Alan Dawson's “Ruff Bossa”

We're laying it on pretty thick with the Reed interpretations right now, but I just went over this with a student, so I need to put up one more. It's a swing interpretation with partially filled-in triplets, using the 8th note rest and syncopation sections of Reed (pp. 29-44 in the old edition). Alan Dawson called this the “Ruff Bossa” interpretation for reasons I can't fathom— there are no ruffs involved, and I can't discern the Bossa Nova connection.

So here's how to interpret each written beat of the exercises, based on how the notes sound; after p. 32  you'll be dealing with rhythms that are equivalent to the ones below, but are written differently.

Play written 8th notes as alternating swing 8ths:

Play written quarter notes (or the equivalent) as an 8th note triplet with a RLL sticking, accenting the right hand:

Play notes sounding on an & only as a triplet with a RRL sticking, accenting left:

On beats where there's no note sounding— like if there's a rest, or the end of a tied/dotted note, or some combination thereof— use whichever triplet sticking you like, but don't accent.

Examples after the break:

Houghton's triplets

From Steve Houghton's book Studio and Big Band Drumming, here's an alternate sticking method for making triplets out of Syncopation. For most people the most familiar method is to play the melody notes— the written rhythm in Reed— with the right hand, and fill out the triplets with the left. I'll modify that to avoid playing more than two hits in a row with the left, using (as few as possible) alternating strokes. Houghton also puts all of the accents on the right hand, but takes the opposite approach with the inside notes: he plays as many alternating notes as possible, and as few doubles.

Examples after the break:



Here are a couple of examples, from the first long exercise in Reed, on page 37 in the old edition. The first line as written:

Played:

Another line from that page:

Played:

These fairly dense examples don't end up being all that different from the way they would be played using my method; they become much more alternating stroke-dominated when interpreting melodies that have more long notes and rests.

Three Camps: all inversions in one

I was trying to work this up on the fly at the drum set, and it wasn't happening, and I needed to write it out-- so here we are. This is a slightly more practical version of my long Three Camps inversions piece; here I've packed all of the inversions into one time through the piece. Hit the link above for practice suggestions.

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Inversions of Three Camps

So I have basically a one-track mind. Maybe a two-track mind. Three closely-related tracks. Right now it's all  the Elvin waltz and Three Camps. What we have here is a little thing I improvised while playing the latter on the drums- it's an easy way to get a little more mileage out of it. What I've done is simply to offset it by one 8th note (or one triplet partial, if you're thinking of it that way) each time through; so the first time is the piece in its regular form, then it is displaced so the primary accents fall on the middle note, and then the last note of the triplet:

I've written it with the modern fp long roll at the end, rather than with the traditional ending. I think this is most effective played on the drumset, with the hihat on 2 and 4, and the bass drum either doubling the accented notes, or playing (lightly!) on 1 and 3, or on all four beats. You can also play the accented notes on the cymbals. This is easy enough that you should be able to toss the print out after two or three times through it.

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Basic triplet solo ideas for jazz

I've been posting a lot of hard stuff lately, so I thought I should throw a bone to the earlier-stage people. So here is an introduction to soloing with triplets in jazz. Learned thoroughly in a range of tempos, this can cover your filling and soloing needs pretty completely:

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Todd's Methods, Pt. 2: triplet partials in Syncopation

The second in a series of quick, sketchily-outlined demonstrations of my practice methods. Here I give a couple of my variations on common ways of using Ted Reed's Syncopation. If you've worked with that book much, you're aware that it can yield some very dense results. What I've done is simplify them a little to make them more musically appealing (and more Elvin-like), and to allow them to be used at faster tempos.

Download the pdf.