Hey everyone, I actually got a decent amount of e-mails off of my "How to Practice" Blog that I wrote a little while back so I figured that I would take a little time a share with you a drum exercise that I've been working on recently. I've found that it's quite helpful in building independence and just filling in your playing.
I actually stumbled upon this while learning Led Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain". When I had a hard time doing the "tradition shuffle" I decided to go into the studio and just spend a day working at it. So I started with this..
Basically I just played that for about 30 minutes to an album (even if the song was in 4/4 just make it fit and use the song as a time piece).
(playing this as 16th note triplets)
1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
R | R | L | R | R | L | R | R | L | R | R | L |
Kay, so after about 30 minutes I was feeling that this pattern had become 2nd nature so I started adding in kick.
1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
R | R | L | R | R | L | R | R | L | R | R | L | ||||
K | K | K | K |
Var2
1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
R | R | L | R | R | L | R | R | L | R | R | L | ||||
K | K | K | K |
and lastly I changed the hand pattern slightly to involve a flam tap
1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
R | R | R | R | R | R | R | R | ||||||||
L | L | L | L | L | L | L | L | ||||||||
K | K | K | K |
Finally on the kit after learning different patterns well. (Keeping time on the hi-hat in quarter notes or eighth notes)
1 | 2 | 3 |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | |||
H | H | H | H | H | H | H | H | ||||||||
s | s | s | S | s | |||||||||||
K | K | K |
The drumbeat should ALMOST feel like the "Purdie Shuffle" if you are unfamiliar
Bernard "Pretty" Purdie is a great great man.. extremely entertaining to watch.
Hope this helps some of you
Talk soon and keep practicing!
Sincerely
H