1 By Jack Bennett Icanplaydrums.com DVD 12 JAZZ BASICS
2 TABLE OF CONTENTS This PDF workbook is conveniently laid out so that all Ezybeat pages (shuffle, waltz etc) are at the start of the book, before the main content. This is so that you can easily print out just these first pages, should you not want the entire book printed. The Jazz Shuffle Page 3 The Jazz Waltz Page 4 New Orleans Beats Page 5
3 ~ EZYBEAT PRINT PAGE ~ The Jazz Shuffle
4 ~ EZYBEAT PRINT PAGE ~ The Jazz Waltz
5 ~ EZYBEAT PRINT PAGE ~ New Orleans Beats
6 INTRODUCTION Welcome to the Jaz Basics DVD/PDF here we will look at the fundamentals of playing jazz on the drums, as well as a few different things as far as drumkit setup is concerned. PLAYING JAZZ A large part of playing jazz music involves improvising. That is, creating music on the fly, that isn t already written out or pre conceived. This is a lot different to the repertoire approach which you see a lot in classical music, which is where you play the music note for note as what is written on the page. In jazz, quite often there will be nothing more than a lead sheet (a basic chord chart with a melody on it, and a few rhythmic hits). The rest of the tune in this case will be the players improvising over the chord changes. It s important to understand that aside from developing the required techniques, concepts and phrasing ideas, being a great player of Jazz relies heavily on your ability to create music on the fly with other musicians. You need to think less about what you re playing, and more about how you re creating music with the other musicians, and supporting them behind their solos. When you re playing behind a soloist, you re in a supportive role. This isn t the time to play too loud or play too choppy. The soloist needs a nice solid time feel on the ride, and you need to comp behind them, either catching their rhythmic/melodic ideas as they play them, or compliment them by filling in the time in between their ideas. Improvising is a skill in its own right, and it takes a while to develop. Your ability to play Jazz will depend largely on your ability to improvise. And the only way to get better at it is to play music with other musicians. Simply put, you will not get good at playing jazz by sitting in your room practicing jazz licks for 8 hours a day you need to be out there training your ability to interact and improvise with other musicians. This is what will help you the most. To start with you need to learn a vocabulary of ideas you can draw upon, but the skill of improvising requires that you can play whatever rhythm, fill etc is required without a moments gap or hesitation. If it takes you an entire bar, for your thought process to go from I can hear a fill coming up to what fill shall I play? to ok I think im ready to play the fill! you ve already missed it. Your thought process and reaction speed needs to be split second; you hear a phrase, and you compliment it that very second. So this reaction speed from thought process to physical execution is what needs a lot of training. WHEN SHOULD I IMPROVISE? So I talked about spending time learning the skill of improvising. Remember that there are times when it is good/required to improvise and there are times when improvising is definitely NOT the right thing to do. When musicians are soloing, improvising is fine. When is it not ok? If you re playing the head of a 16 piece big band chart, all the parts have been written out and you need to catch the figures with the rest of the band. Although you may not catch them exactly the same way each time, you re definitely not off in your own world improvising. If you re doing a TV gig backing an artist who s relies on his/her music to be played exactly the same way each time, in order for him to perform the music exactly as he has rehearsed with his choreographer etc
7 You re playing percussion in a Symphony Orchestra, you play exactly what is written, nothing more or less You re playing drums for a theatre show in an orchestra pit. As with the TV gig above, you play it exactly as required by your Musical Director, and you play it the same way, every single performance (up to 8-10 times per week). So you can see, there is a certain amount of maturity required if you do aquire the skill of improvising. You need to listen to enough different styles of music and involve yourself in as many different playing situations as possible to get an understanding of what is required in which situation, but the above checklist is a good start. Simply put, if you re playing improvised music, then improvise. If you re not, don t. DRUMKIT SETUP First of all I d like to look at my kit setup for the jazz style. If im playing jazz, particularly small combo jazz like bebop, bop, or free jazz (less so with commercial style big band), I like to use more rides and less crashes. I might use something like 2 or 3 rides, and perhaps only 1 crash, if that. In the following pic from left to right I am using: 14 HHX Groove Hihats, 20 HHX Evolution Ride, 17 HHX Legacy Crash, 22 Legacy Heavy Ride, 20 HH Flat Bell Ride. The cymbals overall are darker, and the rides all sound slightly different. Some are drier, that is they have more stick definition and less wash (white noise), some are the opposite, and some are louder than others. Therefore they will each suit the natural tonal characteristics of certain instruments better. For instance, the flat bell ride on the ride, has very minimal overtones and harmonics, in fact it doesn t really have a wash as we normally hear from a ride. Instead it has a very articulate stick sound and a very high pitched, mellow wash behind it very dry and very soft. This therefore would be a nice backdrop for a softer acoustic instrument like an acoustic piano, an acoustic bass or a jazz singer.
8 You can see also above that I m only using 2 toms. I have removed my 14 floor tom, and setup my 12 rack where the floor tom would be. The toms are tuned as a lot higher, and they have single ply coated skins on them (Remo Ambassadors), to get me a warmer sound (coated factor), with more articulation (single ply factor). The bass drum is tuned a lot higher also, and it has a front head (resonant head) with no whole in it, giving it a longer, warmer sustain. The snare drum is detuned wide open, and has no muffling on it, increasing the amount of natural harmonics and overtones. BASIC JAZZ RIDE PATTERN When we play jazz we re not necessarily playing beats as such, like you might in a rock/funk context. This, once again, due to the fact that you may be improvising, and therefore not playing the same thing in each bar. There is however a standard jazz ride pattern that you must learn, and you do play this (or a variation on it), the majority of the time on the ride cymbal. Here is the pattern.. From here you want to put the hihat on 2 and 4 and you can also play the bass drum on all four. This creates the four on the floor feel.
9 JAZZ PATTERN USING THE HIHATS You can play a couple of variations on the hihats using the hihat gliss. In these examples open the hihats on beats 1 and 3, and close them on 2 and 4 at the same time that you hit them with the stick. JAZZ 2 FEEL AND 4 FEEL You can play jazz with an implied 2 feel or 4 feel if you choose. A 2 feel basically means you re feeling 2 pulses in the bar, and they are; a pulse on beat 1 and beat 3. You typically play bass drum on these beats to create the feel, and the bass player will be doing the same. With a 4 feel, it s basically the core pattern we learnt above. The bass player will play a walking bass line, meaning playing quarter notes the whole way through, and you will match that by playing 4 on the floor with your bass drum. With a 4 feel, it s basically the core pattern we learnt above. The bass player will play a walking bass line, meaning playing quarter notes the whole way through, and you will match that by playing 4 on the floor with your bass drum.
10 THE JAZZ SHUFFLE Let s now turn these patterns into a jazz shuffle. Here we ll put a strong backbeat on the snare to create more of a jazz dance feel. Start by adding a snare note on 2 and 4 to the core pattern. Next add the triplet before 2 and 4 as well Then keep building by adding the triplet on snare before beat 1 and 3. And finally add a ghost note ON beat 1 and 3 as well. NOTE: the only accented snare notes should be 2 and 4, every other note should be much softer, tap strokes, or maybe a ghost note.
11 NEW ORLEANS New Orleans feels are primarily played on the snare drum over a repetitive bass / hihat figure. They are usually played with a swung or half swung interpretation of the 16th note figures. Start by learning this basic pattern. Then add the bass drum as follows.. Try buzzing the last 2 16th notes.. Also add the hihats on the AND beats.. Finally let s play around with the snare rhythm a bit, using different accents and rolls..
12 BRUSHES Please see DVD for all brush strokes.