On the varieties of stickings

Here's a nice geekish piece at by E.W. Flack at The Drumslingers, in which he goes in depth on the history and usage of the three basic sticking methods in US drumming and its derivatives-- rudimental, natural, and alternating; and I would add to that something I call pseudo-alternating. I've included some largish snippets of Flack's text, along with a few of my own comments and examples, but definitely go read the entire piece.


Natural

This is the sticking method I learned through drum corps, but it's also very drumset friendly. Basically the lead hand (usually the right) play all notes landing on the 8th note grid, and the left hand plays any e's and a's:

Much of what Flack says below is borne out by my own experience:

The natural sticking method... does not rely on the complex rudimental patterns of military drumming, although a mastery of basic rudimental technique is still important.

The concept behind natural sticking is based on the observation that most people are right handed and therefore the strongest beats which are the “pulse” beats should be played by the strongest hand which is the right hand. All subsequent up-beats are played by the left hand which results in naturally flowing sticking patterns throughout.

In his book, Championship Concepts for Marching Percussion, Thom Hannum wrote that the natural sticking system, “negates any awkward doublings of one hand or the other.” Hannum then prescribes a series of 16th note timing exercises based on duple and triple beat check patterns. To explain their sticking he says, “All stickings are derived by eliminating the stroke of the note which is rested. Then play the remaining values in the sequence of natural sticking.”(1)

Natural sticking is generally easier for most people to learn; it enables less experienced players to more readily produce an even and consistent quality of sound. Natural sticking is an excellent option for marching band drum lines because the simple sticking patterns facilitate the ability to play at faster tempos while presenting a visually uniform style. Drum lines using the natural sticking system can more quickly adapt to changes in musical scores, requiring less rehearsal time.

Much more after the break:

Sight reading drum music is easier when using the natural sticking method compared to rudimental sticking because reading becomes a matter of visual pattern recognition which does not require anticipating and controlling unpredictable sticking patterns.

Probably the earliest American advocate of natural sticking and the man who best explained and helped proliferate that system was Edward B. Straight (one of the original 13 founders of N.A.R.D.) Ed Straight wrote several books on the topic of modern drumming. [...]

Ed Straight’s strong influence in popularizing natural sticking is why it is often called “Straight Sticking.” In the introductory pages of his book, Straight lists the following points to explain the foundation of his Natural Way System.(2)

[...]

The downside of natural sticking is that strong hand dominance means the weak hand tends to stay weak. The antidote to that risk is to invest time practicing natural sticking exercises with a left hand lead.

Alternating

A strict alternating sticking was something I learned studying concert snare drum in college (it seems strange now that I would've picked it up so late!). As a general rule phrases start with the right hand and alternate after that, regardless of the rhythm:

There would be exceptions-- a phrase starting with a pickup or pickups might begin with the left:

Or certain very exposed or very delicate parts might be played with repeated notes on the same hand to insure absolute consistency. Here's an example from my copy of Tony Cirone's Portraits in Rhythm, with stickings penciled in by my professor, Charles Dowd:

Here's Flack:

Alternating sticking is just exactly as the name implies: every stroke is alternated from right-to-left, or left-to-right regardless of what the rhythm is. In definition, it is sometimes confused with natural sticking because the two methods share a foundation that depends on alternated patterns between right and left hands.

The difference is that when using the natural sticking method, the strong pulse always falls under the right/lead hand but when playing the alternating sticking method, sometimes the strong pulse beat will be played by the right and sometimes the strong pulse will fall under a left-leading stroke.

This can make alternating sticking feel somewhat awkward to play and it can make sight-reading more difficult because repeated rhythmic patterns can occur with the opposite sticking sequence. By contrast, when using the natural sticking method, any time a particular rhythm is repeated it is always played the same way.

Alternating sticking is very conducive for drum-to-drum, or key-to-key movement which makes it a good fit when applied to tympani and to mallet percussion instruments such as marimba and xylophone. On those instruments the sticking sequence is dictated as much by where the stroke is to be played as it is by what rhythm is called for.

Pseudo-alternating

That's my own term, and it's probably bad Latin, but what the hell. If you like quasi-alternating or mostly-alternating better, use them. What I mean by it is to use an alternating sticking, but starting every measure (more or less) with the right hand:

Another option when playing in cut time would be to begin every other measure with the right hand. This is a handy sticking for the drumset-- where the hands are often on different instruments-- and you want an alternating sticking for how it makes a rhythm lie on the drums, but you want to come out on the right hand frequently, and avoid turning the sticking around so the left hand is on the strong beats for extended periods.

Here's the above example played on the drumset with the right hand on the cymbal, doubled with the bass drum, and the left hand on the snare, first in natural sticking:

Then in strict alternating sticking:

Then in "pseudo-alternating":

Rudimental

Flack actually went pretty short on this subject-- I guess because Drumslingers covers it on a daily basis:

American military drumming is a pure rudimental style in the sense that all drum beats are composed and arranged entirely of military drum “rudiments” as they evolved during the 1800s. 

The idea of using open-form rudiments as the basis for sticking ordinary rhythms is kind of interesting to me, and I'll be exploring it a bit with this "rudimental Reed" series. It's a very old-fashioned method, but has never been a foundational part of my own playing. I think it can be somewhat limiting; the method can begin to dictate the musical content somewhat, and I feel there's a certain sameness in heavily rudimentally-based playing. Here's a very crude, very non-traditional illustration of this concept, applying open-form rudimental stickings to the same rhythm as the earlier examples:

Again, go read Flack's complete piece for much more detail and historical background.

Typos in Funky Primer

Time to get out your white-out again. This is something that had been bugging me for many years of working with A Funky Primer, by my old professor, Charles Dowd. Most of the book consists of bass drum and snare drum combinations along with 8th notes on the hihat. A few places, though, there are these oddball patterns where the hihat falls on the e's and a's:

There's nothing wrong with the pattern, I guess, except that it makes no sense in context- there's nothing else like it anywhere in the book, except these few random measures. After a couple decades of just ignoring those patterns, it dawned on me that when you beam the notes this way:

The result is exactly what you would expect for that page of the book. I imagine the copyist was getting in a groove with his work, and got a little cocky about knowing where the beams were supposed to go without double-checking his master copy, and screwed it up.

A couple more of these after the break:

These two are from the "hands only" part of the book:

Properly beamed this becomes:

And this pattern:

Becomes:

Best books - Even in the Odds by Ralph Humphrey

The classic text on odd meter playing by Zappa/Don Ellis drummer Ralph Humphrey, this book covers swing, funk, and solo patterns in 5/4, 7/4, 5/8, 7/8, and longer odd time signatures. Each meter gets a concise treatment of four or five pages focused on learning its particular terrain. The written text is also minimal but effective- the instruction "repeat each exercise until a casual swing develops" is representative. This is a welcome change from many current books which tend to include way too many exercises, and assume a lot of ignorance (and isolation from real-world sources of information) with overly detailed verbal instructions. It appears to be geared towards college students who are going to tear through it, then run out and complete the process by applying it in performance.

For a partisan (like me) of the modern, interpretive Syncopation-based method of practice (reading a single melody line and orchestrating it for the drums on the fly), the process used in this book is rather old fashioned, in the Chapin mode. This entails learning by fully written-out one measure patterns, eventually adding up to at least a practical vocabulary, if not a lot of understanding. This does work well with the subject matter, though- many of us are back in the stone age (or at least the early days of the Chapin book) when it comes to odd meters, and it's fine to be spoon fed the patterns a little bit while the shape of the meters sinks in. And this book is well-constructed in that at leads you easily into going beyond the written exercises- in a way, it seems like the pinnacle of that approach.



One unusual thing is the way the swing sections are handled- most of the coordination deals with just the feet and ride cymbal. This is actually appropriate, given that odd meters tend to use rhythmic vamps (typically supported by the bass drum) instead of walking bass lines, in which the bass drum is used more for punctuation.  The left hand is dealt with only briefly. Humphrey appears to be prioritizing in favor of getting the foundation together, and perhaps assuming that anyone using the book will have his left hand together, and be able to work it in once the foundation is solid. That has been my experience using the book, anyhow.

It's also notable that he explains the common ways  of dividing measures into 3s and 2s, but does not segregate the exercises that way, and many of the exercises will "cross"- the cymbal pattern may be 3+2, but the feet are playing 2+3. This not for any musical effect I'm aware of- it seems to be more for the purpose of loosening things up, since odd meters tend towards boxiness. 

The funk patterns have a little bit of that 70's thing going on, but that's OK; I'm becoming more of the opinion that book ideas should not be too hip. Let the student figure a few things out. It is a problem with Charles Dowd's odd meter book Thesaurus for the Jazz-Rock Drummer (renamed A Funky Thesaurus), which is more dated, with overly dense bass drum and snare drum parts. Again, we're just learning the shape of the measure, and it is left up to the student to find what works musically in performance.

The solo section also deals with a fairly narrow range of concepts- alternating accented single strokes and mixed stickings over running 8th notes, 16th notes, or triplets. While not getting too insane technically, the information in the section adds up to a good, flexible, practical improvising vocabulary. After learning it thoroughly musicians will be well set to take it much further.

Buy the book.

By the way, I do not have a relationship with Steve Weiss Music- I do not get anything for referring you to their site. Though I wouldn't mind it! They have a great selection of books I have not been able to find anywhere else, and their customer service has been good. If you purchase anything from them based on my reference, it would be lovely of you to make a note of it in your purchase order! Thanks! -tb