Natalie: Hello there drumming dudes and dudettes, welcome to the show. If you fancy learning those essential drum skills well, my goodness me, you're in the right place because right here, right now it's episode four, is it not Brian Greene?
Brian: It is indeed
N: How are we feeling so far?
B: I'm feeling very well thank you Natalie
N: Ah good
B: And you?
N: Oh, yes, I'm glad you asked me. Yeah, I'm feeling very well
B: I nearly did forget that is correct
N: Life would not be worth living for you
B: I understand
N: Our learning objectives for today?
B: Yes, today we're going to be using subs, subdivision for fills
N: Subdivisions for fills
B: Yeah, okay, well we'll get into it, I'll explain it through the learning outcomes. We're going to be developing our rhythmic understanding…
N: Mmmhmm
B: …by mixing quarter notes, eighth notes and sixteenth notes. So far we've only played them exclusively in their own bars. Once we've done that we're going to be developing control of time by using quarter notes, sixteenth notes and eighth, sorry and eighth notes
N: Developing control of time
B: Yes
N: It's like time travelling with HG Wells
B: No, it's like playing the drums using quarter notes, eighth notes and sixteenth notes, but playing them as fills around the kit. And then what we will do is we will be using this information to enable us, to help us become more familiar with reading the notation of quarter notes, eighth notes and sixteenth notes
N: Okay
B: Right, okay
N: It's a lot to get through
B: It's quite a bit to get through, and it's, you know, it's not necessarily the easiest thing to take on board so we'll plough on straight away
N: Mmmhmm
B: What we've done is we've taken very simple information, quarter notes worth a beat, eighth notes worth half a beat each, sixteenth notes worth quarter of a beat each, and we've learned to play those using a single stroke roll. Now that's, that's great and, you know, already we're up and running playing rock grooves and playing fills round the kit
N: Mmmhmm
B: And I think that's quite an achievement within three lessons
N: No absolutely, we're doing really well, and hopefully keep your practice up
B: Absolutely, but we need something that's, continually what we're going to be looking to do is provide the tools that enable people to be more creative with their playing, and to generate more excitement as they take on board all the foundation material that we're presenting them. So what we're going to do today is we're going to firstly understand how we mix rhythms up by taking our quarters, eighths and sixteenth notes and jumbling them up in bars
N: Mmmhmm
B: And then what we're going to do in the second half of the lesson is apply that as reasonably exciting fills, I think certainly very usable fills…
N: Yeah
B: …in the kit, which you can then apply to playing with your rock grooves and your music on your CDs, and hopefully by now you might be thinking about playing in bands…
N: Ooooh
B: ….with your colleagues
N: Excellent stuff
B: Great stuff. So what I'd like to do, if I may, is to dive pretty much straight away into exercise one
N: Yep
B: Exercise one here, which, let's get it up on the screen so people can see it, looks very much like a reading exercise, but the truth of the matter is it's much more than that. It helps us make this first bridge of mixing our rhythms together. So I'm just gonna go through it bar by bar…
N: Yeah
B: …with the aid of the video that we have of the exercise, and talk you through what's going on
N: Okay
B: So we've got mixtures of quarter notes and eighth notes in this exercise, we'll leave the sixteenth notes to exercise two
N: Good
B: Okay, so in the first bar here…
(Exercise starts playing)
B: …we've got two quarter notes and two eighth notes
N: Yeah
B: Into a bar of eighth notes, two quarter notes, and then two more beats of eighth notes. So there's a real mix up of rhythm
N: Yeah
B: And just listen to the rhythm it creates, rather than trying to follow the notes for the moment
(Exercise stops playing)
B: Okay? So we had, you know, when we were looking in the first lessons, we were looking at just playing one, two, three, four. Now we're developing the rhythm, take for instance our first rhythm here in this first bar, the rhythm we have here as we follow the notes and also read the count that is underneath…
N: Mmmhmm
B: …we've got a rhythm of one, two, three and, four and
N: Yeah
B: Does that make sense to you?
N: It does make sense, and we're starting off, I mean not as simple as it could be, but as simple as we could be at this point
B: Absolutely. So effectively what we've got is we've got half a bar of quarter notes, half a bar of eighth notes…
N: Mmmhmm
B: …and as we progress through the exercise I'm sort of jum...starting to jumble them up a little bit more, so that you're getting the experience of being able to play quarter notes and eighth notes
N: Mmmhmm
B: So what I'd like to do, is I'd like to play the exercise for you…
N: Yeah
B: …play along with the Xtractor software, keep me in time, perhaps record it…
N: Yeah
B: …and then see how I get on
N: Yeah, sounds good
B: Okay great stuff. Okay, so we'll get the exercise up. Now to support, to support me in the exercise I've got a bass line going…
N: Mmmhmm
B: …and a piano line going….
N: Mmmhmm
B: …as well as the snare drum pattern. Yeah? And that should keep me reasonably interested…
N: Yeah
B: …and also what is does is, you know, if I play a wrong rhythm, this will play the correct rhythm, I'll notice I've gone wrong
N: Yes
B: Yes, so it's there to support it, so it's a bit like playing a duet
N: Mmmhmm
B: Okay?
N: And we can also listen afterwards to the various different components of it, we could listen to your drumming and maybe the bass drumming that's on there, the basic drumming that's underneath it?
B: Yeah, we could listen to the snare drum pattern that's already played, or listen to, in fact, the other instruments, the piano or the bass to see where we've gone wrong perhaps
N: We're not gonna go wrong
B: We're not gonna go wrong. Let's have a look, let's have a go, I think I might even record it
N: (Laughs)
(Xtractor starts)
B: Here we go, two, three, I'm gonna read here, one, two, three and, four and, one and, two and, three and, four and, one, two, three and, four and, one, two and, three, four and, one and, two, three and, four and, one, two and, three and, four, one and, two, three and, four, one, two, three and, four
(Xtractor stops)
B: How…
N: How do you think that went?
B: Well I think, I think that was ok. Let's see what the computer says
N: Cos the computer never lies
B: Well regrettably not, I wish it would on occasions
N: (Laughs)
B: But yeah, takes a bit of concentration. You notice that we've got to the point now where I can't really remember all of the exercises, so what I'm, I'm actually reading the notes on a music stand here
N: Yeah
B: Now, you know, the way you use your materials is up to you, but generally speaking I would invariably read off music, rather than read off the screen
N: Mmmhmm. Why is that?
B: Well, it's normally more comfortable to you when you're playing, in a real life situation you're more likely to be playing from written music
N: You're not gonna be on stage…
B: Well, no..
N: …in a youth group with a computer in front of you!
B: No, unlikely
N: (Laughs)
B: So, you know, getting used to it, it's much more comfortable having it on your music stand, and that's obviously what's going to be happening more often than not…
N: Mmmhmm
B: ….in real life situations. Okay, so we've got an analysis, and not to be, well 100% which is great, which means I got it right
N: Well done
B: Okay, well there's always a first
N: (Laughs)
B: It's the first time I got that all right. But the point being is of course is that, you now, you've, if you've followed the rhythms, you've got the backing there, you know when you go wrong
N: Mmmhmm
B: The Analyser will help you recognise if you make a mistake in the rhythm. Perhaps you've misread the rhythm and then that will show up on the Analyser when you record it
N: Shall we do an example of that?
B: Well
N: Cos you're too good for your own boots, aren't you?
B: We'll, that's a…..
N: (Laughs)
B: …bit harsh, but yes I know what you're saying. Perhaps if I can make a mistake in here, and then see how…
(Xtractor starts playing)
B: …that shows up on the Analyser
N: Yeah
B: Three, four, one, two, three and, four and, one, two, three, okay third bar
N: You're making quite a few…
B: One, two…
N: …mistakes now, aren't you?
B: …three and, four and, one, two and, three, four and
N: I just hit a few…
B: Okay
N: …random drums and cymbals and stuff
B: So we'll see some, we'll see some dodgy notes there, but let's listen to it back and see what it sounds like firstly. So if we play the exercise, get rid of the proper drummer, and then you've got me
N: It just sounds wrong doesn't it?
B: Yeah, of course
N: Yeah
B: Okay, that happens, you know? And thank you for your intervention
N: (Laughs) No problem!
B: Of course what's going to happen there is that the Analyser is going to tell you, by showing varying degrees of coloured notes…
N: (Laughs)
B: …as to how you got on. So, you know, we've got some correct notes, but here we've got some wrong ones. In the second bar, this is a really nice example here, because it should have been simply eight…
N: Yes
B: …eighth notes, and what I did is I played quarter notes. So you can see that you're missing those second notes…
N: Mmmhmm
B: …on the 'and' of each time
N: Fantastic
B: Okay, so it's a useful support tool. Once you've, once you've played it through a few times you can up the tempo and see if you can keep up, literally just trying to sight-read it
N: Mmmhmm
B: Do that in, sort of, five beats per minute incremental steps so that, you know, you're still getting it right. Never play to the point where you're just falling over
N: Mmmhmm
B: And if you do make a mistake whilst reading, and this happens often, the thing to do is just keep playing…
N: Yeah
B: …don't lose your place. Keep looking at the music, and keep moving forward. There is a great propensity to go, oh I made a mistake, look back…
N: Go back
B: …the exercise carries on, or the band you're playing with, and you're just completely out of sync with them
N: Yeah, okay, exercise two
B: Yeah, let's crack on and get the sixteenth notes in play. Now basically it's the same, it's the same thing as we've just done, but this time we're introducing sixteenth notes
N: Mmmhmm
B: Shall we have a listen to it, play it, record it, analyse it, and see what's going on. Let's get the file up
(Xtractor starts playing)
B: Three, four, one, two, three and, four and, one and, two and, three e and a, four e and a, one, two, three and, four e and a, one, two e and a, three, four and, one and, two e and a, three and, four e and a, one, two e and a, three and, four e and a, one e and a, two, three e and a, four, one, two, three e and a, four
(Xtractor stops playing)
N: Very good
B: Thank you
N: Let me analyse that now
B: Well let's do so. Remember that you should also listen back to your exercises in terms of any lumpiness that you might have in the evenness of the way you're playing the exercise
N: I'm sorry, what does lumpiness mean?
B: Well, sometimes, you know, you don't strike in the same place. You're looking for even strikes, even height, even intensity of each of the strokes. So it's really important to listen back to the exercises, not just look at the analysis
N: Mmmhmm
B: Okay…
N: Ahhhh
B: …100% you'd expect so, I did write the exercise, let's be fair
N: (Laughs)
B: But, you know, if you were to listen back you might hear just a little bit of unsteadiness, and that's very important when you're playing, that you, you know, you're listening to the way you play, the sound that you create, and the be all and end all is not the reading of the exercise, it's the rhythm and the sound of the music that you create
N: Mmmhmm, and also learning from your mistakes, I would say
B: Correct, of course
N: Thank you very much. Okay, we're coming to a break now so stay with us, in a few moments time we will be back with you for part two of episode four of the essential drum skills course
N: Hi ya, welcome back to part two of episode four. Now before the break in part one we did two exercises rather well, 100% you got
B: Thank you very much
N: Yeah, well as I said you've been doing it for twenty-five years
B: Yeah, and I did write them, yes
N: Yeash okay, what will we be doing now? Which of our learning objectives have we covered?
B: Okay good, yeah we had three specific learning objectives which was to introduce the concept of rhythm by mixing quarter notes, eighth notes and sixteenth notes until they were patterns,…
N: Yeah
B: …and we had a second objective in there, out of the three where it was to help us become more familiar with the notation whilst reading. So we kind of looked at the mixing of rhythms with, and integrated it into reading. And we did a couple of snare drums studies as you may recall
N: I do remember it was only a few minutes ago!
B: Very good, that would be why then!
N: (Laughs)
B: So what we're going to do now is again apply the knowledge that we've learnt, and use some of the understanding to apply it, we're gonna put it onto the acoustic kit this time, but we're going to play grooves with these new rhythms that we've created by mixing up the quarter notes, eighth notes and sixteenth notes
N: Okay, so grooves and rhythms, the difference between them, just to clarify for me?
B: Well again it was the grooves and fills, it's the same question isn't it. What we're going to, what we're doing here is we're using these new rhythms to create fills
N: Yeah
B: So as we did in lesson three, where we introduced fills, of the fills that we used there, we just used a bar of quarter notes, and then a bar of eighth notes, and then a bar of sixteenth notes
N: Yeah
B: What we're going to do here, is play a bar a groove then play a bar of a mixture of notes, quarters, eighths, sixteenths, over the two exercises to develop the ability to play those different rhythms
N: And making it more exciting
B: It becomes progressively more interesting and more exciting, yeah, absolutely. So what I'd like to do is dive into exercise three, just after a very brief explanation
N: Alright
B: Okay?
N: Start with that explanation
B: I'll start with that explanation, so what we're going to do here, just turning as always to the trusty computer…
N: (Laughs)
B: We have a bar of time…
N: Yeah
B: …so we play a bar of groove, just, you can put any groove you like in there, but the groove I've written is the simple one that you'll remember from lesson one
N: Yeah, way back
B: Way back. And then in the second bar you'll see here that we have two quarter notes followed by four eighth notes
N: Yes
B: So the rhythm here, we've got here is one, two, three and, four and. So what we're doing here is we're taking the rhythm actually from the first bar of our first study in part one…
N: Mmmhmm
B: …and we're now appropriating those notes around the kit. So that rhythm around the kit will sound like this. So it's gonna go like this, so one, two, three and, four and. Make sense?
N: It does make sense
B: So I'll just play the first bar as groove…
N: Yeah
B: …and then I'll play that fill
N: Okay
B: Okay and then we'll start to move through the rest of the exercise…
N: Alright
B: …so we're gonna go, one, two, three, four, one, two, three and, four and
N: Once more
B: Once more?
N: Once more
B: I can't get away with anything here
N: (Laughs)
B: Here we go, one, two, three, four, one, two, three and, four and
N: I quite like that, it's a quite nice simple one to start with
B: Well absolutely, I mean most of these examples are relatively simple, but because we're mixing them up you have to be able to read them,…
N: Yes
B: …and then you have to be able to feel the pattern of eighth notes going into sixteenth notes, coming out of quarter notes, and all variations on. So we're building up a, quite a broad vocabulary
N: And we're building up a skills base too, cos it's very easy to, sort of, learn something by rote almost…
B: Yeah
N: …you know, I've got this fill, I know how to do this one…
B: Yes
N: …but you're not really reading it, you're just remembering what you've learnt
B: Yeah. Well it's good to be able to be able to play both from memory…
N: Yeah
B: …and also have the ability, for when people put music in front of you, that you understand what it says and can work it out…
N: Yeah
B: …and as you become a better and better reader, you have to spend less time working it out, and that's where you'll end up not being a reader, you become a sight-reader
N: Ahh okay
B: Which is a, quite an advanced skill
N: Like reading books, literally language
B: It is like reading books, literally just being able to just look at a word and take it all in at once, or a whole sentence, you know, you can scan it really quickly…
N: Mmmhmm
B: …you're not looking at the individual letters, you're looking at the shape, and that's what you do with sight-reading. But that's moving on quite a bit from where we are at the moment. At the moment what I want is, the students and viewers to get used to is, the different notes, what they look like, and what they sound like when they're placed in different combinations
N: Mmmhmm
B: Okay, so let's have a go at this exercise
N: Yeah
B: Play along with the Xtractor file as always to give me a bit of support and backing…
N: Mmmhmm
B: …so I know when I'm going, when I'm getting it right…
N: Yes
B: …and I also know when I'm getting it wrong
N: And we know when you're getting it right and when you're getting it wrong
B: Well that's the worrying feature!
N: (Laughs)
B: I'm gonna use the music stand again to read from
N: Yeah, that you've printed off the notes from there
B: Yes, precisely, and hopefully I'll be able to see them from where I am here, and follow them accurately. Here we go, bars count in…
(Xtractor starts playing)
B: …two, three, four…three, four, one, two, three and, four and, one, two, three, four, one and, two and, three and, four and…three, four, one, two, three and, four and, one, two, three, four, one, two and, three, four and, one, two, three, four, one and, two, three and, four and, one, two, three, four, one, two and, three and, four, one, two, three, four, one and, two, three and, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three and, four
(Xtractor stops playing)
B: We made it
N: We did. You got there
B: Absolutely. So, okay for me, relatively simple, I wrote the exercise, I've played it before, I know what's going on. You know, quite involved for a new student, so what I would suggest they do is that when you're playing these exercises is that you, you look at a bar of groove and the fill, then you look at another bar of groove and look the fill, and kind of learn them…
N: Mmmhmm
B: …that's absolutely fine. Understand the rhythms and then go to play them
N: Yeah
B: One thing I'd like to just talk about briefly, is about the way you play the stickings around the kit, and we'll talk about stickings…
N: This stickings?
B: Yeah, where you put your hands
N: Right
B: The order of your hands. Now I follow the single stroke roll pattern, the vast majority of the time, and what I tend to say to the students it what you should be doing is, when you're playing on the beat that should be with your lead hand, your right hand for most of us
N: Oh really, okay
B: So if we were to take, for instance, one of these bars of music here, I'm gonna look at this bar here…
N: Mmmhmm
B: …okay? The sticking, you might think, if you were playing a single stroke roll would go, right, left, right, left, right, left, so…
N: In order, yeah
B: In order. But the way I actually play is right, right, left, right, right, left
N: Ahh
B: Which means that you don't find yourself on the wrong drum…
N: Mmmhmm
B: …when you're moving round the kit. So I'll just briefly demonstrate that around the kit here. So the rhythm we've got is one, two and, three, four and…
N: Yeah
B: …so to make sure that you move smoothly, one, two and, three, four and. Does that make sense to you?
N: It does, but I mean obviously if you hit it with the wrong stick…
B: Yeah
N: …you're not doing it wrong…
B: No
N: …you're just making it hard for yourself
B: You may be making it hard for yourself…
N: Oh
B: …absolutely right
N: Okay
B: So it's always good to start the beat, I feel it's always good to start the beat on the right hand, on the lead hand
N: A handy tip there from Brian Greene
B: There you go, becomes…
N: Exercise four…
B: Yes
N: …come on!
B: Exercise four…
N: (Laughs)
B: …becomes all the more important when you get into sixteenth notes, you've got less time to think. So let's do exercise four
N: Yeah
B: All we're doing here is exactly the same thing again, so we'll rattle through it to some extent. If you've got the lesson notes at home you'll be able to take much more time over it. We're gonna go through by loading up the Xtractor file as normal, let's put the correct one in
N: There it is
B: And then I'll play along with it to keep my timing, again listening out for when I make, you know, small timing errors or…
N: Mmmhmm
B: …rhythmic errors. See what it sounds like, you know, quite nice fills at this relatively early level
N: Mmmhmm
B: Here we go
(Xtractor starts)
B: Three, four…three, four, one, two, three and, four and. Try and follow my hands as they go round in terms of sticking, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left. Watch this one particularly, one, two, three and, four e and a…two, three, four, right, right, right, right, left. So on the beat, one and, two e and a, three and, four e and a, one, two, three, four, one, two e and a, three and, four e and a, one, two, three, four, one e and a, two, three e and a, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three e and a, four
(Xtractor stops playing)
N: Would you say that one's trickier than the first one?
B: Yeah, a little bit trickier…
N: (Laughs)
B: …because you have a little bit of less time. I used a different hand on the last bar because I had plenty of time and I went right, left. Doesn't matter if you've got the time, but it may trip you up if you're playing really quickly
N: Mmmhmm
B: The…just one last tip there, when you're playing, don't wait for the next note before you move to the drum. So if you're going one…move a bit earlier so you're over the drum in time to play, so one, two, three and, four and. So always be moving around, keeps the flow going from your playing
N: Mmmhmm and also preparation. You're there, you're ready…
B: Exactly
N: …you're not panicking when it comes to hitting that note
B: Preparation, movements and motions are very much a part of advanced technique and very important for beginners and developing players to get into their, into their system
N: And that's what we're all about. It's time for the play-out
B: Oh no!
N: It is, the music's coming, I hear it
B: I'll try my best
N: I hear it, there it is!
B: There we go
N: I wanna know how you're gonna fit this in there
B: I'll do a few of them
N: I look forward to it
B: Thank you
N: Guys that is then end of episode four, join us again for episode five, and keep listening to find out how you can get hold of your Giga…Gigajam course notes