## <a name="drums4"></a>Drum ideas No. 4: Something to practice Here's something to practice for you. Personally, I'm far from being able to play this fluently. I consider this another little framework to build upon in the future (fills and such). Start with a simple roll between your right hand and your right foot RKRKRK and so on, again phrased as sextuplets. Use your left foot to keep time on the quarter notes...  Now comes the hard part: Start alternating your hands and it becomes RKLKRK LKRKLK. Your hands play single stroke 8th note triplets between the snare and the floor tom, your right foot fills in the kick in between the notes. It's really hard to get the accent pattern right.  The next step would be moving your left hand around between the snare and the rack tom so a nice melodic groove starts to emerge.  ---- ## <a name="drums3"></a>Drum ideas No. 3: Using rudiments The next idea is based on a double paradiddle, so let's recall the sticking which is RLRLRR LRLRLL. As you can see the pattern alternates. Phrased as sextuplets this can be applied as a swung 4/4 halftime groove by e.g. putting the left hand on the snare and the right hand on the hihat. Accent beat one by adding a kick and beat two, which naturally falls on the snare. Playing all other Ls as ghost notes helps to make this thing groove and gives it some more perceived melody...  A variation I prefer results from an inversion of the first group, this time let's start it with the diddle: RRLRLR LRLRLL. Put the first two notes and the last note of group one on the kick and you end up with a different groove: KKRLRK LRLRLL. The only challenge here is to play a clean double on the kick, where the first note is accented...  Modifying the spacing a little gives you a more jagged, modern feel. This variation is phrased in 32nd notes...  ---- ## <a name="drums2"></a>Drum ideas No. 2: Four over Six Here's another drum pattern I'd like to share with you. This time let's pit a four against a six. Here's the pattern notated in 3/4, the sticking is KRLR, note that it starts with a kick this time...  Playing it as straight 16ths is simple, but now lets switch the subdivision to sextuplets again which puts it into a 4/4 context. The challenge is to accent every 3rd note in a four beat pattern. Note that we land on the left hand in the second bar.  Let's give it some more melody by orchestrating it around the kit and voila, you got a fill I played verbatim on the last record I played on.  ---- ## <a name="drums1"></a>Drum ideas No. 1: Five over Six During my studies I used to live in Aachen, Germany's westernmost city, which is located right next to the Netherlands. I made some good friends there, but also had some rather strange encounters with people and things I shouldn't have wasted my time on. However, I mostly remember this period as a fun time and making music with my buddies was one important aspect in keeping it all together. In my last few years there, I used to hang out in a small Jazz Club called *Malteserkeller* which unfortunately had to close down in 2011. Watching some real musicians - usually Jazz Students from Maastricht - ripping the shit out of their instruments or trading 4s was incredibly inspiring. I also played in a band at that time which was into doing lots of technical stuff. One particular pattern from those days I still find myself pulling out occasionally when I practice is this five over six thing: Imagine the following 5 note pattern notated in 5/4, the most simple sticking would be RLRLK  The next step would be to put this into a swung context, again notated in 5/4 but this time phrased as sextuplets. The trick into getting the pattern to flow is to still play RLRLK but this time accenting every 3rd note  Rounding it off after the 5th time you'll end up in 4/4 making it somewhat applicable. Also note that the 25th beat, which just so happens to be the downbeat of the next bar, lands on a kick  A musical example orchestration that really flows goes somewhat like this (a trick that helps me to play this is to think of chunks where each set of RL rests in a configuration for two cycles)  Now go and come up with your own variations!