Telecoteco-ish phrases from Syncopation

A couple of my students have been working on Allison Miller's Latin bell patterns with Syncopation idea that I posted last year, where we play some sort of constant latin groove with both feet and the left hand and then read "Syncopation Set 2", or page 38 with the right hand.  Be sure to revisit the original post if you're not sure what I'm talking about.

This got me to thinking about how I could apply this to samba and Bossa Nova drumming.  If you remember from some of the posts on samba rhythms, particularly Partido Alto or Telecoteco, the underlying rhythms in samba generally have an "up" side and a "down" side.  The phrase then goes UP, DOWN, DOWN, UP or DOWN, UP, UP, DOWN.  It suddenly struck me that if we take each bar in Syncopation and play beats 1, 2, 3, 4 and then follow it with beats 3, 4, 1, 2 we end up with a similar "up" and "down" pattern.  For example, in "Syncopation Set 2" number one looks like this:

If we play that bar as written, and then immediately follow it with beats 3, 4, 1, 2 we get this:

Now that's looking a lot like a phrase we would expect to see in samba, especially if you think of it as 16th notes in 2/4:

You can now use that rhythm the same way you would any other telecoteco rhythm.  Put it in your left hand behind a hi-hat/ride cymbal ostinato, or put it in your right hand behind a samba groove.  As always, you can reach for the "Jazz Samba Builder", or some of the Kiko Freitas samba ideas.  If a note appears in parenthesis try playing it the first time only and leaving it out each subsequent time it goes by.  It will feel even more like a true samba phrase.

Because some of the examples in Syncopation are already reversed farther down the page we would end up with a lot of repetition.  So I've gone through the four pages of "Syncopation Set 2" and written each example out as 16th notes in 2/4.  Try it out in any of the ways mentioned above.  Send me an e-mail for a PDF.

Syncopation in 3/4

Here's a sheet to go with the 3/4 ride and hi-hat patterns from the other day.  Really it's just the phrases from "Syncopation Set 2" in Ted Reed's Syncopation with beats hacked off of it.

Try each of these with different ride and hi-hat combinations from the last sheet.  If you want to go deeper, Todd Bishop at Cruise Ship Drummer! has an entire book dedicated to Syncopation in 3/4.

Latin Bell Patterns with Syncopation

Allison Miller has been posting some great practice ideas over on her Instagram page, and this one popped up the other day.  Play any common Latin Jazz rhythm with your feet and left hand, like so....

 

...and then read page 38 of Syncopation with your right hand on the ride cymbal.  As Allison points out, this really helps to free up your right hand and allow you to break away from common patterns.

This is the same general concept as the Kiko Freitas samba ideas we looked at recently where the feet and left hand play common samba rhythms and the right hand improvises in a telecoteco style.  Both of these are a really nice way to break out of the habit of thinking about ostinatos in your right hand and improvising with the left.

If page 38 is going by to quickly for you, don't forget that pages 34-37 are great to give yourself a little more time and repetition to get used to this, or any, concept.  I often do this myself and recommend it to my students as well.

As you get more comfortable, experiment with different sounds on the ride.  Play the bell, shoulder it a bit, etc.  Or, if you prefer a bit more structure in the practice room, try this....

Play everything on the bell.  But whenever there are two or more 8th notes in a row, start on the bow, and only play the last note of the group on the bell.  So the first two lines become this...

And if you have checked out Allison Miller yet, definitely do so.  Allison is a fellow WVU grad, though she finished a few years before I got there.  I've been to a few of her masterclasses, and her educational style and ideas are just as bad ass as her playing.

3, 5, 7 Applied to Triplet Systems for Syncopation

That sounds like a bit of a mouthful, but we are simply combining two different ideas we've previously looked at on this blog.

A few years ago we explored a concept implying 3/8, 5/8 and 7/8 over 4/4 to play longer, more fluid phrases that extend over the barline.  At the time we were using this idea in the context of comping.  If you haven't yet read that post, you can check it out here.  Today we're going to take that same concept and apply it to our soloing practice.  

Here, again, are the various phrases written out.  We're now going to use them with the triplet systems from the previous post, which you can check out here.  Apply all four systems from the last post to each of the examples below.  As I mentioned the first time around, resist the urge to actually count in 3, 5, or 7.  We are just using these numbers as a means to create new ideas in 4/4.

Another interpretation that we looked at last time is to add a "skip" note.  In each grouping of 3 play the first two notes instead of just the first note.  Again, try all four systems from the previous post with these ideas.

As this is a soloing concept a great place to start is by trading fours with yourself.  Each of the examples above natural resolve after an odd number of bars, so create multiple different phrases by starting on different bars and repeating back to the top.  For example:

In the 3 note grouping play measures:

• 1, 2, 3, 1
• 2, 3, 1, 2
• 3, 1, 2, 3

In the 5 note grouping play measures:

• 1, 2, 3, 4
• 2, 3, 4, 5
• 3, 4, 5, 1
• 4, 5, 1, 2
• 5, 1, 2, 3

In the 7 note grouping play measures:

• 1, 2, 3, 4
• 2, 3, 4, 5
• 3, 4, 5, 6
• 4, 5, 6, 7
• 5, 6, 7, 1
• 6, 7, 1, 2
• 7, 1, 2, 3

Triplet Systems for Syncopation

Let's look at a few classic interpretations of Ted Reed's Syncopation.  These are great on the pad as a general stick control method, and once you orchestrate them on the kit they are great for developing soloing ideas.

Most people head straight to page 37 or 38 (depending on the version of the book you have), which works perfectly fine.  It offers plenty of variety and is great for developing sight reading skills.  However, when these concepts are new to a student, I prefer to start them on page 33 or 34 (again, depending on your version) as each line is contains only a one bar rhythm that is repeated four times.

Here I've just grabbed a few examples at random for the purpose of demonstration, but you should try it from page 33 all the way through to "Exercise 8" on page 45.

For each system we're going to play triplets, and read the rhythms on the page as accents.  Notes on the downbeats are obviously accented on the downbeat, and notes on the upbeat are accented on the third partial of the triplet.  You'll never play the second partial of the triplet in any of these examples.

The first system is to simply play with alternating sticking.  Do it off the left as well as the right.

In some of the later examples you'll find three or more unaccented notes following an accent.  In this case it's fun to add in a paradiddle starting on the accent.

Next, we'll play the unaccented parts of the triplet as double strokes (RLL, RRL, LRR, LLR).  Sometimes this will cause the sticking to naturally flip to the opposite hand in each bar and sometimes it will stay on the same hand.  When it stays the same be sure to play it off the other side as well.  If you find a beat of the bar with no accents in it just play alternating sticking, as in the third example below.

Final, we'll go back to alternating sticking, but add rolls on the notes that are not accented.

Piano comping on the kit

We're often told to listen to other instruments as we can learn a lot from them.  But not many people ever say what it is we can learn from those instruments.  Well, one thing that we drummers can take from harmonic instruments like piano or guitar is comping ideas.  After all, they're acCOMPanying the soloist just as we are, so why should their rhythmic ideas be seen as any less valid than that of a drummer?  Simply put, they shouldn't, because they aren't.

Here I've transcribed Bill Charlap comping behind trumpeter Brian Lynch on the album Brian Lynch Meets Bill Charlap.  Joe Farnsworth is on drums, so there's plenty of other great material on the record for us to check out at some point, but for now we'll stick with Bill.  I've simply written out the rhythmic ideas of his comping, and what we're left with is a sheet that looks very much like a page out of The Art of Bop Drumming, but in a less exercise-y, more musical form.

We can use this sheet in many of the same ways as AoB, or Syncopation.  Here are a few.  Play a stock ride cymbal pattern, and hi-hats on 2 and 4 unless otherwise noted.

1. Play it with your left hand.  If you're new to this type of playing or independence maybe start with just two or four bars at a time.  Imagine, or write in, repeats.
2. Play the whole thing with your left hand, right foot, and left foot individually
3. Alternate notes between two or three different voices
4. Play downbeats on the bass drum, and upbeats on the snare drum
5. Any time you see two or more consecutive 8th notes play them all on the snare until you reach the last note which you then play on the bass drum
6. Play any 8th notes on the snare, and anything longer on the bass drum, or bass drum doubled in the right hand, regardless of where you are in the ride pattern
7. Improvise.  Play all the notes where they are rhythmically, but interpret the chart however you see fit.

These are, of course, just a few of the countless ways to approach this sheet, or any others like it.  Todd Bishop, over at Cruise Ship Drummer! has about a million and one different approaches to using this type of material, Robert Breithaupt has a nice list, and there are countless other sites and books offering different approaches

Very basic (but useful!) Syncopation concepts

I've been noticing lately that a number of my students - particularly some of the stronger players - have some deeply ingrained habits when it comes to stickings.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but those habits certainly can (and do) cause repetition of musical ideas, and often prevent them from expressing their ideas.

Because they are more advanced players it's easy to keep throwing advanced concepts at them as they are fun for me to teach and they enjoy learning them.  But sometimes it's important for both the student and myself to take a step back to revisit the "easy" stuff.

This is obviously not a new concept by any stretch of the imagination; as a matter of fact it's probably much the oldest one in the book.  There is now about 18 million different ways of using Ted Reed's Syncopation, but for once we're going to do what it says on the box; we're going to play the music as it's written!  But we're going to stick it a few different ways, and you might find that some feel more comfortable than others.  Or, in my case, you'll find that students who can play some really difficult music still struggle with some of these basic stickings.

Head over to your old friend, page 37, and start by playing the whole page, as written, with alternating sticking; by which we mean you change hands with each stroke no matter where in the bar it falls.

Next, play the same page with natural sticking, meaning play each stroke where it would naturally fall if your hands were playing constant 8th notes.  In the case of this rhythm it means all of the downbeats will be on one hand, and all upbeats on the other, like so...

And speaking of constant 8th notes, if you or a student are struggling with natural sticking, or even if you're not, trying filling in all of the 8th notes and treat the written rhythm like accents.

Scoff if you will, but this is something we should all revisit from time to time, and I definitely recommend getting your students to do it