syncopation, by ted reed

[dpakman91]

my teacher told me today during my class to get the book, and we'd start working on it next week. i went ahead and started doing some stuff out of it today.

it wasn't clear how you are "supposed" to practice, but i've been practicing with my left hand playing the bottom notes and my right hand playing the top. how do you guys practice with this book, and what else can you tell me about it?

[probaseballnyc]

The possibilites with this book are endless. For example you can play eight notes on the hi hat, snare on 2 and 4 and use the top line for the bass drum. You can also apply the top line to every other part of your kit, apply stick control sticking , add accents to what you are doing now, etc...... I think you get the point.

For now i am doing eight notes on the hi hat, snare on 2 and 4 and going through the page with triplets, which will be played on the bass. Disregard the bottom line which is basically a quarter note on the 1,2,3, and 4

Hope this helps.:)

[SalParadise429]

Cool, my teacher just told me to get this book as well. We've been using it for Jazz mainly. The top line would be used as comping and the bottom line (the quarter notes?) would be used as four on the floor, over a swing beat. He also had me use the top line as a pattern to put in between a triplet ride pattern...

[Double Bass Jim]

Another book EVERYONE should have in their arsenal.

[FUnkarockadrummer]

there are thirty thousand ways to use this book. Use your imagination.

[Double Bass Jim]

Just like stick control, very open ended.

[dj_ando]

more than thirty thousand. it's a great great book for any number of things - comping exercises, sight reading, coordination, you name it. so long as you use your imagination, you can use that book to do anything on the drums.

personally, i use it a lot for sight reading practice - pick a tempo, get the ride swingin with hats and bass, and read from the last bar of an exercise backwards up to the first playing as though i were comping. by going from back to front, you teach yourself to look ahead when reading. if you're reading a note as you play it, you're bound to end up in trouble.

another exercise i find handy is to pick any one or two bars, and play it as a comping pattern with ride and hats. then repeat this with bass drum instead of snare, and then on the third repeat play snare and bass in unison. it's great for making sure your bass drum foot plays the time spot on, because you'll definitely notice if the snare and bass hits are out.

[larsROCKS]

dont have it but plan on doing so

[Motleyguy]

where do I go about picking up these books...they sound like something that would be extremely useful to me? Are they common in most music stores?

[dj_ando]

every drummer should own stick control and syncopation! you can get them from any half decent music store that stocks music books/sheet music.

[Motleyguy]

alright, well when I am no longer broke, I shall pick them up, anyobe have any idea how much they run for in Canadian $$? or even american?

[dpakman91]

alright, well when I am no longer broke, I shall pick them up, anyobe have any idea how much they run for in Canadian $$? or even american?

stick control was $7.50 american brand new at a stoer that isn't known as "cheap"

[seanman99]

I saw stick control for $7 CDN @ steve's

[moogoogaipan]

Just an example for what that book is good for.

I've gone through the book playing the standard jazz ride pattern and played the written notes on (snare)(bass)(hi-hat). I dont' even read the quarters at the bottom anymore..

Another thing i'm doing is playing hi-hat 8th notes and playing a bossa bass pattern underneath the written rhythms while playing top line rim clicks.

Or also, play standard jazz ride and play snare(bass) for the top line and fill in the empty spaces with triplets from bass(snare) I put the parentheses cause you can reverse that method.

[-Funky monk-]

Essentially, the bottem line is bass and the top is snare