In this lesson you will learn a variation on the 4 Hands - 2 Feet - 2 Hands - 4 Feet exercise. The previous exercise was built by combing two of our previous double kick grouping exercises and this pattern will follow the same idea. Infact, it takes the same two groupings but plays them the other way round. So this exercise is the previous exercise reversed. That means the exercises will be very similar just with a slight change to the groupings.
As in all double kick exercises, make sure your left foot is falling exactly where it should and that it is playing at the same dynamic level as the right foot. Use this exercise to develop technique and speed before moving on to applying it as a fill.
Eighth Notes In 6/8
The grouping that makes up the final pattern contains twelves notes so to demonstrate you will learn it in 6/8 first. I'll start by giving the exercise as quavers to encourage you to start slowly, this makes the exercise two bars long.
Before progressing make sure you can play this exercise at at least 130bpm.
Sixteenth Notes In 6/8
Next you will double the note values to sixteenths, giving you one full bar.
This gives you the basic grouping for the final syncopated pattern in 4/4. This will be referred back to as the 'original pattern' in the next two exercises.
One Bar Syncopated 4/4 Exercise
This first 4/4 exercise will be made up of one bar of sixteenth notes. We discussed previously using maths to work out how many times the full pattern fits and how many beats you have left over. It's a little easier in this case as the original groupings lasts 12 semi quavers, leaving four semi quavers spare in a bar of 4/4. As this exercise is focusing on double kick I have made these last four notes two hands followed by two feet. Feel free to change these around. Phrase markings have been included to highlight where the original pattern falls within the bar.
And that's the full exericse. In a separate lesson I will give ideas for applying this as a fill but the intention here is to help improve your ability to break up single strokes with double kick to created syncopated patterns.
TASK
- Using the 2 minute rule, aim to get the exercises up to a tempo of around 140bpm.
- Orchestrate the exercises to create fills.
