Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Stick Control with Flams

I could pretty much just leave you with the title.  Because that's exactly what I'm suggesting: play Stick Control as flams.  At least the first few pages.

Why?  Because it incorporates all four common strokes, and is therefore a great way to practice them naturally, using a lot of muscle memory that you already have built in.  We're used to keeping grace notes low, bringing them up for primary notes, playing primary notes as downstrokes in preparation for grace notes, etc. etc.  So let's use that to our advantage.

Let's break a couple of them down as we did when we looked at how to practice flam rudiments.

For example, number one is just a single stroke roll.  That will now become hand to hand flams.  Think about what each hand will be doing individually.  The right hand starts with a primary note which will be a down stroke so that it is low and ready to play the next grace note.  That grace note will be an upstroke so you're ready for the next primary note.  Therefore our right hand will play DOWN, UP, DOWN, UP, repeatedly.  The left hand will do the same, but starting with an upstroke.

Let's skip now to number 3, which is a double stroke roll, meaning we'll play two right flams followed by two left flams.  The first stroke will be a full stroke as it is a primary note followed by another primary note.  That second primary note, however, will be a down stroke in preparation for the grace note that follows.  The grace note will be a tap since it's followed by another grace note, and the second grace note will be an up stroke to get ready to circle back around to the first primary note again.  So, in this example our right hand will play FULL, DOWN, TAP, UP.

So, as you go through each one take a moment to think about what each hand is playing.  Chances are you won't find it terribly difficult because as I mentioned earlier a lot of the motions will be built in through muscle memory anyway.  But putting your focus on it will improve your stroke control in other applications outside of flams.

No comments:

Post a Comment