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Stick Trix | |
Article from Phaze 1, May 1989 |
ON THE MENU this time, some spicy details to add to your basic rhythmic diet. We've got flams, triplets, semiquavers and accents on the hit-hat, as well as some tips on playing the ride.
First off, try the flam. This is an obscure word for an easy idea - two sticks being played together. Or almost together, because if they hit the head at exactly the same moment, you get a deadened sound. Try it, to see what I mean, and then avoid it. What you want to do is get as near as possible. Hold one stick higher than the other, and then bring them down at the same rate, so that (stone me!) one stick hits the head before the other. Practise it both ways round, left and right, (lefthanders, as ever, please reverse).
Use a flam anywhere you need a strong accent. It's especially useful on the snare, where a flam instead of the ordinary, single-stick off-beat is a nice touch, if used sparingly. On the toms, it makes a great lead-in to a semiquaver fill, for example.
Up till now, we've been dividing beats into two and four. But it's just as easy to make a beat into three parts - forming what's known as a triplet. If you divide a crotchet into three, it's written like three quavers bracketed together. There are several ways of sticking a triplet - RLR, LRL, LRR, RLL - and you should practise them all. But the last of these is the most useful, since it gives you the strength of the right hand on the beginning of the triplet, and the start of the next beat. To play RLL at speed, you'll need to use the double bounce you learned doing the paradiddle. Practise playing a triplet into a beat, as in Diagram G, slowly at first, making the bounce as clean and even as you can. You'll get chance to use it in a rhythm...
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Feature by Trevor Parsons
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