rhythm it's inside of you and today John Rudolph
percussionist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra is going to teach you how to take the rhythm
that's inside of you it's your heartbeat and take that rhythm and put it outside into a drum so that
everybody can hear it by the end of this lesson today you're going to know how to hold the drum
he's going to teach you how to play it properly he's going to teach you how to make different
sounds on the drum he's going to teach you so many different rhythms you can start having fun
today what you're going to have to do is stop the video at certain moments and pause and practice
the things that he's doing so you get the rhythms that you're seeing on the screen internally into
your body so you can feel them do them with your eyes closed almost do them in your sleep and
if you can do that if you're patient you pause that video and stop when you need to by the end of
this lesson you'll be able to play along with some of your favourite bands some of your favourite
music for sure for sure you're joining hundreds of students they're on the same journey all starting
today if you have questions about anything please contact us at schoolconcerts@TSO.CA that's
schoolconcerts@TSO.CA we'll be sure to get back to you all right have fun with John Rudolph in
your drumming lesson and keep the rhythm going hi everyone I'm John welcome to my basement
percussion studio where today we're going to talk about hand drums I love playing
percussion I love exploring new sounds finding new instruments and learning new techniques for
me one of those new techniques was the hand drums my lessons when I was a young student started
on the snare drum later on the drum set moving to the mallet instruments like this marimba
and the timpani or the kettle drums hand drums they weren't something I really focused on and
I had to learn from the beginning so that's how I'm coming to you today I'm going to show
you talk to you about my experience learning hand drums as a beginner I'm going to start on
this drum it's a conga drum has a single head played with the hands so that's different than
playing the snare drum with sticks or the marimba with mallets we get to use our hands it's a
fun experience actually touching our instrument start by just alternating strokes I'm letting this part of my hand contact the
rim of the drum the fingers just bounce off and those are called open tones
I'm trying to stay relaxed trying to breathe and let my hands come
off the head using my arm like this now if I move to the centre of the drum
I get a little different kind of sound those are called bass or closed strokes a third kind of stroke is called the touch
stroke it's kind of like the open stroke just softer a fourth kind of stroke is the slap we'll
curve our hands a little bit like that find a place on the drum where you can kind of
get a little higher sound like that don't slap too hard just by curving your hand and leaving
it remain on the head will change the sound okay so we have our strokes let's
try and organize them into a rhythm one of the great rhythms in
many styles all over the world is called the clave rhythm you may be
familiar with that it goes like this we are going to focus on the first part of that
beat one and two and three and four one and two and three and four one you can start by just
clapping it one and three and four and one putting it on the conga or whatever drum you
have start by alternating hands so the first accent will be with my right one and two
then the left and three and four one and now you can move around the head a little bit
maybe I'll leave my left hand in the centre what gives it a nice groove is
if you emphasize four and one so going a little faster so you can hear the different possibilities okay
now I'm sure as a drummer you are familiar with double strokes we can use those on the conga
as well in fact we can make a little rhythm out of it starting with your left left
left right right left left right right so if we think one and two and
three and four and move to the open and maybe the first right hand
stroke you can try to slap and that that's a rhythm you can use you can use
it in the jazz band it's easy to swing that rhythm something else I'm sure you are
familiar with are the paradiddles right left right right left right left
left you can use those on the conga drum okay now let's take some of those double strokes
and put them in our clave rhythm first step is to play all the accents with your right
hand you remember our rhythm goes like this and I would start by isolating
the hands which is a good idea on any percussion instrument no
matter what you're trying to learn so I'm playing my left hand down here on my leg I'll do the same thing putting my right hand
down here and letting you hear the left hand putting it together on the
drum I'll go a little slower now let's move around the drum a little bit so let's start maybe we'll start with
four and those will be our open strokes like that and again I'm trying to slap
that second accented note maybe I'll move my left hand a little bit toward
the centre let's hear what that sounds like so as I said a great idea is to find a song with
a comfortable tempo that you can play along with you can always use your metronome I'm going to go to 80 to the beat to
the quarter note and play eighth notes I'm gonna go a little faster
I might slow down this is 60 and I'll play 16th notes so I'll slow the
tempo down but I'll play double time which is 16.
The great thing about this rhythm
is it's universal it will work in many styles on many different drums I'll
tell you one more subtle technique that conga players use some people call it
the heel toe technique and that's where you use that part of your hand
followed by your fingertips like that and that's again you can find
instructional videos on youtube if we were going to add it to the clave rhythm I would try
and do it in the middle of that so I'll start one you can also play triplets like that to get comfortable with it okay
so as far as moving it to different styles this is an African drum called a djembe
actually this one was made in New Brunswick but the design is African this has a rather low sound I need to tighten the head and I actually need to replace it
I don't know if you can see I broke it I've got some tape on the side but the
drum still works it's just a lower sound here's a little smaller djembe what kind of sound will this
get yeah right a higher sound now maybe you don't have any hand drums at home what you may have are empty boxes I sure have
a lot I've been getting things in the mail during this time of social
distancing and quarantining actually a box drum is called a cajon they're
usually made of wood and the player sits on the drum I'm not going to do that on this cardboard
box but I will hold it between my legs like I did with the djembe and let's let's try our rhythm
maybe on the front of the box if you can see me up here might get a different
sound maybe if I turn the open let's let's let the sound escape this way so there you have it those are
some basic sounds and techniques that you can apply right away on the hand
drums remember to have fun stay relaxed