Independence vs learning set patterns

I'm getting back into drumming again, focusing on jazz swing style, so lots of hands and feet moving at the same time, keeping the hithat chick going which I've never really done before.

I hear people talking about independence, as if drummers can think about what their four limbs are doing and control and change each of them on the fly. But when I've learned patterns in the past I can perform quite complicated combinations by starting slow and building up the speed; and if I learn another one in the same way, I can switch between the two quite happily. But if someone told me to bring play a snare hit an 8th note earlier it would all fall to bits, and I'd have to slow down and learn it as a new combination.

So am I right in thinking that when drummers show independence they're actually repeating and switching between lots of patterns they've learned and practised hundreds of times before? Or are they able to keep three limbs going, and play patterns with the fourth that they've never played before?

Interesting subject to meditate.
From my modest level I don't think a drummer ever reaches the stage of 4 limbs can just do whatever at the same time. Octopuses have pieces of brain in each limb and they are really 4-way (8, sorry) independent. We're not. I think.
I think that what may look like billions and billions of different possible grooves, are a relatively limited (OK still dozens probably) number of patterns on hi hat, or ride + hi hat chick, combined with many more diffferent possible patterns on bass and snare and/or toms.
What I'm seeing while studying Groove Essentials, is that it takes a while to take the "connective tissue" right, the repetitive pattern on hi hat or ride + hi hat chick, then once that is in the left foot and right hand "muscle memory", then you can pretty much focus on the more irregular patterns with right foot and left hand and you will nail the groove.
And then varying the bass or snare drum pattern is not so hard as long as the connective tissue stays the same and you don't have to think about it.
If the connective tissue changes too, then, yes as you wrote, it's either a change to a different and well-known pattern (which is already difficult to achieve, I find), or otherwise you have to think through the movements of the 4 limbs at the same time and that makes my windows crash and stops the groove.

I also had a similar thought. I find that I learn so much faster practicing and memorizing patterns than actually being musically conscious of my limbs.

I don't think about independence... it's all muscle memory and learning patterns. So most of my drum practice is messing around on the kit trying to find something new I've never done, then practicing it till it's fuild. The more I do this the more versatile and expansive my playing becomes. If I was to try and think about what my limbs are doing I wouldn't be able to think fast enough to play.

I seriously just think about the beat or fill that I want to play and my body does the rest by combining the prepracticed parts. My guitar player really likes to mess with me by creating complex double kick beats over odd time signatures... That's when I have to really slow down and build up the muscle memory.

Twilkes said:

So am I right in thinking that when drummers show independence they're actually repeating and switching between lots of patterns they've learned and practised hundreds of times before?

Click to expand...

The short answer to this is (in my opinion) "yes."

I learn the same way. Go slow and build up. Also if there is one limb doing something radically new and the rest doing something I know, I do the three known parts and try to move that into the part of my brain that takes less monitoring and work on the new part. Doing it slow at first.

My understanding is that one begets the other. When I conceive a piece of music, it is going to touch upon a routine that is covered by one of the 16th-note-combinations that I practice. Sometimes I find a gap in my coordination, so I have to develop a pattern to close the gap.

My most recent academic experience is with samba, where the limb independence drove me a little crazy at first. Hand-patens over the foot ostinato fixed all that.

Twilkes said:

I'm getting back into drumming again, focusing on jazz swing style, so lots of hands and feet moving at the same time, keeping the hithat chick going which I've never really done before.

I hear people talking about independence, as if drummers can think about what their four limbs are doing and control and change each of them on the fly. But when I've learned patterns in the past I can perform quite complicated combinations by starting slow and building up the speed; and if I learn another one in the same way, I can switch between the two quite happily. But if someone told me to bring play a snare hit an 8th note earlier it would all fall to bits, and I'd have to slow down and learn it as a new combination.

So am I right in thinking that when drummers show independence they're actually repeating and switching between lots of patterns they've learned and practised hundreds of times before? Or are they able to keep three limbs going, and play patterns with the fourth that they've never played before?

Click to expand...

Hello All,

In my humble opinion... it depends on what exactly any or a specific drummer has been working on... Or even whether you are speaking of improvisation or reading independence?
Let's take, for example "reading" a John Riley book or Chapin book. When you are "reading" whether it's 2 way, 3 way, or 4 way independence, it's completely different from improv. Reading can mean there are no patterns.... the lines you read are ... organic.. if that term applies, the rhythmic independence is constantly changing... in Jazz for example, the only part of the instrument playing the same rhythmic pattern may be the ride cymbal. All else is constantly changing, depending the ability of the performer & what he is reading. Similar to a Latin ostinato, etc.

Improvisation is different. There, you work to move patterns, stickings, footwork or footwork & stickings.. including ostinatos, etc. from the conscience level to the subconscious by consistently repeating them numerous times.. Until you can play them without consciously thinking of a specific pattern, etc. Like walking.. we don't think about "how" we walk any more.. it's at the subconscious level via habit.

Not sure is what I've written addresses your question... Let me know if you desire..

I just started the Chapin book... like on the first set of exercises, just started... Anyway, I've kinda had to go about how I learn the patterns differently than I would, say, some beat in a rock song. In a rock setting (or even learning something from a rock-oriented book), I slow everything down and literally figure out what hits where and when, then gradually get it up to tempo.

With these jazz patterns, I've found that trying to slow it down and figure it out as above doesn't quite work for me. Instead, I take it one limb at a time at tempo or slightly slower, and add in another, and another until I can get it down. I think keeping things at tempo helps keep the swing feel.

I'll usually start with the hands first, get that smooth, then add in the bass drum, then the hats on the 2&4.

When I first started, it was incredibly frustrating. I mean like, "screw this, maybe I'm not cut out for jazz" frustrating. But I kept at it, and it's now starting to click, and I'm kind of impressed. Getting the ride pattern down, along with the 2&4 chick, then throwing in the snare patterns is hard, but I can see that once the ride and chick become like walking, everything else seems to fall into place.

I wonder if the brain is capable of "true" 4 way "independence". Meaning the brain can't divide its conscience processing into 4 independent streams of thought simultaneously. But that is perhaps a question for neurological research. I tend to think of this as 4 Limb "Inter-dependence" or "Coordination" of many practiced patterns. So we already know we can learn any set pattern using 4 limbs, simple to very complex. It becomes subconscious at some point - you don't have to think about the pattern anymore. Problem is you have to practice many patterns to approach what could be thought of as total independence - which would take too much practice time. If my math was not stale, I could give you the formula for how many patterns (N4 factorial?) and approximate time required to learn all (N!*M hours = very large number) , but that is academic.

On thing I have noticed is that you can take an arbitrarily complex pattern of 3 limbs where you have learned the pattern to subconscious level (no longer thinking about it) and then (and here is the trick), take the 4th limb and play anything - any other pattern independent of the 3 limb Ostinato (if I am using that term correctly). In this way, your brain is only thinking consciously about that single 4th limb. The other 3 are effectively on auto-pilot. This the brain can handle in a single stream of conscious thought. Try this as an experiment, perhaps with a simple 3 limb pattern and use 4th limb to play anything you think of.

Now here is the cool part...What if you switched this 4th limb from one limb to another each M measures? For example, maybe switch from LF (high-hat) to say LH (Snare). And perhaps further change the 4th limb pattern to something different. Your conscious brain is only moving focus from LF to LH, all else stays constant. If you extend this idea, the "independent" 4th limb can move around from LF, LH, RF, RH in any order over a set number of measures. Sort of giving a "1st order" approximation of total independence (which is not possible). Not exactly the easiest thing to do, BUT possible for the brain to handle (with practice, of course).

Thats my thinking on the subject...Dan

It's an interesting question and I don't know the answer, but I suspect most of it is learning set patterns and recycling that learned skill. You get used to how something feels and then you can re-use it when needed.

I've been working on new exercises out of books for the first time in years and I'm encountering some things that are really challenging me to develop new coordinative combinations. A lot of how I learn is figuring out what beats between limbs line up and then internalizing it until I don't have to think about it.

But then I think about something like a samba pattern and it seems like I can do almost anything over that with my hands. I find I can even slow down and speed up without losing the ostinato I'm playing with my feet. I don't know if that's because I've learned so many combinations over the years, or if I'm somehow able to put my feet on "auto-pilot," which is what it feels like. Interesting question.

I see I'm a little late to this discussion but I just ran across it and found it very interesting. I have a couple things to share.

Back in the early 90s a drum teacher gave me an assignment. I had to play the jazz ride cymbal pattern and read a page of eighth notes ( swung of course ) on the snare drum. I could play the cymbal pattern by itself and I could swing the eighth notes with my left hand by itself but trying to do the two together was IMPOSSIBLE. I just couldn't do it. After many failed attempts, I decided to try something. I wrote out two bars of the jazz ride pattern with the first two bars of eighth notes. It was still tough at first, but now I could see where everything landed. Where notes landed together and where they landed by themselves. I finally started to make some progress. I think I did the first half of the page like this. Then I was able to play the cymbal pattern and read the eighth notes off of the paper for the second half of the page. Finally.

Some time after that ( years maybe ) , I read of a famous drummer ( wish I could remember who he was ) say something like "Independence is kind of misnomer because it implies that your limbs are doing different things, when in reality everything they are doing is somehow related." I'm paraphrasing that statement and really wish I could remember who said it. Because as soon as I read it, I was reminded of that page of eighth notes and how things started to come together when I wrote the cymbal pattern together with the eighth notes and I could visually see how they were related and how doing that really helped me make the seemingly impossible start to be possible.

Anyone know who said that?

8Mile used the word "autopilot". This is how I feel too when the level of complexity of limb separation in a particular beat gets high enough, one or more limbs switch to autopilot while I "think" about what the other(s) are doing.

Take for example Meshuggah "Bleed"; I don't think about the kicks at all, those are on autopilot, or purely feel, and I'm more conscious of my hands.

Best way I've found is to find the weak points and develop exercises to work on them. For instance, if I'm having problems phrasing 16th notes over a rolling triplet foot pattern, I'll take the first three pages of Stick Control, practice them over a 6/8 bell pattern in the left foot while marking time in the right… then switching.

Back to the original question, yes you got it with your summation. Once you've mastered enough coordinated bits then you can switch between them at will in order to seem independent.

Food for thought for drumset players: When somebody says, "Wow, that drummer has great independence." I think, "You mean he/she practiced a lot?" Those who amaze with displays of "independence" are doing it over patterns they've worked out. If you ask them to play something with this limb, another with that (etc) that they haven't worked out yet, it's a safe bet they'll sound like a beginner as they fall all over themselves. No matter how far along you are in your playing, new coordination requires slow repetitions to work it all out.

I have to wonder how far independence can go. I mean, can a person play 2 different unrelated tempos with different limbs? That hurts my brain just trying to imagine that. When there is what's generally accepted as 4 way independence going on, it all has a common tempo thread.

Imagine playing money beat bass drum at 100 BPM and a backbeat at 85 BPM with a hi hat chick at 94 BPM and a ride pattern at 160 bpm. Or just listen to a 5 year old...who can't play....play.

4 way independence implies that each limb can play it's own tempo. That's insane!

When I can't do a 4 way coordination thing, and I work on it and finally get past it, I believe you are wiring up new circuits or pathways in the brain. Making connections between places that were unconnected previously.

larryace said:

I have to wonder how far independence can go. I mean, can a person play 2 different unrelated tempos with different limbs?

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Yes, they can. I've seen a few drummers do this, usually hands soloing over feet.

Usually I have to do what you guys are talking about, breaking everything down and seeing where everything falls. Where that didn't work for me is when I started on Extreme Interdependence. That required setting a click, getting really used to the ostinato pattern, then forgetting what my feet were doing and focusing on only the hands. It's a real weird feeling when you realize that's what you've done.

This week I ad the good fortune to demonstrate hand patterns (rlrrlrll, rllrlrrl, rrlrllrl) over a Samba foot ostinato to my teacher. I blazed through them because I've been working on them for over a month. He asked me to repeat the 16th note paradiddles, but move the accent down by one to the -ee- instead of the 1...

Sometimes, It's embarrassing to learn just how green I am with this instrument. This was one of those magic times. Needless to say, I know what I'll be working on this month.

Twilkes said:

I'm getting back into drumming again, focusing on jazz swing style, so lots of hands and feet moving at the same time, keeping the hithat chick going which I've never really done before.

I hear people talking about independence, as if drummers can think about what their four limbs are doing and control and change each of them on the fly. But when I've learned patterns in the past I can perform quite complicated combinations by starting slow and building up the speed; and if I learn another one in the same way, I can switch between the two quite happily. But if someone told me to bring play a snare hit an 8th note earlier it would all fall to bits, and I'd have to slow down and learn it as a new combination.

So am I right in thinking that when drummers show independence they're actually repeating and switching between lots of patterns they've learned and practised hundreds of times before? Or are they able to keep three limbs going, and play patterns with the fourth that they've never played before?

Click to expand...

As devil's advocate, I'm more of a "independent" player. I don't play patterns, but I'm aware of making each limb do different things. It gets even hairier if you sing, then that's at least five things going. And if you're on a gig, bored, you can do all that while watching the TV playing behind the bar too.

I should probably get my patterns playing down a bit more.

When I'm playing four different things with my hands and feet, those four thing are in relation to each other. I've never really considered it "independent". Not like playing radically different time sigs and tempos all at the same time. Even the ventriloquist that can do two voices at once can only say the same line in both voices, not just chattering away in two unrelated conversations. When I'm playing four things at once I'm still only thinking about one thing, one song, one beat, one tempo. The four things all work around the one and thus work together. Independence then is just an illusion because the listener only sees and hears your hands and feet moving separately and not your thoughts which tie it all together. Anyone that can truly play entirely separate, unrelated patterns, aside from being oddly talented, in my opinion would be wasting their time because no one wants to hear two different songs at once. The end result would be cacophony.