Hello and welcome to the 13th Odd Groupings lesson.  This time we will once again be taking a grouping of five and applying it through 16ths.  This is a simple extension from the previous lesson so if you haven't worked on that one yet, do so.  It helps us work on independence, focusing on the snare drum against the hihat.  We have both a single and a double snare hit which permeate to start both with the right hand and in the gap.  This is great for helping to develop creative freedom with ghost notes within a groove.   1) Here we have our basic pattern.  Please not this is in 5/4 so it resolves each bar.  As you play this, try and count both the 1,2,3,4,5 but also 1e+a2e…. etc.   Take your time to really internalise the pattern before moving on. 2) Now we will put the pattern into context with an 8th note hihat.  Once again, try and count the phrase both ways if you can.  Also take note of how the pattern flips in relation to the hihat with every phrase played.   3) Back to 4/4! Okay, so no lets use this phrase as a “fill”.  We are simply playing the exact same thing as in 2, just stopping after 4 quarter notes into the phrase.   4) In the fourth example we are playing the same idea but now on the ride.  We are also moving the left hand around the kit.  This is obviously a very basic option, have fun with the pattern and move it around the kit. 5) In this final exercise we take the 4/4 phrase from both this lesson and also the previous one.  As we change before each one resolves it can be easy to loose yourself within the pattern.  Take your time and play with a metronome.  Remember, slow and correct is MUCH better than fast and sloppy.   https://youtu.be/mY58wbH43ek

Hello and welcome to the 12th Odd Groupings lesson.  This time we will be taking a grouping of five and applying it through 16ths.  This really is an extension from Odd Groupings Part 3 so if you haven’t checked that out yet.  I would do so first.  This approach allows us to look at various permutations in one exercise and can be good fun as well.   It helps us work on independence, focusing on the bass drum against the right hand.  We have both a single and a double bass drum which permeate to start both with the right hand and in the gap.  At higher tempos this phrase is also great for working on switching between “normal” single bass drum hits and “technique” doubles (sliding foot, heel toe etc).  1) Here we have our basic pattern.  Please not this is in 5/4 so it resolves each bar.  As you play this, try and count both the 1,2,3,4,5 but also 1e+a2e…. etc.   Take your time to really internalise the pattern before moving on. 2) Now we will put the pattern into context with an 8th note hihat.  Once again, try and count the phrase both ways if you can.  Also take note of how the pattern flips in relation to the hihat with every phrase played.   3) Back to 4/4! Okay, so no lets use this phrase as a “fill”.  We are simply playing the exact same thing as in 2, just stopping after 4 quarter notes into the phrase.   4) In the final example we are playing the same idea but now on the ride.  We are also moving the left hand around the kit.  This is obviously a very basic option, have fun with the pattern and move it around the kit.   https://youtu.be/QEEkQg5dfUY   I hope you enjoyed that.  We will go into more advanced polyrhythms in later lessons so getting comfortable with feeling this grouping of 5/16 over a regular 8th note pulse will help prepare you for  later lessons.  Join me next time to look at a great variation on this pattern.  

In the third and final (for now at least) 5+7=12 segment we are going to add in a couple of new fragments and work through a few fun fill options with them. 1A) The first new fragment we are going to work on is a new grouping of 7.  It is our simple RLRLL where the right hand is accented.  It then has an added bass drum double on the end to make it up to the 7.  Spend a little time just moving this round the kit.  It is written as a septuplet but we will be playing it as a sextuplet when used as a fill. 1B) This is another grouping of 7.  This time we have switched the grouping of 2 and 3 within the hands so we are now playing RLLRL and added another accent.  This is a great pattern that is worth spending a little time on first getting comfortable with first. 2) This is the first of the fills.  We have taken the new grouping from 1a and added in a simple RLRKK.  Start off slow, playing it on the snare, then start moving the accents around.  Once you are comfortable with that I would move the RLRKK around the kit as well.  3) This is almost the same as 2, but we have changed the sticking on the second fragment (the RLRKK) and are now playing RLLKK instead. This, as previously mentioned in other lessons, will open up other orchestration possibilities when moving round the kit so although it seems very similar it can help inspire very different outcomes. 4) In this pattern we are using the new fragment from 1b along with our simple RLRKK.  Although the number of hand hits and bass drum hits are the same and in the same place this has a very different vibe so maker sure you take some time to really internalise the difference.   5) As with 3, we have replaces the RLRKK with RLLKK.  Follow the same steps as before and have some fun.  

In this lesson we are going to look at some of the less used subdivisions as well as the common ones to help us improve our timing and control on the instrument. So this lesson is fairly straight forward.  We are going to play a range of subdivisions from 1/4 notes through to 32nd notes against a left foot pulse.  A simpler way of thinking about it is we will be adding one note per 1/4 note fragment each time.  So, the first line there is one note per 1/4 click, then 2 on the second line, then 3 etc. all the way up to 32nd notes which are 8 per 1/4.  This exercise should be played with a 1/4 note click and a good tempo range is somewhere in the 60-100.  It all depends on where your 32nd notes sit at a super relaxed and importantly, accurate tempo. Start off by playing each line for a long time (minutes not bars), until they feel effortless and really locked in.  Once each part is fully warmed up, I like to start by going through them from top to bottom, slowly adding a note each time, then working my way back down the subdivisions in reverse.  Please note that the odd subdivisions (3s, 5s and 7s) will flip sticking every beat just like basic hand to hand triplets.  This can really help when it comes to the 5s and 7s as most people have less experience with these subdivisions.  Feeling the lead hand flip flop can be a great way of locking in.  If you really struggle to play the 5s and 7s along with a click you can use a 5 and 7 syllable phrase to help you lock in.  Some that work for 5s are; “This is a group-ing”, “u-ni-ver-si-ty” and “I like to eat cake”, or you can just count to 5!.  For 7s; “list-en to the ra-di-o” and “I like to eat fish and chips” both work and if you count to 7 make sure you just say “Sev” as seven is two syllable word.  Obviously if you need to say these phrases to get the subdivision in time then you should probably playing at a much slower tempo until you can feel how they relate to the 1/4 note pulse.  Once you have all the subdivisions comfortably and you can go from the slowest to the fastest and back down again, try playing a bar of one subdivision and then jumping to another rate that isn't consecutive.  Such as going from 8th notes to quintuplets to triplets to 32nd notes etc.   You will find that hopefully, just working through these subdivisions, you will be able to hear and feel when you start slipping out of time with the more standard and used subdivisions.