Accents practices?

[mape]

Hi fellow drummers,

been working on accenting in grooves for the past few days, and it seems natural for us to just accent the downbeats (meaning the 1,2,3 and 4) but my coordination just fumbles up when I try to reverse it, accenting the "A"s ( in 1a2a3a4a) Hope you guys understand what I mean, and any suggestions on how to get the coordination down into the groove?

thanks!

 

[Magnimas]

im not sure if this helps, but it worked for me.. ok lets get it started. im a right-handed drummer. so its onli natural dat my right hand is stronger, therefore i play accents of downbeat wif my right hand ( the hand which i always use to start the beat, whether groove or fill).

If u wan to accent the "a"s u mentioned, tried starting wif the left instead? so ur stronger hand falls on the 'a's ineatd of the downbeat. if u are a lefty u can try the other way round, e.g. start wif ur right hand instead.

Just start wif the weaker hand if u wan to try accent the off beats =D

Disclaimer: this worked for me, but i may not work for some1 else.. pls dun flame me for any mis-info =X

 

[mape]

hey Magnimas,

thanks for helping, but the beat i meant was a normal 4/4 beat with your left hand on the snare and right hand on your hi hat. So you have to play both the accents and non accents with your right hand. Haha. Any idea?

I guess its more of a mental barrier, cos the brain is not used to counting it reverse.

 

[Magnimas]

hmm this way i tink hv to start frm slow n practice =X sry for the misunderstanding =3

even by going slow ur downbeat wif the snare will end up wif ur snare getting softer as u try ti apply less force frm ur rite, unless u control ur hands such dat rite can hit softer, left can hit harder =X

 

[mape]

yeah, haha, that's the frustrating part. trying to make your left hand play loud while your right hand plays soft.

 

[Magnimas]

yea. sry im not of much help =X im still a learning drummer =) but hv learned for a year, touched the drum less than 100 times =D onli in sch once a week i guess =O

 

[Drumbassador]

Accent practice solutions

There are many drummers having this problem of not having equal tonality and control between both hands and that would naturally affect the sound that is being produced. therefore, i am posting a few solutions that has helped my students and myself overcome this problem.

1)Practicing with a mirror-This helps in two ways and will aid in your practice especially when you want equal dynamic control between both your hands considering the fact that one would naturally be stronger than the other. when you are playing the accent exercises, firstly make sure all the anti- accents or ghost notes are of equal height comparing both your hands. when you are accenting, use the mirror to aid you in gauging whether the height of you accenting hand is more or less the same when you are accenting with the other hand.secondly, make sure the rebounding direction of both your sticks are perpendicular to the practice surface. the last way you can so called take advantage of a mirror is to check your posture and hands to see if the movements are correct according to the technique you are using.

2)Practicing simultaneous strokes with each handThis is a very useful exercise. setting a metronome at a moderate tempo, practice simultaneous notes with both hand playing 16th notes until one hand cannot keep up with the other and this would give you a rough gauge on which hand you need to work on and to what extent in order for it to equal the other. this would also allow you troubleshoot the height differences between both your sticks which is one of the major reasons on the difference in accents. with this exercise you can vary the energy between your strokes for each hand to get the equal height desired between both sticks. the idea is to make both your hands look exactly the same.

3)Moeller technique- when it comes to accenting ride or hi-hat patterns, i find using the Moeller technique the most applicable and efficient technique when it comes to accents. basically it is a combination of an down stroke, tap stroke and an upstroke whereby the down stroke is an accented stroke and the other two are anti-accents. even though this technique is known to be used for playing triplets or three subsequent strokes in in one wave-like motion, i find it also very useful when i am playing straight ahead eighth note accented pattern on the hi-hat just like the ones described by mape. it is a simple concept whereby the accented notes are down strokes and the unaccented notes are upstrokes. in the end your wrists look like they are doing a pushing and pulling motion and not only does this conserve energy, you get the clear difference between the accents and the ghost notes.

these are three solutions that might help you solve your problem but mind you it is good to practice this type of alternating accents on your hi-hat or ride during a groove but not all songs call for this style of playing because it changes the feel of the groove. there are times where you have to play it straight without accenting for the more "floating" kind of feel. so my advice is practice it but use it appropriately

 

[USADRUMMER]

**deleted**

 

[mape]

thanks guys, will do just that.

 

[evident]

every exercise you do can be done in numerous different ways. an example of just a simple RLRL/LRLR accent practice. capital letters are accented, small letters are not.

Single accents:

Rlrl Rlrl...
rLrl rLrl...
rlRl rlRl...
rlrL rlrL...
Lrlr Lrlr...
lRlr lRlr...
lrLr lrLr...
lrlR lrlR...

Double Accents:

RLrl RLrl...
RlRl RlRl...
RlrL RlrL...
rLRl rLRl...
rLrL rLrL...
rlRL rlRL...

...and reverse sticking (LRLR)...

Triple Accents:

RLRl RLRl...
RLrL RLrL...
RlRL RlRL...
rLRL rLRL...

...and reverse sticking (LRLR)...

basically this is everything (i think, do tell me if there are any other permutations) and this alone can keep you busy for days. after you can play them smoothly try combining different patterns, e.g. Rlrl RlRl..., or RLrl rLRL...

hope this helps..

P.S. in addition you can try to train your right hand to play down beats by alternating hand and foot (bass drum), e.g. FRFRFRFR..that will definitely train your right hand to play upbeats. this is also how to practice the pseudo-double pedal with your floor tom and foot.

 

[plainsman]

all the suggestions given so far by softies will help in one way or other.'

here are some more ideas. take what is useful to you.


- some degree of independence will help. by independence, i mean that the left hand snare accent is not very dependent on what the right hand is playing on the hihat. experiment hitting snare accents on any 8th note subdivision while keeping a upbeat or downbeat accent on hihat.

in the longer term, drummers often practice polyrhythms to improve their independence.



- interdependence helps too. when you play the normal downbeat accent, you are accenting the hat same time u play your left hand snare accent.

USADrummer's suggestion is a good start, evidents good when u have more time.

one more is practicing unison notes. hit right hand hi-hat ghost notes, and left hand snare accents at the same time. try them at a slow speeds at quarter note value. if u need to assess, switch off the metronome and focus on hitting each set right first.



- posture is another one. when you play the upbeat accent, assess your balance and posture. if you feel weird or shoulder, one side of your waist or wing feels strange. it should not be the case. you should be able to move naturally while playing any groove.

u may shift centre of gravity when playing bass drum notes, thus affecting what your hands are playing. check that too.



- finally, you know how a downbeat accented groove feels like, so it feels natural to you.
but you may not know exactly how a upbeat accented groove will feel like. so check out recordings/songs of upbeat accented grooves. then sit down and experiment on the drumkit, and try to recreate the feeling. you may even end up with something different, maybe more like a linear drum groove.

in any case, every comfortable pattern that grooves leads on to another good thing. so keep going in that direction.


cheers

 

[laughableinsanity]

that is one helluva good advice alfe. thumbs up!

 

[alvinthedrummer]

Here are some actual groove exercises you can try out. There are more exercises that can help, but for now, this should be good enough to get you started.

http://musicalchops.blogspot.com/

 

[OlaskZ]

grab a piece of paper , and you can write your own exercises . think of exercises and try them out without writing them down first . if you feel uncomfortable with any of it , write it down . then from there , improve it .

example , you can first start with the basic

R L R L | R L R L | R L R L | R L R L |

then you add "^" to any note you want accent-ed.

.....................^..^........^....^.....^........^.........^.^.....
Example.....:.R..L..R..L..|...R..L.R .....L | R L R L | R L R L |

then you write another of the same exercise , but this time starting with L.

.....................^..^........^....^.....^........^.........^.^.....
Example : L R L R | L R L R | L R L R | L R L R |

keep practicing until you can play it without any problem , then continue writing other exercises . you can write R L R L blah blah blah out , then get your baby sister or baby brother to add ^ randomly above any note .

hope it helps .

( I KNOW THE PLACEMENT AND ORDER OF MY EXAMPLE SUCKS , I JUST SUCK AT TYPING THEM OUT . APOLOGIES !)

but hope you know what i mean .

 

[USADRUMMER]

**deleted**

 

[ZachDrummer]

I'm actually practicing what evident had laid down for quite sometime. It does really helps with accenting notes.

You can also start with Paradiddle accent practise as follows;

Rlrr Lrll
rLrr lRll
rlRr lrLl
rlrR lrlL

That is when you are accenting only one note at a time. Now try accenting 2 notes.

RLrr LRll
rLRr lRLl
rlRR lrLL

You can just keep going on with accenting 3 notes & all. You can just do wonders with different accenting patterns on just "Paradiddles" alone. (Not including the rest of the rudiments)