Hi I'm Brad Allen from
bradallendrums.com. Today we're going to talk about two brush beats. I call these two
essential beats. These are beats especially that all jazz drummers should
know. You can apply these other styles as wel.l I'll kind of leave that up to your
judgment the reason I call these two essential beats is because they can be
used for so many different things the first one I'm going to show you is going
to be for playing slower tempo tempos ballads up to maybe a kind of slow
medium and the second is going to be for medium tempos up to faster tempos and
you can use these in all different time signatures and so again they are very
versatile they're pretty easy to learn and I believe that most drummers
actually play kind of a variation of these two beats and so it's important
for you to learn these I mentioned in my blog one time I asked for a brush lesson
from a drummer his name is his name was Tommy Ruskin and he was one of the best
jazz players in the Kansas City area and basically when I asked him to give me a
brush lesson he gave me a five-minute lesson and said you know these are the
only two beats I use and this is what I was already using so ultimately it's not
necessarily the beach you play it's what you actually do with those beats that
kind of defines your style but anyway we're going to get you started here with
these two today so the first one I'm going to demonstrate here is going to be
again for playing ballads or slower beats so zoom in here just a minute
alright so the first brush Pete we're going to talk about some band leaders
refer to this is stirring the soup and so basically you want to create circles
on the drums and coordination why is the best way to do this is think of it like
your I guess doing what the breast stroke and what that's called you swim
both arms are going out an outward motion so basically this is doing a
counter or excuse me a clockwise motion this is
doing a counterclockwise motion you can practice them individually so here's the
right hand going clockwise motion you can picture a circle on the head and the
important thing is that they hit or they they arrive at the same spot on the head
every time like 1 2 3 4 1 that way you get that pulse you do the same thing
with the left hand 134 and basically you can get more emphasis depending on the
angle of the brush so if I want a little more emphasis 13 the work it's pretty
easy to put them together I'm really 341 so that's 44 time I can do it in three I
could do it in whatever one two three one two maybe I could do it in 57 it
doesn't matter one-two-three-four-five one-two-three-four-five when the next
thing is you can start getting different articulations out of each brush for
instance one two three four one not two so they're still moving and basically
the same motion just this motion right here and it's important to keep a pulse
that way the band has something to listen to some to play off so that's basically it if you want a
little more emphasis a little more volume you can kind of pick the brushes
up sometimes you need more volume then you can put your high hat on two and
four you can articulate with the bass drum that's pretty much it for that one
okay so the second bead as I mentioned is used for playing medium tempos were
faster tempos and one thing I want to say about this particular beat and brush
beats in general it sounds a lot different if you turn the snares on
versus train the snares off some people like the snares on and some people don't
it just depends on the sound you won the other thing I wanted to mention is just
your general way of playing brushes there are some drummers and some
teachers or big believers in plane into the drum all the time everything is on
the drum you want to muffle everything when I asked that drummer I mentioned
earlier Tom you're asking about playing with brushes that's basically he did he
turned his snares off and he played into the drum he never let the drum ring he
didn't like that sound and so for a long long time I sort of took that as gospel
because I liked his plane so much and then a few years back I watched an
instructional video with one of my favorite drummers Joe Morello and he
said the complete opposite he said he liked to let the let the drum ring you
like to play off the head he liked that sound better and I think Joe if i'm not
mistaken frequently played with brushes with the snares on so it just depends on
the sound you want you can experiment with both and listen to different
players you know ultimately that that has to do with style the most important
thing is that you play something musical that the band can follow if you do that
then most people will be happy with your point so anyway with all that mine next
thing I'm going to do is I'm going to straight the second brush beat so we're
going to zoom in here again so get a good close-up okay so here's the second
brush beat this is used more for medium tempos a little bit faster tempos the
first thing is for this one you start with the brushes on the opposite sides
of the head and basically they're going to keep crossing back and forth like
this if I was to play quarter notes if you like this one two three four one two
three rolled it a little slower one two three four one two three once you master
that you can put your high hat on two and four with that that's your basic
beat now to make this a swing beat you can just change the right hand a little
bit 1 2 3 4 0 1 2 3 4 01 there's lots of variations drummers do different things
on this the left hand so just move them back and forth can also move like in a
big old circle like this the same thing basically how you go faster that's it pretty much then you can learn
to improvise with it by modifying different things like this so those are
the two beats there's a couple of other things I want to mention while I'm
thinking about it it makes a big difference the types of heads you use on
your drums when you're playing with brushes you want something that has some
abrasion to it so that when you rub the stick to the head and get some sound so
there's coated heads I think Remo still makes the fiber skin which are similar
to the old cat skinheads so there's different things you can investigate but
playing for instance if you have a remote pinstripe on a snare drum and
you're trying to play with brushes on that it's not going to give you the
sound you're looking for so those are some different things you have to be
aware of the other thing is to get the same sound that most of these drummers
get you want wire brushes they also make him a nylon but that's not going to give
you quite the same sound these are not as durable so you really have to be
careful with them but the wire brush is usually will give you more of that
traditional authentic sound so hope these tips have been helpful i hope you
find find these beats helpful if you've enjoyed this video please subscribe to
the channel and also take the time to light the video i have more lessons at
brad allen drums com thank you very much
