Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer by Ted Reed is a book for beginners to advanced players. At face value, the “syncopation book”, as it’s known, is a great introduction to reading rhythms on and off the beat or syncopated, as well as accenting rhythmic phrases. In this post I’m going to present to you a few ways to spice up your drumset practice routine with this book.
Of course, it would be helpful if you have the book in your possession before reading on. If you don’t have it, get it here. Also, if you’re not sure about what drum goes where on the staff, check out the Drumset Notation Key also located under Reference in the sidebar.
1. SIMPLE HAND-FOOT COORDINATION
Every measure in this book features a written foot part which, with the exception of a couple of pages in the beginning, is just quarter notes on every beat in each measure. The most obvious approach to this part would be to play the quarter notes on the bass drum while playing the hand part on the snare drum. Each line is four measures long and can be repeated with the foot part as follows:
- Bass drum (bd)
- Hi-hat pedal (hhp)
- Bd & hhp simultaneously (non-linear)
- Linear variation (bd on beat 1, hhp on beat 2 etc.)
Once you’ve done the fourth approach you can do as many variations as you can think of. Here’s an example from page 10:
Use your imagination and take your time.
2. DRUM FILL BUILDER
I get asked by students about fills and solos quite frequently because many students don’t know where to begin to create cool fills that fit to whatever song they’re playing. The process begins with working out different rhythmic ideas which the syncopation book is loaded with, then add things to those ideas. We’re going to ignore the foot part that’s written in the book for the following examples.
Example A
On page 14 we’re presented with triplets and quarter notes which makes this is a good blueprint for building triplet fills:
becomes:
Play this 8 times or more to get a good feel for the pattern, then work it in to a groove like this:
The crash on the second line is optional but sounds nice.
Example B
Building a bigger fill can be done using page 62, #46 which is 16th notes and accents:
When applying this exercise to the set we can make full use of the accent pattern by adding effects along with changing voices:
Beat-By-Beat Breakdown (4/4 time):
- Floor tom on the beat (>)
- Open hi-hat on “e” (>), tom 1 on “and a”
- Snare rim shot on the beat (>)
- Crash w/ bass drum on “e” (>), floor tom on “and a”
This is a fairly busy fill, so I’m going to play a groove that’s a little on the busy side to fit the fill. I like this approach because you may discover that a the fill works really well with a groove that you’ve been studying:
You can resolve to a crash on the next downbeat or not. The only rules we’re sticking to here are the rhythms and accents. What voices you use is up to you but it’s important to remember to have a solid rhythmic foundation in place before you go nuts adding different drums and cymbals.
3. JAZZ – SWING WITH SNARE DRUM & BASS DRUM COMPING
The most amazing thing about jazz drumming is it’s four-limb poly-rhythmic nature; i.e. independence. Way before Afro-Cuban drumset drumming, which is impressive in it’s own right, jazz sub genres like be-bop made a drummer really work everything he had! This is why rock drummers like John Bonham (Led Zeppelin), Mitch Mitchell (Jimi Hendrix), and Danny Carey (Tool) studied jazz to develop their chops. The syncopation book contains a plethora of exercises that, if used correctly, can help you to gain those jazz chops.
For all intents and purposes, we’re swinging the 8th notes:
So, the counting would go from “1 and 2 and” to a loose “1 _ ah 2 _ ah” or if we’re counting in triplets it would be “1 _ let 2 _ let.”
Example A
We’re going to swing-ify the first exercise on page 30 and turn it into a comping part or accompanying part to the swing:
In order to do this we have to start with swing time played with the ride cymbal and hi-hat pedal:
Add the exercise which is now played on the snare drum all with the left hand. This is our first comping part:
You can then make a rule that all quarter notes from the original exercise will be bass drum notes:
Put to swing it’ll be played like this:
4. DOUBLE KICK WORKOUT
With rock genres like speed metal and death metal, the desire to learn double kick is prevalent in the drumming community. Although there is a handful of books from drummers like Carmine Appice and Derek Roddy, I have found the syncopation book to be a great double kick workout if you get imaginative with it.
For these examples, we’re applying what we would normally play with our hands to our feet. It’s okay if you want to just play the exercises with your feet but it’s important to put it into a groove context.
Example A
Take Pg 22, #7 played as is on double kick. Obviously, we’re ignoring the written bass drum part:
The groove context will be a ride cymbal on every beat with a snare on beat 3 in 4/4 time:
Try to work this up to a tempo of 1/4 note = 160 (1/2 note = 80 in cut time). Eventually, count it in cut time (2/2) where the ride part is counted as eighth notes and the kick part is counted as 16th and 32nd notes.
These examples will have hopefully sparked some ideas which will help you to tap into the wealth of multidimensional exercises contained in the syncopation book. Use your imagination and have fun.
