The final installment is here: today we go beyond the basics of multi-tenor drumming! So far, we have covered the essential skills every tenor drummer should know. Now I bring you more advanced concepts that are sure to provide you with some new ideas. This is the final installment of this seven-part series. If you watch the entire series, you will have experienced 2 hours and 49 minutes’ worth of instructional material!
On a personal note, I have to say that I do not plan to make videos this long again for quite some time. This final video especially took a lot out of me. It covers 29 sweep & crossover patterns and 7 independence & groove patterns. With all of the exercises appearing on screen, the editing process was quite involved. I am quite happy with the end result though. I can guarantee that this final video will introduce new concepts and offer material to challenge tenor drummers of all ability levels.
A transcript of the video is below. I hope you have enjoyed this series as much as I have enjoyed creating it. Please share your thoughts and pass it along to percussionists and drummers who you think might benefit from it. And let me know if you have any ideas for future videos you’d like to see. Thanks for watching. Enjoy going… beyond the basics!
—James
TRANSCRIPT
Introduction
Hello, everybody. This is James Christian from RudimentalUniversity.com. And today, we are going to do video #7 of the seven-part series. So this is going to be it.
So far we’ve covered all of the basic essentials of tenor drumming, and now we’re going to go beyond the basics. We’re going to cover mostly stuff that I’ve come up with over the years.
A lot of this is stuff that I thought of back mostly in high school and just used to become a better player, and work on coordination, and just build fluidity around the drums.
I’m going to go super fast on this video, because I have a lot to cover, and I don’t want to make the video too long. Usually, I take a pattern and play it slowly and then speed it up. I’m only going to do that a couple of times on this video with new concepts. I’m going to just introduce it really quick and speed it up. Other than that, I’m going to just play the exercise through four times–and that’s it. So it should make the pacing go a little bit quicker.
Crossover & Sweep Patterns
Whirlwinds
All right, our very first pattern we’re going to do– this is something I came up with– I think it was my freshman year in high school. And I’ve just always thought it looked cool. It’s kind of fun. This is not super mandatory to know, but it’s just kind of a fun little pattern.
I came up with the name “whirlwinds” for these. And it’s basically four notes with one hand and four different notes with the other hand. And they’re working against each other, so it kind of makes a whirlwind motion.
I’m going to do the notes I originally came up with for the pattern, but you can do it with any four drums. And you could even do it with the same four drums. But this is how it goes:
[demonstration]Cross Threes
The next pattern I call “cross threes.” We did “cross fives” in the previous video. Cross threes are actually a little bit more difficult because they go a lot quicker, as far as the crossover goes. So what you do is you just play straight up triplets, and you crossover the first note of each triplet. So you’ll go 1, 2, 3. And then you crossover on the next triplet–1, 2, 3. And you keep that going, and it makes a really tight motion.
You can do it with drums 1 & 2, drums 2 & 3, drums 1 & 4, drums 4 & 3. You can do it with the spock drum–any combination. I’m going to do it with four different patterns.
It’s difficult tight, but it also gets very difficult when you go wider. Because it requires a lot more effort and reach. And if you do it for a long time, it creates a pretty good cardio workout. So here you go. Here are cross threes:
[demonstrations]Non-adjacent Sweeps
Now in the video we did on sweeps, we talked about adjacent sweeps and non-adjacent sweeps. As you’ll recall, I did not spend much time on non-adjacent sweeps. In this one, let’s go for it. Let’s have fun. So first, we’re going to do just some plain non-adjacent sweeps.
[demonstrations]Non-adjacent Helicopters
Now once you feel like you have those down pretty good, start applying them to some of the patterns we learned in video #6. You can do them with helicopters, or butterflies, or figure eights, or any of those kinds of patterns. We talked about mixing them into paradiddles and different things like that.
Here I’m going to just do helicopters and butterflies, because that uses the outward and inward sweeps. So it will pretty much give you the gist of how that works. And I’m going to do them off the right hand and left hand. So here you go. Here are non-adjacent helicopters:
[demonstration]Non-adjacent Butterflies
Now let’s do non-adjacent butterflies:
[demonstration]Non-adjacent Helicopters—Drums #3 & #4
And now, just for fun, let’s do non-adjacent helicopters. Except instead of using drums #2 & #3 and #1 & #4, we’re only going to use drums #3 & #4. So the reach is going to be much farther, which makes it challenging. But this is a really coordination pattern if you can learn it.
[demonstration]Triple Strokes
All right, now we are going to look at some triple sweeps. So far we’ve done sweeps with doubles. Now we’re going to add a third note to it. In order to be able to do those well, you need to be able to play triple strokes.
I talked about double strokes using the fingers a lot. Same thing with triple strokes. Of course, I said doubles should have both notes of equal volume, and you want solid doubles. The same principle applies with triples. It does get a little more difficult as you add more notes. If you do three or four or five notes, it tends to diminish in volume as you progress. Try to avoid that.
And the key to that is your finger motions. I said it’s like you’re slapping somebody on the cheek–two quick notes. Same idea with triples. Now you’re adding a third note to it. Da-da-dut. Da-da-dut. As you’re doing that, you can add a little bit of arm raise to it on each note of the three. So you get a fluid motion. As the stick tends to go lower from its motion, as your arm comes up, it helps make up the difference on that, and you can get the third note out.
So I’d practice those on one drum first. Go slow and then fast:
[demonstration]We won’t go much faster than that moving around the drums.
Triple Sweeps—133/244 and 311/422
So that’s a general triple stroke. Now let’s apply it to the drums. So we’re going to do it with sweeps. The first note is going to be on drum #1, and then you’re going to move the next two notes to drum #3. Same thing with the left hand. Start on drum #2. The next two notes are going to be on drum #4.
[demonstration]Triple Sweep Helicopters—133/244 and Triple Sweep Butterflies—311/244
Now that you have basic triple sweeps down, let’s apply them to helicopters and butterflies:
[demonstrations]Triple Sweeps—213/124 and 312/421
Those kinds of triple sweeps are fun, but we’re just getting started. You can also do it where you split the notes among three separate drums.
So with the right hand, we’re going to do #2, #1, #3. With the left hand, we’re going to do #1, #2, #4.
[demonstration]Triple Sweeps—312/421
You can also do it as inward sweeps. So with the right hand, you’re going to go: #3, #1, #2. And the left hand is going to be: #4, #2, #1.
[demonstration]Triple Sweep Helicopters—213/124
Now, you know what’s coming next. We have to do these with helicopters. As I said at the beginning, I’m trying to cram a lot into this video. So I’m going to do the next few with just helicopters only. But you could apply it to butterflies, or figure eights, or any other type of sweep pattern.
[demonstration]Triple Sweeps—113/224 and 311/422
Now, so far with the first note, you’ve immediately moved to another drum. But now let’s practice where you can control the stick over one drum and then change the momentum. So you’re mixing stationary with moving patterns.
So you’re going to go: #1, #1, #3 and #2, #2, #4. And then coming up, you’re going to go: #3, #3, #1; #4, #4, #2. Those are quite difficult, so take them slowly and practice them until you feel comfortable with them.
[demonstration]Triple Sweep Helicopters—113/224
And of course, once you have those down, we need to learn them with helicopters.
[demonstration]Triple Sweeps—131/242 and 313/424
For our final triple stroke pattern, so far we have at least gone in the same direction. With the different types of sweep patterns, we’ve either gone outward or inward. Now we’re going to combine both in the same set of triples. So with your right hand, you’re going to go: #1, #3, #1–and come back up to the original drum. With the left hand, you’re going to go: #2, #4, #2. These are quite difficult, but they are a very fun coordinative challenge. So if you feel like you’re up for it, give it a shot. Take them slowly again, and work on speeding them up.
[demonstration]Triple Sweep Helicopters—131/242
And you know the drill by now. We are going to now do helicopters.
[demonstration]I think those broken sweep patterns are a lot of fun to play, and they look impressive, and they are quite difficult to play. I put them in my 2006 DCA solo. And the only other person I’ve seen play them–that I’ve noticed anyway–was Matt Penland in his 2011 DCI solo. Which is a great solo, and you should check that one out if you have not seen it before.
If you know of anyone else who has done it, I would love to see that. I’m not aware of it, but it’s probably out there, and I’ve just missed it. So if you know of anyone else who’s put that in a solo, please put comments down below, and I will check it out. And if not, then you can be the next person to do it. Start working on those and take it to the next level.
Paradiddle Helicopters
This next one is going to be straight up paradiddles. You’re going to keep the main notes on drums #1 and #2. And when you get to the last two notes of the paradiddle–the double part–you’re going to play the same notes you would play on a helicopter.
[demonstration]Flam Tap Helicopters
All right, we’re going to do a couple more sweep patterns, and these are going to incorporate flams. We haven’t done flams much in this whole series. Again, it’s pretty much just the basics. But there are a lot of things you can do with them on tenors, and here’s just one idea.
So take regular helicopters–and this is the first part of it, so I’ll just show this first. You’re going to play regular helicopters and turn them into flam taps. So whatever drum you end the double on, put a grace note there as you go into the next sweep pattern.
[demonstration]Inverted Flam Tap Helicopters
Okay, once you have that down, here’s a twist on it. I came up with this pattern–I believe it was the summer between my sophomore and junior year in high school. And I was actually taking lessons from a fairly prominent tenor drummer at the time. I won’t say who. But I came up with this, and I’d been working on it, and so I brought it to this instructor. And honestly he had me playing a lot of slow stuff that I found kind of boring at the time. So I said, “Well, here, I want something more challenging. I’ve been working on this.” And he looked at it and tried to play it, and he said, “Man, if you can do that, you’re a better player than I am.”
So of course, to my high school 16-year-old mind, that was all the incentive I needed to go practice it. So that whole week, I just practiced it and practiced it and practiced it. And I came back the next week and played it for him, and he just kind of shrugged and said it was good.
But anyway, this is a fun pattern. You take the exact same thing you just did with the flam taps, except change the sticking now. Change them to inverted flam taps. But you’re going to keep the grace notes and the doubles on the exact same drums you had before, which makes it where you have to switch quickly from the grace note to the next drum that you’re playing. And it makes it quite challenging. I put these in my 2004 DCA solo if you want to check them out. But give these a try. These are inverted flam tap helicopters.
[demonstration]Independence & Groove Patterns
All right, that’s all I’m going to do for crossover/sweep/rudimental patterns in this series. Those are just a few ideas. There are so many more things you could do. I cover way more ideas in my book, The Art of Multi-Tenor Drumming, and you should definitely check that out. But these are just a few ideas to get you started, some things I came up with early on that helped me build coordination. And I think you’ll enjoy them. And keep taking these ideas, and create your own ideas, and take it to the next level.
Now, in this series, I also have not done much on groove patterns, which have become a staple of tenor drumming–just having a lot of independence from each hand. So I’m going to cover this in just a couple of ways, and this should be kind of a fun way to end the whole series.
Double Beat & Triple Beat—Basic
Most people play a standard pattern as a drum line exercise called “Double Beat,” or “Triple Beat,” or “Double/Triple Beat.” Usually the first time through, you do it with a doubles pattern on each hand, and the second time you do it with a triple beat pattern on each hand. So I’ll play it once as the main pattern, and then I’ll show you a couple of variations on it.
[demonstration]Double Beat & Triple Beat—Simultaneous
All right, you probably play a similar exercise to that with your drum line. If you don’t, then I would definitely recommend learning this exercise, because it’s just a standard one that most rudimental drummers are expected to know.
Now, to build some coordination between your hands, this is something I learned my first summer in drum corps. A couple of the snare drummers decided to try to learn both patterns at the same time. So one hand is playing “Double Beat” while the other hand is playing “Triple Beat.” And then you reverse it and do them off the opposite hand.
This one took me a little while to work out. I remember we were driving around the country, and that was all we were doing on the bus for a couple of days until we got it down pretty well. So this is a good coordinative challenge. You may have learned this already. A lot of people like this pattern where you do both against each other. So this is definitely a pattern that would be helpful to learn.
And again, try to make sure that both hands are hitting exactly at the same time. Don’t do a lot of flams in this. Make sure they are all equal volume and solid.
[demonstration]Double Beat & Triple Beat—Simultaneous with Sweeps
All right, that’s something a snare drummer or a bass drummer could do, putting a hand on a rim and playing the other pattern on the drum. But we’re tenor drummers, so we have to take it one step further with around patterns.
So we’re going to do the “Double Beat” pattern on the right hand between drums #1 and #3 and the left hand between drums #2 and #4. So you’re going to sweep it. And then when you do the “Triple Beat” pattern, you need to do like we the triple sweeps earlier. And the left hand will be #1, #2, #4, and the right hand will be #2, #1, #3. So if you can do those with the sweeps against each other, then you’ve got some pretty good coordination going. Just be careful to hit in proper playing zones as you go.
[demonstration]Movement Patterns
Movement Patterns—Two against Three
One more type of independence you can develop is to be able to play different groupings with each hand against each other. So we’re going to start with two against three. Your right hand will play drums #1 and #3. Your left hand will play spock, #2, #4. So 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3, 1-2-3.
And then you’re going to reverse it. Your left hand will play 1-2, 1-2 between drums #2 and #4. And your right hand will play 1-2-3, 1-2-3 with the spock drum, then drum #1, then drum #3.
[demonstration]Movement Patterns—Three against Four
Okay, that is two against three. Now we’re going to do three against four. So your right hand will play spock, #1, #3 as your three pattern. And your left hand will play spock, #1, #2, #4. So you’ll keep four against three going that way.
Then just reverse it with the same patterns. Your left hand will be spock, #2, #4. And your right hand will be spock, #2, #1, #3.
[demonstration]Movement Patterns—Three against Five
Finally, let’s do three against five. Your right hand will play: spock, #1, #3–just like we did before. Now we’re going to do the five a little differently. You’re going to go: spock, #2–and then come back and do spock, #2, #4. So 1-2-3-4-5, like that.
Then switch it with the left hand. It’s going to do that same three pattern as before: spock, #2, #4. And your right hand will go: spock, #1, spock, #1, #3. So 1-2-3-4-5. So have fun with this one.
[demonstration]Those are just a few ideas. You could very much change the direction of the movements of the two and three. Or do four against five, or two against five, or anything like that. Just be creative with it, and come up with different patterns.
I have pages and pages of these different kinds of patterns in my book. So if you just need some more ideas, be sure to check that out.
Groove #1 (Easy)
Now we’re going to finish off this series with two fun groove patterns. The first one is fairly easy, and the second one is more intermediate level. I took these from the back of my book, The Art of Multi-Tenor Drumming, and it was difficult to know which ones to pick exactly. So the very first one–I just wanted to give you a flavor of what it is. I picked the very first groove pattern in this section. And then the other one, I just kind of picked at random.
The way this works–it’s based on the structure of a drum set book called The New Breed by Gary Chester. And if you have never played that book and you’re a drum set player, you should definitely check it out. It’s a great book for building coordination, and it goes through thousands and thousands of combinations.
So the way it has it is there are several systems. And the first one, it shows just the feet. And the second one shows different hand patterns you can combine. So I applied the same idea here with your left hand and your right hand. So there are tons and tons of patterns for each one. If you took every possible combination from the whole book, you would have 17,290 combinations. So there’s no way I was going to play all of those or even come close to approximating that. So I just picked the first one and then another one kind of at random.
The very first one is pretty simple. You’re just going to play straight eighth notes on the rim, and then you’re going to play just a syncopated quarter note and eighth note pattern with the left hand. And then you’re just going to switch it–play the eight notes on the left hand and then the same pattern with the right hand.
[demonstration]Groove #2 (Intermediate)
The final pattern is going to use kind of a triple beat type pattern with one hand. And the other hand is going to play sort of a clave rhythm. And you’re going to combine the two. So the triple beat pattern will be with the right hand. The clave beat will be with the left hand. And then you just switch the two.
[demonstration]Conclusion
All right, everybody, that is it! Again, this series is just intended as an introduction to tenor drumming–to get you knowing the essentials. We’ve covered about two-and-a-half hours’ worth of material if you’ve made it this far. So congratulations. If you’ve learned everything in this series, you’re off to a really good start.
Like I said, there are so many other things you could do. This is just intended to be a bunch of ideas to get you started. It has some standard vocabulary that all tenor drummers should know. But these are just the building blocks. Take them. Take combinations of them. Create new things, and combine those. And just take tenor drumming to the next level. Don’t ever hold yourself to what everyone else is doing. Be creative, and come up with new ideas.
Series Recap
So let me do a quick recap on how to use these videos. Like I said, if you don’t have videos #1 and #2 solidly down, you need to go back to those and really get those solid. The first one covers just general movement–getting comfortable with which drum you’re hitting. And the second video covers very basic around patterns with singles, and doubles, and paradiddles, and triplets, and things like that.
The third video is really good. Like I said in that video, you should probably take that video and watch it once a week for the next year. If you can’t keep up with the speeds I’m doing, keep working at it until you get there. And if you get to the point of the speeds I’m doing on those, then you’re in pretty good shape. You’ve got the fundamentals down. That’s the video on building your singles speed. And again, singles are the foundation of everything. They’re going to help your double stroke rolls. They’re going to help your paradiddles. They will help your flams. They will help everything you do. So really work on those singles. That’s really important.
Then the crossover and sweep videos–videos #4 and #5. Those are going to be really helpful to take it to the next level. And you see crossovers and sweeps in tons of tenor music now. So you just need to know those.
And then finally, video #6 covers the standard vocabulary in a lot of tenor music. And all of those things combine to just help you be a well-rounded player.
I have mostly focused on kind of repetitive patterns in this series, just to get your coordination built up. But you should also be taking this and combining the ideas with different rhythms. Stretch it out over triplet rolls or fivelets. Or put some rests in there and just change the rhythms up. Take like a snare drum part and just practice moving that around the drums until you just get comfortable with that. You’ve got to know the coordination and have the chops, but you’ve also got to have the timing and the musicality that goes with that. So practice at different volumes, at different dynamic levels, different speeds, different tempos–all of that good stuff.
And finally, I hope this last video has given some interesting ideas to take these ideas further. Just keep going with it and building up new stuff.
Final Thoughts
Thank you once again for watching. I really appreciate your time. And just pat yourself on the back for getting through all of this. You’re going to be a better player for working through this.
If you’re ready to go on to the next step, I would highly recommend getting my book, The Art of Multi-Tenor Drumming, available at RudimentalUniversity.com. It has thousands and thousands of exercises–plus 33 études and just all sorts of tips and pointers on getting better.
If you’re dedicated and want to be a better player, then seek out the best material you can find–and learn it. It will put you above people who aren’t quite so dedicated.
So once again, thank you for all your comments. If you could leave feedback on this one–what you think. If you’ve got new ideas that you want to share with other people, then please, again, post in the comments.
And I will be making new videos down the road, and I hope to see you there. And take care! Thank you. Bye!