If you’re reading this, it’s probably because you’ve already noticed that it’s very hard to do different things with different limbs at the same time, and you’re wondering how in the world you’re going to learn how to do it easily and musically!
Well, you’re in for a treat – as long as you like challenge when you practice!
I’m going to describe some torturously difficult exercises that have really been helping my playing open up independence-wise over the last several months. They’re all from my teacher, who has his own personal spin on Gary Chester’s New Breed that he uses with all his students.
You do NOT need to buy New Breed to do this, but you will need to find at least 1 page of rhythm sight-reading involving quarter and 8th notes and rests to do these exercises. However, I believe that if you have $20 bucks to spend on drum books, I think this book is versatile enough for you to get your money’s worth.
Note: If you’ve heard of New Breed before, you might have been turned off by some review that claimed that you need 2 x-hats (closed high-hats) in addition to 1 or 2 normal high-hats. DON’T worry about this! I’m super stingy, so I just cover my ride (on my right) and crash (on my left) with t-shirts to substitute for these x-hats. Sure, it doesn’t sound the same, but we’re talking about limb independence, not how to sound like Gary Chester.
Step 1: Basic Sight-Reading
You don’t need to be an expert sight-reader or be able to understand drumkit music notation or even snare drum notation with the fancy accents, rolls, and drags. But you’ve GOT to be able to decipher the same rhythm notation used by all musicians that involve 8th and 16th note subdivisions in 4/4 time. This is going to be a basic skill you’ll use for the rest of your drumming music career, regardless of what you do.
These are not hard to learn, as you can find about 10,000 musicians on the internet who’ve posted content to help! Here’s Rick Beato going through the basics.
The only thing about reading this notation on drums that different from other instruments is that you’re not ‘filling up’ the length of each note (i.e. you beat a quarter note exactly how you beat an eighth note). Instead, you’re just striking the drum at the beginning of each note as you count ‘one-ee-and-uh-two-ee-and-uh….’.
New Breed includes 10 pages of basic ‘melodies’ that are actually just rhythm lines that you can practice sight-reading. They start easy and get a bit more difficult every time you turn the page.
Start slow (without a metronome, if you are just starting out) and just do exercise I-A and I-B until they becomes easy. Count “1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and” when you do it. My teacher recommends playing every downbeat (“1”, “2”, “3”, and “4”) with your right hand and every up-beat (every “and”) with your left hand, but if you’re left-handed you may want to do the opposite. Work up to reading them cleanly at 60 bpm.
Now you’re ready for the next step in your journey to limb independence!
Step 2: Learn an ostinato
An ostinato is a fancy word for a steady groove. For New Breed, your groove is going to consist of 3 limbs + your voice. I’m going to describe the basic ostinato, but will include high-hat and voice variations. To start out, just do the basic ostinato and ignore the variations. The basic ostinato is hard enough.
But whatever you practice, do it with right-hand lead and with left-hand lead. That way, you’ll develop your off-hand and it’ll be there when you need it on stage!
You’re later going to pair this with the sight-reading by adding in your fourth limb sight-reading the ‘melody’, but before you’re ready to do that, you need to get the ostinato in your bones. Your goal is to not have to think about it very much.
Hand 1:
(could be right or left) This is your lead hand. “1-ee-and / 1-ee-and / 3-ee-and / 4-ee-and” on and on for eternity. He calls this ‘wuh-kuh-chuck’ and that’s how he sings along with it “wuh-kuh-chuck, wuh-kuh-chuck,…”.
This is going to function as your 16th note ‘glue’. Playing this at 60 beats per minute is really going to solidify the placement of all the 16th notes you ever play, from now until the day you put your sticks down for the last time.
Hand 2:
(could be right or left hand) Rock backbeat. That’s 2 and 4 on the snare.
My teacher insists on rimshots. This was so difficult for me I decided to practice rimshots separately for about 6 weeks before I began incorporating them into the ostinato. So I just started by hitting the snare without rimshots.
High-hat foot:
(left foot for most) You have 3 variations here, and they all involve stomping down to close the high hat, leaving it closed until it’s time to lift it to prepare for the next stomp.
My teacher would insist you learn all 3!
Basic high-hat ostinato – Downbeats:
Stomp on each quarter note: “STOMP-and-STOMP-and-STOMP-and-STOMP-and”
High-hat ostinato variation 1 – Upbeats:
Stomp on all the “ands”, “1-STOMP-2-STOMP-3-STOMP-4-STOMP” (these are also the ‘chucks’ in the wuh-kuh-chuck. It kinda makes a “chuck” sound when you stomp down)
High-hat ostinato variation 2 – Eighth Notes:
“STOMP-STOMP-STOMP-STOMP-STOMP-STOMP-STOMP-STOMP”. So you’re stomping on the ‘wuh’ and the ‘chuck’ of each ‘wuh-kuh-chuck.
My teacher insisted that I keep my left heel up when I did this. He said that I need to be able to play with both heels up. I insisted that I couldn’t, because I have a fused big toe in my left foot and I couldn’t balance on the drum throne with both feet up in the air anyway, but he insisted I figure it out! So after a couple weeks of tears and a few backaches while I learned what didn’t work, that’s what I did – now I find it kind fun.
Voice:
5 variations, and they’re each difficult! But before I begin, I need to address the elephant in the room: what the heck is the point of a drummer singing?!
The point is that once you develop your voice and are able to use it percussively, you’re going to be able to use it to help guide and steady a limb you might otherwise be struggling with. So your vocal rhythm will be another tool you’ll have at your disposal, one you develop it. But you’ll also have great vocal rhythm for backup singing, and these vocal exercises will give you some measure of independence with your voice.
Ok, on to the voice ostinato!
Basic vocal ostinato:
Sing quarter notes “bop-bop-bop-bop”.
Vocal ostinato variations 1-4:
sing “bops” to match one of your four limbs (I haven’t gone over what your bass-drum foot is doing, that’s next).
So, if you’re singing the wuck-uh-chuck, you sing “bop-bop-bop / bop-bop-bop….”, that sort of thing. The idea is that your voice is percussive, LOUD, and exactly matches what the chosen limb is doing.
Gary Chester says that when you sing one of your limbs, you should make your voice sound like the instrument you’re hitting. My teacher doesn’t care and just lets me sing ‘bop’ – for now. I’ve heard from others that if you can sing something, you can play it, so it’s useful to develop a vocal imitation for each sound your drum can make. But I’m not a perfect person, so I’m only going to do the minimum that’ll stop my teacher from busting my chops!
Step 3: Add in the “melody”
If you’ve got New Breed handy, play I-A or I-B with your bass drum foot while performing the ostinato with your voice and 3 other limbs.
If you decided not to use New Breed, you’ll need to find a sheet of music in 4/4 time that includes 8th notes as the smallest subdivision. No sixteenth notes for now. You can use beginner sheet music for any melody instrument (an instrument that plays one note at a time), if you have that, and just ignore the pitches and read the rhythm.
Step 4: Relish the difficulty of Step 3
This is ABSOLUTELY DUCKING impossible if you’ve never done anything like this before. So be very gentle with yourself and expect this to take a few weeks.
Remember, if practice is easy and you sound good, you’re not actually practicing, you’re performing. Your practice should be difficult, mentally exhausting, embarrassing, sweaty, frustrating and sometimes discouraging enough to need to give yourself pep-talks.
I recommend working on one beat-type at a time, and take frequent short breaks when you start feeling like you’re getting worse instead of better. E.g. do JUST quarter notes with the bass drum along with the ostinato until that’s easy. Then do JUST upbeats with your bass drum + ostinato until that’s easy. Then do JUST eighth notes + ostinato with the bass drum. Then work on measure 1. Then work on measure 2. Then work on measure 1 AND 2 in sequence and realize that you suddenly can’t do anything anymore. Then cry or yell for a bit. Maybe take a break and pick it up the next day.
That’s what worked for me.
You may find it helpful to isolate the bass drum plus just one or 2 of your limbs. Add in the remaining limbs one by one when you’re ready, then add in your voice. Practice without a metronome for a few days, just focus on getting your limbs/voice to coordinate and don’t worry about timing.
Once your limbs are reasonably coordinated, turn on the metronome to between 50 and 70 bpm. Your goal for now is to be able to read the whole page along with a metronome at 60 bpm without stopping (keep going even when you make a mistake). And to eventually have it sounding clean and crisp, right on the beat, without too many mistakes!
When I first started, I could do basic rock and shuffle groves and it’s IT! I think it took me 2 weeks of practicing 1.5~ hours of JUST this every day before I even felt like I was ‘in the groove’. And at that point, I was still crying sometimes, because I just couldn’t figure out how to balance with both heels off the ground, and my lower back was getting sore!
But I stuck with it and now it’s easy.
Step 4 – Part 2: Include the high-hat and vocal variations
Did you think you were off the hook and I’d let you just do the basic exercise, singing ‘bop’ and stomping your high hat on each quarter note?
No! Do all combinations of variations:
Stomp quarter notes, sing one of your other 3 limbs.
Stomp up-beats, sing quarter notes or one of your 4 limbs.
Stomp eighth notes, sing quarter notes or one of your 4 limbs.
Step 5: Explore other possibilities
There are really SO many things you can do once you get this down!
First, move on to the same ostinato + sight-reading exercise, but read a sheet of music in 4/4 that includes 16th notes. If you’re using New Breed, just turn to exercises II or III.
Once that’s easy for you (took me…maybe almost 2 months, if I remember correctly, but everyone’s gonna go at their own speed), pick a single measure that includes 16th notes and memorize it on the bass drum. Do wuh-kuh-chuck with your lead hand, and pick a high-hat variation (say, quarter notes). Now play a melody line on the snare with your other hand. Add in your voice on the quarter notes. Now switch hands. Do all the high hat and vocal variations.
Spend 2-3 weeks on just that one measure, but don’t stop practicing the other exercises. Then move on to another measure and get good at that. Try to find a measure that’s a bit challenging for you.
Start adding in dynamics. E.g. maybe play all the ‘ees’ on an open high-hat. Or play all the ‘ands’ on a high tom. Or play around with alternating ghost notes and rimshots on the snare.