Drum Transcriptions / Exercises / Education / Inspiration / Personal Projects
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In Flames – Pinball Map
From the Swedish purveyors of “heavy metal hits” with drummer Daniel Svensson, Pinball Map is a classic syncopated In Flames banger. Clayman was the fifth album from In Flames. Released in 2000 on Nuclear Blast, it was an exciting follow up to the Whoracle and Colony albums, all of which were on high rotation in…
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Aphex Twin – Ambient Works Drumset Interpretations
Aphex Twin’s Heliosphan and We Are the Music Makers – Interpretations for the drumset. Aphex Twins Ambient Works album is a masterpiece. The recording quality could be described as shit, apparently it was recorded onto a cassette damaged by a cat. It doesn’t matter when the melodic components are as tasteful as this. The album…
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Modulating Drum Licks
Triplets to 16th Note Patterns + Inverted Paradiddle-Diddle Orchestration. Advancing a stock pattern to develop solo concepts. The focus here is on re-configuring the paradiddle-diddle – RLRRLL or LRLLRR. The simple, familiar sticking pattern will be advanced by substituting the bass drum, switching between “rates” or note values (modulation), inverting the sticking by starting with…
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Black Sabbath – War Pigs
Jazz roots and power – Bill Ward was a pioneer of heavy drumming. While metal drumming today is typically a rigid, straight, aggressive onslaught , Bill in comparison had a unique free flowing groove. He grew up listening to big band drummers of the 1940’s and based his drum sound off Gene Krupa and Buddy…
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Hip Hop & Neo Soul Grooves – Changing Space
An interpretation and analysis of the rhythmic “swank” of artists such as J Dilla, Questlove, D’Angelo and Chris “Daddy” Dave. Specifically, swing is referring to shifting normally evenly spaced notes to the first and third triplet partials. The idea of swing also refers to the fluidity of all beat subdivisions. Notes can be moved and…
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Deftones – You’ve Seen The Butcher
Monster track from Diamond Eyes, Reprise Records 2014. Abe Cunningham’s Playing is hard and tasteful. Mostly swung quavers in 4/4, the intro and verses are in 7/4 or bars of 4/4 and 3/4. Power and space. (example : page 1 of 3)
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Groove Modulation Part III – Using Dotted Notes to Modulate Between Relative Tempos
Metric modulation is a change in tempo or pulse based on a relative note value or subdivision. My previous modulation posts on this site have used different triplet and quintuplet values to create the perception of tempo changes. These groove exercises use dotted note values to stretch or contract the backbeat to create a tempo…
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Q&A with Inna Riddim
Five questions with HUTCH + REHAN label mates, Inna Riddim leading up to H+R’s show at Sydney’s premier Drum and Bass night …. Q: You guys aren’t DJs, you play live. For those who haven’t seen you perform, tell us briefly about your setup – what equipment, who plays what? A: We’re a drums and…
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Mr. Bill Live Set – Audio & Transcription
PDF drum chart I used with Mr. Bill during the 2017 Australia tour dates + live recording. Mr. Bill’s Australian Winter 2017 tour, accompanied by Ryanosaurus and Bill’s side job, Electrocado, had us all take on Coffs Harbour, Airlie Beach, Melbourne, Perth and Canberra. Mr. Bill’s complete live set from our final show of the…
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Stretching Beats – Funk Modulation // Quintuplet Beats & Exercises
These exercises use an AABA form in a 4 bar phrase, shifting gears from the 16th note funk beat to quarter note triplets, quintuplets and eighth note triplets. Check out drummers such as Nate Smith and Jojo Mayer using this to great effect. Downloadable PDF : Funk Modulation – 4 bar AABA Forms Further exercises…
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Nate Smith – Skip Step
Funk in 17/8. An of example of Nate Smith “finding the 4” in odd time signatures. An interpretation of the first released track from Nate Smith’s album, “Kinfolk : Postcards From Everywhere”. Every second bar has an extra quaver to the count, making the rhythm 4/4 and 9/8 repeated throughout the song. This can also…
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Mr. Bill USA/Canada Tour – DRUM CHART
Download the drum chart I used with Mr. Bill during the 2016 North America tour. An incredible tour with Mr. Bill through the USA and Canada has all wrapped up. 24000kms (15000 miles) on the road with an awesome crew taking on 30 shows from California to British Columbia, New York to Florida, Louisiana to…
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DNB Beat Repeat – Playing 3 Beat Loops
Rhythmic hemiola is a subdivision of the beat that differs from the time signature, with the intention of playing on our expectations. These Jungle grooves take any three semi quavers of the beat and loops the pattern repeatedly, stretching across the barline before opening up to restart on beat 1 of the 4/4 time. I’d…
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REWIND! DNB Groove Exercises – Part II
DnB groove exercises played also in reverse with 16th note roll and sticking variations. Downloadable PDF : REWIND! DNB _Part II
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DNB Groove Modulation Part II – Quintuplets
Two bar drum and bass grooves time shifted across quintuplet subdivisions. Use a metronome! Downloadable PDF’s ; DNB Groove Modulation pt II
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DNB Groove Modulation Part I + Polyrhythm Exercise
The following groove exercises take 8th note drum and bass patterns and modulates the groove over quarter note triplets. Keep the metronome at 172bpm. You’ll feel the groove switch to a triplet feel, while the dance floor feels as if the tempo moves from 172bpm to 129bpm before the groove reverts back to the start…
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Metal – Double Bass Drumming Coordination & Triplet Meter Grooves
The Following 4/4 triplet based groove exercises and 6/8 double bass exercises are valuable in developing precision, control and musicality in heavier double bass drumming situations. Downloadable PDF’s ; Triplet Metal Grooves – One Bar Exercises 6/8 Double Bass Drumming Exercises Double Bass Drumming Coordination – With Ted Reed’s “Syncopation” 4/4 Triplet Based Grooves, including halftime…
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Mr. Bill – “URL”
Drum transcription of Mr. Bill’s heavy shuffle – “URL”. I recently played a few shows as Mr. Bill’s drummer on his Australian “Corrective Scene Surgery” tour, complete with giant inflatabill and visual show. I transcribed all the fundamental grooves for each track to make up a simplified chart to cover his 1.5 hour DJ set and assist in…
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Warm Ups – Single & Double Stroke Descending Rhythm
This pattern was scribbled down in my practice notebook as one of my very first drum lessons. I still run through it on a practice pad back stage before a show as part of a stretch and warmup routine. Accent the first stroke of the bar, descending through 8 strokes down to 1. Make sure…
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Mark Guiliana – One Month
One Month A great example of Mark Guiliana’s seemingly arbitrary rhythmic figures. I included the unison rhythmic figure as an additional sheet. Love the track. Buy the record, Family First, through Beat Music Productions 2015. Downloadable PDF’s ; Mark Guiliana – “One Month”Mark Guiliana – “One Month” – Unison Rhythm For educational purposes only.
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Max Roach – The Drum Also Waltzes
Transcription ~ Max Roach’s classic 3/4 solo. Here’s a transcription of Max Roach’s opening solo track from his 1965 Drums Unlimited album. Played in 3/4 over a consistent foot ostinato, there are no repeats. Max plays a repeated motif but it also varies. The one bar foot pattern consists of the bass drum on ‘1’,…
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Nitin Sawheny – Remix Grooves
I was put onto Nitin Sawhney’s music when Kobra Kai was starting out, when we were still mixing some eastern sounds with different UK style dance beats. These grooves were scribbled out amongst my notes from this period, They’re some cool examples of garage / 2 step style UK grooves backing up some awesome songwriting…
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DNB Drum Grooves – Icicle / Roni Size / Shapeshifter / NOISIA
Roni Size’s In the Mode LP (2000) was the first drum and bass album I got into. I wrote out these grooves when Rehan first introduced me to the album, to get my head around everything going on with the grooves. Kobra Kai were lucky enough to support Roni Size and Dynamite MC at Home…
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Fear Factory – “No One”
Double Bass monster is Raymond Herrera. I transcribed this for an assignment at music school in 2002 after I had been doing loads of double bass drumming Downloadable PDF ; Fear Factory – “No One”
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Independence Exercises / Warmups
“Technique has nothing to do with music. Technique is a tool, like a hammer… Having technique means I can concentrate on what to play and not how to play it. Technique becomes a safety net” – Thomas Lang Downloadable PDF’s ; Warm Ups – Triplet Independence -1 Warm Ups – Triplet Independence -2
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6 Famous Drum Breaks
A brief selection of classic drum breaks every drummer or producer should know. I got listening to hip hop when I joined Debasa around 2002. Prompting me to research and listen to a lot of music that I wasn’t previously very familiar with. It was a lesson in stripping things right down, keeping it super…
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THE ROOTS – Things Fall Apart
A selection of Questlove’s grooves from a masterpiece hip hop record. The Roots were one of the first bands to draw me into hip hop. Still one of my all time favourite acts. Here’s a selection of grooves taken from the “Things Fall Apart” album. The track “Without a Doubt” is sampled from a Schoolly…
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REWIND! DNB Groove Exercises Part I
These are Jungle grooves repeated in the consecutive bar/s as a mirrored image – played in reverse. They’re a good variation on any looped beat you’ve been sitting on and a good exercise in shifting the backbeat off the ‘2’ and ‘4’ and moving the accents around the bar like a cut up sample. Note:…
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Andrew Hutchings 