Drumming techniques- Singles

Those of you that have been reading my blog will have been getting used to me posting band reviews, and not really talking very much about drumming! well I am going to continue to write band reviews, but i feel i should also write about some of the things that I have learnt whilst playing drums, not to appoint myself as some kind of drummer guru! But maybe to share some points on playing that some people of a similar standard of playing may find helpful. Most of this is stuff that I have been taught by drum teachers before so it probably won't be new to anyone! I am going to try to make a "Drumming Techniques" post about once a week, and comments from drummers of all abilities are welcome, whether you find what I write helpful or maybe you'd like to correct me on something you don't quite agree with. Feedback is always gratefully received!.

Singles

So this week I'm going to start by looking at singles, mainly in fills. Singles are great to play around with because the movement is very natural (RLRL). I've had a lot of fun, and a lot of free time, messing around with singles and experimenting with quavers, semi quavers and sextuplets.

The first excise is really basic, but very nice in fills. A 4/4 bar of semi quavers. This exercise is good for practicing consistence and timing. Its a good idea to practice this in front of a mirror so that you can watch your hands and make sure that the sticks are hitting the drum from an equal hight to get a really nice consistent sound.



Around the Kit

This next exercise is more like a written fill. All that I have done is taken the semi quaver exercise above and moved the sticking around the kit. I've put the notes in a order that I know sounds good as an example, but you can do this is any order you like and put accents anywhere you like and it will sound good. This particular sequence has the beat accented by the snare drum witch works nicely. The best thing to do is to keep going around the kit with these semi-quavers in any order that you like and find some sequences that sound good for you.



I have also been trying out some mixes between semi quavers and quavers and found some sounds that worked well. To start I tried playing four quavers followed by eight semi-quavers on the snare drum, which is something worth practicing to a click track to improve accuracy with your strokes. I then I tested this technique around the kit. Here is some notation of a sequence that worked really well for me, and the basic snare exercise.





Lastly, I've also made some great sounding fills using semi-quavers and sextuplets. These two rudiments work really nice together, again, probably not news to most experienced drummers but it is something that is loads of fun to experiment with. Because of the notation program i use, I had to write the '6' in myself so it doesn't look that neat but its readable! the exercise starts with 8 semi quavers, before a set of sextuplets on beat 3 and then just a crotchet hit on beat 4. So here is the exercise just on the snare drum.



This is the exercise around the kit in a sequence that I actually thought of in the shower! Having tried it out on the kit i found that it sounds good, it gives the fill that quick, but tight feel, especially with the last accent being on the snare drum. It is important to get the RLRL sticking right on this exercise, and to start by practicing it slowly to get it tight before slowly increasing the tempo. This is another exercise that is really good to practice to a click track. If this fill is messing it will sound awful, but with practice and accuracy it sounds really good.



So go and have fun with these sequences! This is the first time I have ever written anything like this, so any feedback would be great. I'm always looking to improve my writing.