Jazz is a very popular and artistic style of music, especially for drummers who want to learn how to play the drums. The true skills of a drummer are reflected through Jazz drumming. Jazz is a bit different than 4/4 rock drumming. This fact frightens the drummers and they do not strive to learn it. It is also played with a different pattern known as triplets. It includes faster drumming but like other drumming it needs perfect timing too.
The basic swing jazz groove is the first thing to learn for a jazz drummer. You have to give time to rest of the group in jazz music. You have to keep yourself from overpowering your band. To do this, you will have to make use of ride cymbal and hi-hat. Step on the 2nd and 4th count for hi-hat. This groove should be at the top of anything that you play in jazz. A triplet feel will be used to play ride cymbal, which will be added to the hi-hat groove.
As said earlier, jazz drums need not to be too dominant. In order to do that, you have to control the volume of the bass drum. Play bass drum with the heel of the foot touching the ground to reduce the impact of the kick. This technique is called heel down drum playing. Another technique known as feathering is also used by the professional drummers. In this technique, the bass drum is lightly tapped on the quarter and eighth notes. In order to completely know how to play the drums like a bass drummer, you have to follow the bass guitar play so try to follow his progression.
The basic jazz swing is the most commonly heard groove in jazz music. These groove skills have to be developed before advancing as a jazz drummer. Snare is mostly used to het the rest of the band in a flow. It can also be used to play quarter notes. It all depends on your comfort level. There are other variations of jazz like the shuffle pattern which is needed to be learned afterwards.
A group of 3 notes played differently than the regular beat is known as triplet. There are many ways to count triplets but the most basic and best way is that you simply count the name aloud: One Trip Let Two Trip Let Three Trip Let Four Trip Let. You might have noticed that there are more words in a triplet than a regular triplet but you go by the same tempo while playing triplets. This means that there are more notes in a beats than the regular beat. On a music sheet, triplets are notes grouped together with a number 3 above them. Ensure if they are 8th note, 16th note or any other.
Triplet is a very important pattern in jazz music. Therefore, it is necessary to learn when practicing how to play the drums. It can be added anywhere in a song or a beat and can be played on the cymbal or any drum. There are a few popular types of triplets like a double stroke roll and a para-diddle triplet.
Copyright (c) 2011 Joe Maldonado