Jazz skip not placement and comping

davidr

Senior Member
I'm learning jazz at the moment using The Art of Bop Drumming and I'm working through comp example 2 which is triplet based. At the same time I'm working really hard on my right hand to develop my own swing. I find that I like it best when I play somewhere between the 'let' of triplet and a straight sixteenth note, verging more towards the sixteenth to create a tighter feel. The problem is that when I read the comping exercises, I play them as triplets, causing a small flam between the snare and the skip note. I don't know whether to force my snare hand to conform to my ride pattern or whether to lock the ride pattern and just play the triplets as triplets, allowing a little flam as long as I can swing it. What do people think?
 
I think you should stick with a nice swung 8th feel for your ride beat

you definitely dont want a straight 16th feel anywhere near your ride cymbal beat

this is a great place to start .....a great way to practice ......and a great explanation of what you need from your ride beat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syAVfXzGfLc&feature=plcp

I hope Andrew doesnt mind me sharing his link :)
 
I think you should stick with a nice swung 8th feel for your ride beat

you definitely dont want a straight 16th feel anywhere near your ride cymbal beat

this is a great place to start .....a great way to practice ......and a great explanation of what you need from your ride beat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syAVfXzGfLc&feature=plcp

I hope Andrew doesnt mind me sharing his link :)

I'm not saying that I play sixteenths, but I'm trying to emulate the Art Blakey ride pattern somewhat. I can play the standard triplet feel well but I just think a tighter ride pattern sounds better.
 
Sounds like it's time to go to your record collection- I suspect you can find Jimmy Cobb, Roy Haynes, Shelly Manne, Louis Bellson, maybe Art Blakey playing a feel you describe at one point or another. Listen to them and see how they handle it. Here's Jimmy Cobb playing a real dotted 8th/16th-y ride pattern after about 2:30. I'd give it a close listen and see what his cymbal does when he plays triplets on 2 or 4- he may drop out the skip note, or skooch it over to line up with the snare drum, or play the middle note of the triplet accurately with his left while keeping the late SN on the cymbal, or he may just let them flam. It kind of sounds like he's not playing triplets on 2 and 4 that often. Whatever he does, if it's acceptable with the Miles Davis Quintet, it's acceptable for your playing.

Use your own judgment- flamming on weak places in the measure when you play a certain thing is not the worst thing in the world. Neither is changing your cymbal interpretation slightly for a couple of beats to accommodate a comping statement on the drums. Everything doesn't always resolve perfectly.

Something else to think about: Don't get too attached to your intellectual idea of how "your" time should feel. I've done that before, and it just slows you down. You're going to sound like yourself no matter what you do. I personally play mostly a triplet feel, but I'll put it all over the place depending on the tune, the tempo, and the people I'm playing with. Be flexible, and listen to how you sound- I suspect you'll find that the quasi-dotted 8th/16th feel only works in a fairly narrow range of tempos.
 
The amount of swing you choose to play with should be dictated by the feel of the song. Sometimes it'll feel better with a tight swing, other times it'll feel better swung between the eighth note and the last triplet. You should practice all cases, and all feels.

Anyway, I'd stick with a standard triplet feel when you are learning this stuff. If you start swinging things too much at this stage, your uptempo swing with with be hard to get right because, in general, you swing things less and less as the tempo goes up.

Regardless whatever you decide to do, do it the same with both hands. If your playing a tight swing with your right hand, your left hand should follow that time feel. Don't mix.
 
Sounds like it's time to go to your record collection- I suspect you can find Jimmy Cobb, Roy Haynes, Shelly Manne, Louis Bellson, maybe Art Blakey playing a feel you describe at one point or another. Listen to them and see how they handle it. Here's Jimmy Cobb playing a real dotted 8th/16th-y ride pattern after about 2:30. I'd give it a close listen and see what his cymbal does when he plays triplets on 2 or 4- he may drop out the skip note, or skooch it over to line up with the snare drum, or play the middle note of the triplet accurately with his left while keeping the late SN on the cymbal, or he may just let them flam. It kind of sounds like he's not playing triplets on 2 and 4 that often. Whatever he does, if it's acceptable with the Miles Davis Quintet, it's acceptable for your playing.

Use your own judgment- flamming on weak places in the measure when you play a certain thing is not the worst thing in the world. Neither is changing your cymbal interpretation slightly for a couple of beats to accommodate a comping statement on the drums. Everything doesn't always resolve perfectly.

Something else to think about: Don't get too attached to your intellectual idea of how "your" time should feel. I've done that before, and it just slows you down. You're going to sound like yourself no matter what you do. I personally play mostly a triplet feel, but I'll put it all over the place depending on the tune, the tempo, and the people I'm playing with. Be flexible, and listen to how you sound- I suspect you'll find that the quasi-dotted 8th/16th feel only works in a fairly narrow range of tempos.

Great advice, thank you very much.
 
The amount of swing you choose to play with should be dictated by the feel of the song. Sometimes it'll feel better with a tight swing, other times it'll feel better swung between the eighth note and the last triplet. You should practice all cases, and all feels.

Anyway, I'd stick with a standard triplet feel when you are learning this stuff. If you start swinging things too much at this stage, your uptempo swing with with be hard to get right because, in general, you swing things less and less as the tempo goes up.

Regardless whatever you decide to do, do it the same with both hands. If your playing a tight swing with your right hand, your left hand should follow that time feel. Don't mix.

Thanks I think I'll leave the experimentation until I've 'mastered' comping.
 
Feel free to experiment with your timing, but when you are hitting the ride and snare simultaneously, things should be LASER tight. You can still feel loose and laid back doing this, but if you're getting any kind of unintentional flam effect, then you're just going to sound bad.

Most drummers don't even realize this is happening, so be thankful for your great ear!

Also be aware of this happening with the hi hat and bass drum. Check out the second lesson on the Donny Gruendler Lesson page - this is the number one exercise I recommend to my drummer friends. Be sure to do it for the full 20 minutes without stopping - things will shift around in your brain like you can't imagine!

-sheldon
 
Feel free to experiment with your timing, but when you are hitting the ride and snare simultaneously, things should be LASER tight. You can still feel loose and laid back doing this, but if you're getting any kind of unintentional flam effect, then you're just going to sound bad.

Again, go to the recordings. It's not easy to illustrate, because it requires some very close listening, but it's not too difficult to hear that these guys aren't exactly adhering to the Thomas Lang standard for precision of unisions:

Frankie Dunlop
Elvin Jones
Billy Higgins

It's a thing you want to be aware of, and have control over- particularly for playing other kinds of music- but it's not a rigid standard for sounding good in jazz.
 
I think you should stick with a nice swung 8th feel for your ride beat

you definitely dont want a straight 16th feel anywhere near your ride cymbal beat

this is a great place to start .....a great way to practice ......and a great explanation of what you need from your ride beat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syAVfXzGfLc&feature=plcp

I hope Andrew doesnt mind me sharing his link :)

Not at all Anthony! You beat me to it, lol!

By the way, I think all the advice on here so far has been great. I really do believe that you can benefit from just playing your ride cymbal along with some masters (if you want to work on Blakey that is a great place to start). I think what Todd said about not over-thinking this is important as well, if it feels good to you, it is probably right. A good feeling ride cymbal beat comes from your sense of confidence and groove, and this trumps just about everything else in terms of how it affects the people playing with you and the audience. So play along with just the ride cymbal, cultivating this feeling of confidence and groove at a variety of tempos.

Once that spang-a-lang feels good, I think your LH will feel a lot more oriented.
 
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