Timing & Independence

Part 6 - Playing eighth notes and triplets at the same time

Dennis Leeflang 08-08-2004 23:12

This lesson is all about the basic independence a drummer's limbs should have in order play basic rhythms without any problems. It also helps to improve timing of the individual limbs in relation to each other. These exercises can be extended and changed as much as the drummer wishes.
This particular lesson is extremely useful for drummer that have just started out playing, but may drastically improve an advanced drummers' independence and timing as well.

These exercises are based on the ones I was taught by my teacher Luuk Kranenburg when I had just started out playing in my early teens. Credit where credit is due!

Ultimately, we can extend these exercises until they become impossible to play. The logical next step would be to play eighth notes and triplets at the same time.

In this one, we will be letting one limb play eighths and let one play triplets... at the same time. Back to a 4/4 beat at first.
Always two limbs at a time doing something more than playing quarters. The first limb from your starting point playing eigthts and the next one playing triplets. When moving on, the next limb plays triplets and the second one from before now plays eighths. We will still be moving from left to right, back to left etc.

So this would be the sequence:

left foot (hi-hat) plays eighth notes / left hand (snare) plays triplets
left hand (snare) plays eighth notes / bass drums plays triplets
right foot (bass drum) plays eighth notes / right hand (ride cymbal) plays triplets
right hand (ride) plays eighth notes / right foot (bass drum) plays triplets
right foot (bass drum) plays eighth notes / left hand (snare) plays triplets
left hand (snare) plays eighth notes / left foot (hi-hat) plays triplets
... and so forth!

After this you may wanna cut it down to a 2/4 beat.

...watch the video...

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