Neal Peart and Rush on Colbert Report!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1y2SV7fn9k&fmt=18

You've got to love it!

Polyrhythm Illusions

Polyrhythms used to intimidate me. They were this black magic where the drummer was playing 2 separate things at one time. But everything seems like black magic until you learn it. Then it's just another thing you know. Sometimes the mystique of a new technique will actually diminish after you've learned it.

I'm also a juggler. Juggling 3 balls has the same kind of draw that drumming has on me. (helps with triplet feel also). But with juggling its also an illusion. It 'looks' like you have 3 balls in the air at a time, but actually you only ever have one ball in the air and switch out at either hand.

Polyrhythms are the same. I have internalized the 3:2 or 6:4 Polyrhythms and use them all the time. But I love 7:4, it tickles my soul. The hardest part of learning it occurred before I began to try to learn it. Because it seemed so crazy and unattainable. I had to think of it not as 2 rhythms but as 1 rhythm which was divided a certain way among my limbs. Now it's internalized and doesn't seem as hard. But I still love how other musicians triple take when I whip out a 7:4 groove.

Here's how I conceptualize it.

First grid out a measure of 7/4
1e&a2e&a3e&a4e&a5e&a6e&a7e&a

Each quarter note gets a pulse, and then the 4 lays within that on certain other notes like this:

1e&a2e&a3e&a4e&a5e&a6e&a7e&a

Now place the sticking like this:

Right Hand
1e&a2e&a3e&a4e&a5e&a6e&a7e&a
Left Hand
1e&a2e&a3e&a4e&a5e&a6e&a7e&a

Note how the right hand just plays quarter notes, and the left hand starts on the beat and then shifts one 16th every time around. As I play it I think (1...2 a3..4.&.5...6e...7....1..etc)

After I thought of the rhythm this way I was playing it very soon after. Then I had to internalize it so I could play it 'with' something.

Try putting the right hand pattern on the high hat and splitting the left hand pattern between the Kick and the Snare. This is a really interesting and strange groove.

Play it and repeat the pattern while thinking in 7/4. Feel the 7 and lock in with that.

Then Play it feeling the Kick and Snare in 4/4. This can make you stumble, but let your right hand go on auto pilot and focus your mind on the Kick/Snare. You will feel that second tempo and start to relate to it. When you are doing a poly like this you are actually playing two tempos at once and this can lead you into cool implied metric modulations, but thats for another day

Do this enough and you will internalize the feeling of the 7:4 poly to the point where you can take a regular 4/4 groove and throw a 7 high hat rhythm over it for a measure. But be sure your playing with musicians who trust you or you may make them think you're drunk

Once in a while in my band we will have a special rehearsal where we will work on ensemble 'exercises' as opposed to songs and improvisation. One thing we will work on is this 7/4 groove. The bass player will lock in with the 4/4 pulse and the keyboard or guitarist will improvise in 7. We did this a long time before it started to sound good. Mostly we were just thrilled to be hanging on at first.

Fun stuff

Custom Kick Head

A few weeks ago I received my custom drum head from drumart.com for my band Ebeneezer.

I opted for the removable logo for my 18" kick drum. That way I can remove it without taking the drumhead off if I'm playing with another group. The logo is basically high quality printing on vinyl film. It installs easily and looks so professional I'm shocked it cost me under a hundred dollars. If you need/want a custom head I would recommend this company for sure.

The only problem I had with the logo was the first time I gigged out with it. I loaded my car up with the drums on a Thursday night for the Friday gig. I went to work Friday and left the drums in my hot car all day and then drove 2 hours up into the mountains to the gig. Alma Colorado is just shy of 10,000 feet, and thats almost twice the altitude of Denver. We had the midnight slot at the bar and it was quite cold out by the time I unpacked my drums. as I unpacked I noticed that the logo had started to peel off the top of the drum head. Some closer inspection revealed that the vinyl did a little shrinkydink number. The vinyl had stretched out in the heat and contracted in the cold. I 'made' the head go back on the drum with a little duct tape and it made it through the gig.

When I got home I put the head in the bathtub and let it soak in about 4 inches of the hottest tap water. I then applied the logo to the glass shower door and used a squeegee to remove the bubbles. My wife wasn't too thrilled that she had to look at my band logo while taking a shower, but thats another story. Anyway it worked and the head flattened back out. Next time I have to keep my drums in my car I'll remove the logo until right before the gig and it should be all right.

Gear - Drums

I have 2 kits that I currently record and play out with. I’m partial to a four piece setup and I always approach a drum configuration as a four piece, or an extended four piece with do-dads. I find that a four piece setup aids focus when playing for the song and keeps me grounded and thinking creatively.

Pearl Master Studio series in deep cobalt blue.

16×22″ Kick drum with no mounts
7×10″ rack tom with RIMS mounts
12×14″ rack tom (used as floor) with RIMS mounts

Gretsch Catalina Jazz kit in white peal.

14×18 Kick drum (mounts unused)
7×12 rack tom on a snare stand
14×14 floor tom on legs

Snare Drums

5×14 Gretsch steel drum (10 lugs with die cast hoops)
4×14 Custom built maple (10 lugs with Pearl die cast hoops)
6×13 Tama (6 lugs) with a Yamaha groove wedge
6-1/2×14 Pork Pie Big Black Brass Snare (10 lugs triple flange hoops)
12″ Remo TSS Snare

Cymbals - primary

22″ Bosphorus Stanton Moore series wide ride
14″ Bosphorus Stanton Moore series fat hats
18″ Bosphorus Traditional series Jazz Crash/ride
18″ Bosphorus Traditional series flat ride
8″ Zildjian A splash (mounted ‘bell up’ under Bosphorus flat ride

Cymbals - in the arsenal

20″ Zildjian K Custom Dry ride
20″ Zildjian K Rock Ride
16″ and 18″ Zildjian Z rock crashes

Hardware

Axis Pedal (AX-A)
DW 6000 series stands (flat base) for gigging out
Pearl stands in the studio
Pearl Eliminator Pedals (double)
Yamaha cocktail kick pedal (for playing the bottom of a floor tom)

Sticks

Vic Firth - AJ1 hickory
Vic Firth - SD4 maple
various rods sticks and toys for special effect

Loop Harvest - 6/25

Wednesday is my usual rehearsal day with Ebeneezer, but this week we had to cancel because the guitarist had a canceled flight back from NYC and couldn’t make it in time.

So I made use of the 2 hour window to do some housekeeping in the studio. I was working on some drum tuning tweaks for our gig up at the South Park Music Tour on Friday the 27th.

I made a few little breakthroughs. I found out that my internally mounted kick drum mic (Audix D6) was out of phase with my overhead microphone (Shure SM81). I didn’t think it was out of phase because I haven’t run into that problem previously. The sound was really washed out and almost transparent sounding. I thought it was the mic placement, but then I noticed that kick sounded full until I brought in the rest of kit.

I corrected the phase problem in pro tools by sliding the kick track so the waveform lined up with the overhead waveform for an isolated kick hit.

Anyway, while playing and tuning and improvising I discovered a few tasty grooves. Below are the first ones I’ve harvested from the hour and a half session I recorded.

Free Drum Loops

Biggie Doda
Clackety Tong Tong
Schlunk 0
Schlunk 1
Schlunk Fill