Every drummer needs to hear this

okay welcome to

this

SL discussion lesson on vocabulary

this

is a topic that comes up in literally

every

lesson I teach and is often asked before I mention it uh almost

every

student I've ever had does the Same question about vocabulary and flow, how do you flow around the drums, how do you get rid of that hesitation? um, other people will say, I don't know what to play when it comes to Phils, um, if I've ever done it, if they ever throw a solo at me in any form, I don't know what to play and these are people of various levels in different genres. the ones they specialize in some will be professional players um some will be amateurs literally everyone to some extent is afraid to express themselves uh and particularly when it's anything improvised and someone might say at a re

hear

sal or at a concert hey, why don't you play a solo at the front of this song or could someone turn around and start playing a vamp and ask you to do a solo? it could just be what to play at the end of a song when you have the big break and the big high energy situation.

I don't know what to play in many different situations. So

drummer

s get very comfortable here and literally as soon as you do this they don't know what to play and they panic, this is right, this is not right and it's so disconcerting to me that so many

drummer

s have these problems and think of This way I'm a drummer. I'm a timekeeper this is my job to keep time and this is home base and this is right and this isn't and it's the same no difference it's all rhythm and dynamics as drummers we don't have melody and harmony to deal with we have it extremely easy compared to other instruments, we only have rhythm and dynamics, so all you need to do is enter each note rhythm that is available to you at different tempos which, for the most part, are found in the bands um of most people and in popular music. and the things that they'll play are actually a very small group of note types, because they'll certainly exclude five sevens and nines, so you really just need to get into each one and feel comfortable expressing yourself and improvise on each one at whatever tempo it is and then put them all together, so today I want to talk about that and some will give you some exercises to help you with this and get away from shoehorning licks into your playing and building. your own vocabulary, which is something I talk about a lot at my school, so let's get into that, but first just a quick note from today's video sponsor, okay, we're back, so let's talk about why we need vocabulary because many drummers don't.

You don't practice solos, they think it's a solo, it's not a solo, it's expressing yourself, it's thinking about different rhythmic phrases, um, it's just vocabulary, it's talking like you want to have a good English vocabulary in life so you can talk about different issues, it's not a bad thing. having that and yeah your job as a drummer is to be a timekeeper and provide the feel and the rhythmic information for the band to play and make the song work and a lot of times we just play simple rhythms. with some fillers, but there are many different genres, not just jazz, fusion and improvised music, there are many genres where you need more input from the drummer, drama often provides the excitement and energy so you can be in a rock and roll situation roll or a blues situation, um, where the guitarist turns to you and is doing a solo, he or she is doing a solo and they want more energy from the drama. um, I've been to concerts with very famous blues guitarists where it's a mix between songs where he sings, um, and then more improvised rock stuff where they improvise and switch positions and the drummer just couldn't, no, he had a pleasant feeling and probably perhaps considered himself a Groove player, but when he came to like talking to the guitarist, giving him more energy and excitement.

He didn't have the tools to do it. You could be in a simple pop situation where there are fillers that are necessary. The drum punctuation marks are filled in over the course of the bridge. the key change outside of the sections and without them, it fails, the new section doesn't sound right, so you need those punctuation marks and you need vocabulary to do it and also even in popular pop music genres where yes, everyone plays parts. In reality, drama often, especially in life situations, has more freedom than other instruments to improvise, so the field you play on the bridge on the keychain, whatever it is, doesn't have to be the same every time and often improvised, yes, he won.

It won't be flashy skills or incredibly fast, it will be appropriate for that section, but as a drummer we have freedom to improvise, so you want to be able to have vocabulary and think on the fly and not have a set number of fills. That you can shoehorn the drama groove is such a ridiculous phrase to me. I don't understand that concept and I remember Vinnie Kuta talking about this in an interview and me paraphrasing, but he said something like when someone says. oh, I'm just a Groove drama. His response, well, I hope so. What else would you be of each gender that you want to be?

But Vinnie and Gad are two good examples of what a Groove drum with James Taylor will be like, but then. Also with the girls race, which Prov uh uh requires two very different types of input in terms of how much information they post and I remember that, but also the Korea girl says she doesn't like stagnant rhythms, so she likes the information that doesn't want to, just consistent. the same thing over and over again, that means you know you need more vocabulary, so that's just a little word on that to finish, underestimating is as bad as overdoing, that's another way of saying it, so everyone is always worried about exaggerate and when I was younger when people used to say play the song, play the song.

I always thought that meant playing less and if you're a musical drummer it meant you played less, but when I recorded my concerts and my playing, I underestimated a lot. So whatever the genre, there are so many sections where the drummer must provide the punctuation marks and emotion. That being said, how do we view vocabulary? We don't want to see it as if they were licks that we have learned. We want to be free to just express ourselves so whatever the tempo is, we have a certain number of options for what will fit into that Tempo um and a lot of times it will be eighth notes, but often the eighth notes will be too slow.

So if we're at this tempo, it will be appropriate for some things, but not all, and if you need more energy, it won't work, so 16º will obviously be the most appropriate for most tempos. It's interesting how many drummers can't do that, just improvising on the snare with simple hits and getting a good drum sound and having good timing and sound is probably a whole separate video, but that should always be in the front of your mind, um , and to make something simple sound great, it's all about good timing and good sound, but anyway, one thing you can do is choose a note speed like 16th notes and we talked about this at my school, we play better drs. com all the time there are so many lessons, over 300 lessons, and a lot of them are about vocabulary, timing and sound, getting a good sound out of the drums, but getting away from this mentality of licking to be able to take a note. 16, let's take a drum. just the snare and also let's take one playing just single hits and the way I think about my vocabulary everything is just a combination of singles and doubles so yeah you can get into the rudiments of course the rudiments are great to teach you dynamics and control, but really. everything is just a combination of singles and doubles, so you have to be comfortable playing a certain way, not classified, uh switching between singles and doubles and I'm thinking about accents, so let's take a step back to the snare, just single hits and improvise using accents, so I'm just thinking about the accents and I'm filling in the ghost notes that aren't accents, but since they're simple strokes, we obviously don't have to think about it too much, so the left foot plays the quarter notes. and we're just trying to improvise, make it interesting, try not to repeat ourselves too much, but on the other hand we want to play musical phrases and what does that mean?

It means playing things that the listener and you are also the listener in this. the situation can grasp and understand, so imagine that someone standing outside the room listening to you play can and is not a musician, let alone not a drum, is not a musician, can they understand what you are talking about? So question and answer phrases, some repetitive stuff, so let's try that, let's try that, so when you try it for the first time, it will feel awkward. Many students who do this immediately throw in some puffs and drones, 30-second notes, triplets, and extra tidbits. that they are so used to playing without thinking and this teaches you to really think about each note that you are playing and why you are playing it and the purpose behind each note because you are trying to think about accents and complete with the Ghost Notes you are trying to concentrate in good time, uh not only in good time with the click and quarter notes of the left foot, but also in micro timing, you know the sixteenth notes and that are nice and you're even trying to get a good sound out of the drum.

Rim shots are supposed to be consistent. The Ghost Notes. Super quiet. You're thinking about these accents and you're thinking about how these accents make sense. Some questions and answers. um you're trying to say a little bit. History repeating things here and there and making it make sense and a lot of people find it difficult so you can get rid of a lot of things that are not necessary and that we all play without thinking so that's the first stage and then we would move on to the rest of the drums, so now we're still on single hits, but now we can also play the toms, so we're always trying to keep track of where we would have a click. the left is always playing quarter notes and we're working on the same things but now we're allowed all these different tones so you have a lot more options if you have four Toms like this there are millions of options but you still want to try to make it make sense that if someone was listening outside, they would understand what you were doing and they wouldn't get bored and it wouldn't sound like a monotonous thing, uh, like if a lot of students do this, they won't. exploring it will be monotonous Tel with Dynamics but it will also not be interesting, uh, sticking with your hands or with your hands if you want, there are so many options and you will end up playing with your right hand and with insufficient dynamics like this.

So there are so many options that you can go back up the toms instead of going down, um, you can do accent patterns like this, you can do crescendos on the toms, you know there's so many things you can do, so you want to push yourself to do it. interesting because you'll repeat yourself, you'll think this sounds rubbish and it's up to you with these limited boundaries to make it interesting because there are so many situations in a song in similar playing situations where all you need are singles, you could make a whole concert, a whole show , just playing fills or any vocabulary with simple beats and that would be more than enough.

Let's think about a couple of examples, like a fill, a fill in something, something with a lot of energy to start a song that a lot of drummers couldn't. do that just that's just the box it's just individual hits and I'm just making it up. I'm just thinking about accents that make sense and I can get a good sound out of the drum. Could, uh, could be something. otherwise, like a different tempo, you know you should feel comfortable playing something on the spot because you've explored these different note velocities, so we go over this in detail, play drums in my online school, but the next stage would be, um, singles and doubles.

So you go back to the snare and play just singles and doubles and explore that and then you go back to allowing the toms again and we haven't even played any of the kick drum yet, but we're really setting these boundaries, we're really getting closer to what we're playing, why we're playing it, we can focus on our timing and our sound, which a lot of drummers overlook timing and sound, I mean, I can't. I think they do it, but they do it, and then the final stage, if you will, or the ultimate goal is to be able to do this with every note, so 16th note triplets, 8th note triplets, 302 notes and then you put them all together and then it will be. being able to string together phrases across different note velocities using Dynamics with great timing and great sound and then that's not really getting into anything complicated, it's just about getting comfortable speaking at each note velocity and moving between them with consistent tempo and a pleasant sound, and that was more. than you'll ever need, you could be an amazing world class drummer with those skills, so then you start putting it all together, okay, so I hope some of that helps you and you can take it to the drums and practice that stuff.

Start thinking about vocabulary differently. In short, we want to stop thinking that this is a Groove and this is a filler because, ultimately, it's the same thing, it's just rhythm, it'sjust getting comfortable in each note rhythm and think about Steve Gad, he was famous for playing a lot of interesting Rhythms and vocabulary on bass drums, kick and snare, whatever they are 16th notes. For example, that's what it was like to take the left hand to the hi-hat and that's what you want to be able to do, feel comfortable, talking, playing on every note rhythm and not thinking right, is here, so this is just a rhythm and it's here. this is a fill, it's all the same, there's no separation and Gad is another good example of someone who was amazing at making fills feel as good as the rhythms that most drummers struggle with and are difficult to play. a rhythm for 2 minutes. a minute straight, whatever and then move on to something else around the toms and make it feel just as good, so we want to think of everything as the same thing, it's just rhythm and dynamics, so I hope that helps, for Please look at my school work online. best drs.com there are over 300 lessons, PDF worksheets, we continue, we go deeper into this vocabulary, as well as hand technique, foot technique and everything else, thanks for watching and see you at the Next, love.