If a clinic with Jojo Mayer isn’t enough to stiate your drum appetite then shortly after, on Thursday 16 October, idrums will be hosting a night of clinics featuring ‘Drum Guru’ Martin Ranscombe, Craig Blundell and Andy Edwards.
Details below:
Venue - The Square, Harlow @ 7:30pm
Tickets - £8, available thru idrums
Contact - Call the shop on or visit the website.
Below is a breakdown of Home by Michael Buble, it shows the section name and number of bars.
(If I write .5 in any section, e.g. 8.5 it means count 8x normal bars and then count just half a bar “1 + 2 +” then back to “1” again. Obviously if you’ve covered different time signatures then you know it’s just a bar of 2/4)
Section No. of Bars
Intro 4
1st Verse 8
Bridge 8.5
2nd Verse 4
Chorus 4
Inst. 4
Bridge 8.5
3rd Verse 8
Chorus 6……vocals out….
This week I’ve chosen Home by Michael Buble because recently I’ve given you some fast and rocky tracks, so this week I thought I’d choose a chilled out track! But don’t let that fool you… it’s still tricky to get right! It’s also one I’m learning on piano so I thought it appropriate.
Now this track has some bars of 2/4 in it…. But I’m just gonna use the 0.5 decimal as it’s easier!
When you play it try to be sympathetic to the style…. You should be thinking about texture and feeling rather than just smacking the right thing in the right place! It’s not about WHAT you play it’s about HOW you play it.
It’s actually harder to get right than it sounds so give it a listen first and I’ll give you the breakdown tomorrow. And please don’t just shy away from it if it isn’t your particular style. Learning to adapt to all styles with make you a stronger player so please accept the challenge!
The Art Council’s Take It Away scheme went live last July, giving musicians a chance to buy instruments with the help of an interest-free loan. And the impressive numbers of UK musicians who’ve taken them up on the offer are just in.
Anyone over 18 can apply for a loan of up to £2000 for musical instruments, and pay that back in nine monthly instalments, paying just a 10% deposit upfront.
The option is open to buy any instrument you want, as well as sheet music, stools, extra equipment and even sometimes tuition. You can find a list of participating stores online, most of which are independent music stores which, incidentally, also benefit from the offer, with over half the stores involved having increased sales of £1000 or more.
So far over £5.4m of instruments have been bought through the scheme, by 8000 people, 14% of whom bought percussion – meaning we can look forward to a slew of great new drumming talent in the years to come thanks to the scheme.
Margaret Hodge, Minister for the Arts, says: “Playing music can have a really positive impact on people’s lives, especially young people, helping to build confidence, develop creativity and most of all sheer pleasure.”
For more information on the Take It Away scheme visit the website, which features a list of participating stores, clips of musicians playing the instruments they’ve bought through the scheme, an events page and an address for you to email feedback to if you’ve been helped by the scheme
A lot of drummers find they get into ruts after a few years when learning to play, and I always say that a good way to get you out of a rut is to watch a good drummer in clinic or on DVD to inspire you or give you some new ideas. So I’ve found some DVD reviews from mike dolbear’s site for you to have a look to see if any of them might be what you’re looking for.
“Four to the Floor” is a groove (rhythm or beat) that contains a bass drum playing all the ¼ notes (i.e. the “1” “2” “3” “4”).
The snare drum pretty much always stays on the “2” and “4” like normal, and the hi hat is usually the biggest variant.
Four to the floor is very common in dance music as it maintains a constant pulse or beat for people to keep dancing to.
The most common mistake when playing four to the floor is to “flam” some of the sounds (to play them slightly out of sync). This gives and un-tidy and not really very “danceable” kinda groove!
I personally think that a good four to the floor groove is the mark of a good drummer. Any drummer that can kick a good four to the floor groove throughout a track and make the instrument sing is a very good musician and although doing something seemingly simple, deserves his dues!
We’ve all heard of an accent, but for most of us it’s something we talk in that makes us different from someone else.
An accent in the world of drums works much in the same way. An accent is an emphasis of a note, for example, playing it louder. Accents work best when accompanied by a ghost note.
A ghost note is basically the opposite of an accent. It’s something that doesn’t stand out. A ghost note is supposed to be quite, this in turn makes the accent stand out even more.
To get a real good texture one may need to work on the quality of their accents and ghost notes. My ideal is to have the accent at 80-90% vol and the ghost note between 5-15% vol when slow so that when sped up they become 70% to 25% in ratio.
It’s actually more important to work on the ghost note to get a good accent. I know that sounds counterproductive, but the accent is the easy bit, trust me!
I use this analogy for people when explaining accents and ghost notes:
A guy who’s 7ft tall, in a room full of guys who are 6ft 9 tall doesn’t really stand out all that much. But take a guy who’s 6ft and put him in a room full of dwarfs and he sticks out like a sore thumb!
It’s not about making the accent LOUD, it’s about making the ghost note quiet
A lot of drummers I teach say they try and use “tab” from the internet and ask if I recommend it. (For those of you who don’t know, “tab” is a new form of writing music that is supposed to be quick and easy to read and write.)
However – and this isn’t just my opinion on this – tab isn’t really a good way to go. Some people say it stifles the creativity of a drummer, some say it has a negative effect on the “listening” side of learning the instrument. But I just say “If it’s free it’s most likely free for a reason…… it’s not worth anything! 99.9% of the time tabs are wrong! Fair enough they might be kinda right sometimes, but if one tiny little bit is wrong and you follow it religiously ‘cos you don’t know any better then the whole thing is gonna sound nasty!
So my advice is this:
Forget tab….. work on your listening and mimicking skills and become a better drummer. Make mistakes, but make your own! Don’t copy someone else’s
Playing the drums for a rock band requires the stamina of a Premiership footballer, research suggests.
Tests on Clem Burke, the veteran Blondie drummer, revealed that 90 minutes of drumming could raise his heart rate to 190 beats a minute.
Click on the link to view a news clip about claims that some drummers have to be as fit as top athletes!
This week I’ve chosen Dude Looks Like a Lady as it’s such a classic and I haven’t heard it in a while.
It’s what I’d call a meat and potatoes kinda track…. It’s simple, but effective. It’s all you need.
It’s relatively fast, but simple enough for a beginner to be able to get to grips with.
It’s also good to work on your ¼ note, bell of the ride groove – a classic groove amongst old school rock tracks.
Here’s the breakdown…..
Section No. of Bars
Intro part 1 4 (no drums)
Intro part 2 4 (Drums in but no hi hat.)
Inst. 8
1st Verse 8
Inst 4
2nd Verse 8 (stabs with vocals “blow me a-way” in 8th bar)
Chorus 8
3rd Verse 8
Chorus 8
Mid Section 9
Guitar Solo 16
Bridge 9
Breakdown Chorus 8 (snare on “2” and “4” only)
Chorus 8
Chorus 8
Chorus 8
Chorus to fade……..
