticks and try to maneuver through the foot technique with no music in mind, no patterns in mind, nothing but the technique itself. Work on it in isolation until it starts to feel right. Then, once you think you have a handle on the physicality of the movements, then and only then, you should start on some applications, and these exercises could be among them.

Finally, The Exercise Worksheet: “9 Exercises to Build Bass Drum Double Strokes”

Here is the PDF: 9 exercises to build bass drum double strokes

Have at it. Comments, sharing and discussion are welcomed.

A Great Lick, Courtesy of A Great Rock Drummer, Eric Singer

Presenting Nasty Lick #39

VIDEO

Another Drumming Related Obsession

PUMA H-Street Running Drumming Shoes

• very light-weight
  
• extremely flexible
  
• very thin and flexible soles
  
• look cool
  

In a pinch, I am OK with wearing Converse All Stars, but nothing beats these sneakers for overall comfort and lightness. I like to be able to “feel” the pedal beneath my feet and these shoes allow that. The body of the sneaker is made of mesh, which allows for complete freedom of movement and flexibility of one’s feet with no restrictions. If you can’t find these look for other light weight track style shoes, but these are highly recommended.

Plus, they come in a large variety of color combinations (I am partial to the black/silver version shown in the photo), and they just plain look cool.

Time To Get Inspired

Remember when you first heard a drummer play clave with their left foot while soloing or grooving? Did it inspire you? When is the last time you heard something truly inspirational since then?

Last year, at a George Coleman Concert at The Jazz Standard in NYC, I heard Daniel Sadownick, a fantastic percussionist, play clave with his left foot while taking a great conga solo. After the show, feeling inspired, I went to talk with him. I told Daniel that his solo was amazing and asked how long it took him to get that skill together. The gist of his response was that it took a ridiculously long time.

That’s what it takes if you want to become extraordinarily good at your instrument. It takes hours and hours and hours. And then it takes more hours after that.

But the results can be remarkable. I thought that Sadownick’s solo was incredible. And guess what? Not only does he get gigs with jazz artists, but he gets the call to go on tour with Taylor Swift.

I think that part of the reason he gets to do this breadth of gigs is because his dedication to lifting his ability to great heights is almost unlimited.

What Will Your Innovation Be?

So, I ask you to start thinking big. Think “big picture” about your playing. What can you do that nobody else has done? No idea is off-limits. Is it a way to incorporate electronics into your playing? Is there some other rhythm that you want to be able to play with one limb independently of your other appendages? What if you could rival Buddy Rich’s technique but apply it as a rock drummer instead of a jazz drummer?

Come up with your own ideas. Personally, you may not be ready to start working on these big sweeping concepts yet. Perhaps you still need to get your hand technique together. But it can’t hurt to start thinking about what you might do later…

Remember that you can do anything you put your mind to if you are willing to work hard enough and get the proper guidance. I mean that. Every expert was once a beginner, including every great drummer you’ve ever seen and heard. So with this is mind…I ask you…

What Is The Next Left Foot Clave?

A Slightly Different Approach

By the way, why don’t you open up the worksheet and print it out now by clicking on the following link: Hi Hat Control Part Two

By the end of the worksheet, we start to change things up a bunch, just to keep it interesting.

The Closed Note

It’s OK to “lean into it,” BUT…