[drum line cadence] Hello, everybody. James Christian again. I am here with video number
two in this short series on how to play tenor drums. In the last video, we focused
on basic around patterns, and we focused
on our playing zones and our method
of movement, which is breaking from
the elbow, not from the wrist. In this video, we're going to start
applying around patterns to some basic rudiments. With everything, as I said last time,
you should focus on playing snare drum or at least on one drum
pretty close to equal time.
As you're focusing
on moving it around, focus on your up-and-down
Y-axis sound quality. So I'm going to start on one drum,
and we're just going to cover the basic rudiments we're going
to go over in this video. The first rudiment is
the single stroke. I'm not going to go super fast
like a single stroke roll. We're just going to treat it as
moderate tempo 16th notes. So practice on just getting
each hand even. Make sure they're the same
heights and that you have a smooth sound
between the two. So here you go. Just play some straight 16th notes. [demonstration] The next rudiment is doubles. We're not going to go super
fast like a double stroke roll. But just focus on two notes
on each hand with a full sound. Here you go: [demonstration] We'll go a little faster
in a second. Before we do, I want
to point out that you don't want
the second note to drop.
A lot of players–beginning
and more experienced– tend to drop the second
note of their doubles. You want them both
to be full sounds. Think of it as the difference
between posture, like someone who's
hunched over. So they're just kind of throwing
the double at the drum– [weak doubles demonstration] Versus someone who stands up
straight, and projects themselves, and gives full sound
when they're speaking. It's the same idea here
with the doubles. Give both notes equal
volume and full sound. [confident demonstration] So here you go. Let's play
them a little bit quicker and focus on full sounds
for both notes. [demonstration] The next pattern we're going
to play is basically the same as before–
the singles that we did.
We're going to do
singles again, but now we're going to do them
in triplet form. And you need
to be able to do them with accents and
without accents. So we'll start without accents. Here you go. Here's basic triplets: [demonstration] Now try it with accents. I'm going to start them slowly. [demonstration] When you're working
on triplets, I would recommend making big motions. Make your accents big
and your non-accents– sometimes called your tap heights
or your inner beats– keep those low and
closer to the drum. Get a good contrast
between the two. As a beginning player,
I would say if you can get up to about 120 beats
per minute on the metronome, that's a pretty good
starting point.
So if you're not quite there yet,
that's a good goal to work on. So it should be about there.
[snapping tempo] [demonstration] So work on getting your
triplets up to about that speed, and you'll be in
pretty good shape. That'll be a good
starting point. The final pattern we're going
to look at–the rudiment– is paradiddles. And again, you need
to be able those with and without accents. So here you go. First one–
straight paradiddles, no accents. [demonstration] Notice again, on the double part
of the paradiddle–the diddle part– I'm not dropping
the second note. Try to keep them
as even as you can. Now add in the accents. [demonstration] Once again, I'm making
really big motions. I'm making the accents strong
and the non-accents softer, making a big distinction. Now when you're first
getting comfortable with these, it's important to train
your body to feel the motion. As you get more confident with it,
you can reduce the stick heights, and you can play softer,
and get just better control at softer dynamic levels.
So ultimately, this is what
you want to be able to do: [demonstration of dynamic levels] So you still want to have
that accent definition at the softer volumes, and be able
to take it bigger and softer, and just have control
over the full range. But when you're first
developing that, start big. It's okay. I know a lot of times,
you're probably told, "Percussion is too loud,"
or things like that. But when you're practicing
on your own to develop that muscle control and just
to feel it in your body, go big. Make it bigger,
and then just start to learn to control it
at softer levels as well. All right, that should do it for our
initial framework on one drum. Now we're going to start
moving it around the drums. So we're going
to start with singles, and we're just going to go
straight down the drums: 1234, 1234. I'll start it slowly. I'm going to start it more
about 8th notes at that tempo, and then we'll do it a little
quicker, about 16th notes or so. [slow demonstration] Faster: [faster demonstration] Once again, do not
break at the wrist.
Do not do this: [sloppy demonstration] That is SLOPPY,
and it will get you nowhere. It will always
make you sound bad. And once you start adding in
flams and rolls and all that, you won't be able
to control them. So don't get in that bad habit now. Break at the elbow, and move
down the drums that way. All right, let's do the same thing
coming up the drums now. So we're doing to start
with the left hand, and we're going to go:
4321 [slow demonstration] [faster demonstration] For our final singles
around pattern, we're going to
incorporate the spock drum.
So you're going to go straight
down and then back up. So you're going down and up
in the same exercise, and you're going
to start on the left hand. Here you go: [slow demonstration] Same thing a little quicker: [faster demonstration] Now we're going to do
the same thing with doubles. We're doing to go down
the drums: 1234. Here you go: [slow demonstration] A little bit quicker: [faster demonstration] Now we're coming up
the drums with doubles. [slow demonstration] Now faster: [faster demonstration] Finally, we're going to
incorporate the spock drum– once again going
down and then back up, starting on the left hand.
[slow demonstration] And faster: [faster demonstration] On all of these
double stroke exercises, if you feel comfortable
taking them faster and playing them as
a double stroke roll, then by all means do that, and
you'll get ahead even further. This is what those
would sound like: [demonstrations] The next pattern we're
looking at is triplets. Before we do that, I want to go
back to 16th note based singles.
And we're going to use drum #1
as our "hub," our central point, and we're going to move out
to drum #3 on every downbeat. Uh, no accents. So here you go: [slow demonstration] Now do it with accents: [slow demonstration] Notice the difference
between the two. A lot of tenor drummers get
sloppy on accents when they're moving
to another drum. They basically let the pitch change
create the effect of an accent. But there is a difference. So when there's no accent,
don't add an accent.
When there is an accent,
bring it out; make it strong. Now we're going to do the
same thing on the left side. We're going to keep drum #2
as our central hub, and you're going to move out
to drum #4 on the downbeats. So first time, no accents: [slow demonstration] Now with accents: [slow demonstration] Let's do both
a little bit quicker. Right side first: [faster demonstration] Now with accents: [faster demonstration] Now the left side: [faster demonstration] And with accents: [faster demonstration] All right, the reason we did that
was to set you up for triplets. So now we're going
to alternate them.
Before, we did just right hand
or just left hand. Now we're going
to go back and forth between the right hand
and left hand. So we're going to start with
drum #1 as your central hub. And on every downbeat, you're
going to move the right hand on beats 1 and 3
out to drum #3– and then the left hand
on beats 2 and 4 out to drum #2. So here you go,
no accents: [slow demonstration] Now add the accents in: [slow demonstration] So work that until you get
comfortable with it. And again, being able
to make the difference between accents and non-accents,
that will help you a lot. Now we're going to take
the same idea we did before with the around patterns,
and we're going to do the triplets moving from drum to drum.
We start on drum #1. It's going to be right-left-right. When you move to drum #2,
it will be left-right-left. So the hands are going
to be alternating, which one you start
on each downbeat. So here you go. Let's go down the drums. We're going to go: 1234. [slow demonstration] Now add accents: [slow demonstration] All right, let's do it a little bit
quicker on both. No accents first: [faster demonstration] Now with accents: [faster demonstration] Now we're going to go
up the drums: 4321. I'm not going to do every one
with and without accents on these next few patterns. But I would recommend pausing
the video and doing it both ways. So I'm just going to do it
without accents here. So starting on
drum #4 going up: [slow demonstration] Now a little bit quicker: [faster demonstration] Finally, we're going to do down
and up using the spock drum. So start on the left hand: [slow demonstration] And a little bit quicker: [faster demonstration] All right, our final pattern
is the single paradiddle.
Last time, with the triplets,
we used drum #1 as our hub. This time, we're going
to use drum #2 as our hub. So keep all the notes here,
except for– on the first note of each paradiddle, you're going to move out
to drums #1 and #4. So here you go,
no accents first: [slow demonstration] Now try it with accents: [slow demonstration] Now let's do both
a little bit quicker: [faster demonstrations] So now, as you can
probably guess, we're going to go
straight down the drums. So paradiddles straight down: 1234. [slow demonstration] Now add accents: [slow demonstration] Now do both a little bit quicker: [faster demonstration] Now add accents: [faster demonstration] Once again, I'm not going to do
everything with all the accents, but I would recommend pausing
and doing both ways. This time, I'm going to do it
with accents on everything. So you might practice it
without accents on these. So I'm going to go–starting on the
bottom drum, drum #4, going up: [slow demonstration] A little bit quicker: [faster demonstration] For our final exercise, we are going
to start on the spock drum– go down and back up.
I'm going to do it
with accents again. You may want to pause it
and try it without. [slow demonstration] A little faster: [faster demonstration] You'll notice on some
of these exercises, I repeated them just twice;
sometimes I did it four times. I would practice–
for first learning these– I would try to do 4 to 8 times
at least on all of them. But just however
much you need. If you've got it the first time through
and it's no big deal, then move on. If you need some extra practice,
do it 20 times or 50 times– whatever you need
to do to get it better. All right, you can take
these same patterns– and I would recommend starting
to take things you normally play on snare drum and
move them around the drums. So you could take just basic
16th note patterns like: [1 &a 2
3 &a 4 ] Things like that. You could do patterns
straight down the drums: [1e a 2
3e a 4 ] Any pattern you know–just start
doing those general around patterns, and you'll get pretty
comfortable with them.
You can also do this with
and rudiment you know. Do it with double paradiddles,
triple paradiddles, paradiddlediddles, and any
other rudiments you know– with flam taps or
anything else like that. Well, I hope this is helpful. In the next video, we're going
to start building our speed. So now you've got
basic playing zones; you've got general
movement control; and you have your basic
rudiments and around patterns. So join us next time,
and it will be a lot of fun. If this is helpful,
please "like" the video. And if you have any thoughts
on how to apply these– or you make some
videos of your own doing some of these exercises–
feel free to post links to them down below and add comments. And if you know anybody
who could benefit from this, please share it and
pass along the word. Thanks for watching, and
I will see you next time! [drum line cadence]