A cool exercise Jon showed me last night. Tap quarter notes on your foot, and play the following patterns with your hands:

Start by treating the Rights as accents. Once you’ve gotten that, you can take the idea wherever you want to go.

If played in 4/4 time, note that the five pattern will repeat every five bars, the seven every seven bars. Used this way in the context of 4/4, you achieve the true “over the bar” feel.

Like everything in the universe, these are relative. I wrote these patterns out in odd times of 5/4 and 7/4 for the sake of understanding them on paper. The patterns can be applied in any meter.

I Hit West L.A. Music with a friend today today for a Steve Gadd clinic. Sensational. Both the clinic and the conversation were greatly inspiring on so many levels.

Interestingly enough, I think one of the things I found so inspiring about the whole clinic was when Steve discussed the occasional need to get outside of his own head, describing his brain as “a rough neighborhood. It’s not safe to go alone.”

I know what he means.

He also shared his view on minimalism and variation. He’s fascinated with taking something very simple, and exploring how many various ways it can be experienced.

I know what he means.

On a mechanical note, Steve shared a particular sticking pattern that he says he’s gotten lots of mileage on over the years due to its flexibility. Jon and I went over it over a couple pops afterwards. It’s a 16th pattern, and goes like this:

R-RL RRLR LRRL RRLR

A variation is this:

R-RL RRLR LRRL RRLL

Notice the double stroke at the end.

Gadd demonstrated how useful this is by playing it across the drum set, over a samba pattern played on the feet.

Played this one on the way home. Start by feeling the Rights as accents, then start moving the accents around. Try different drums, or as was in my case, the steering wheel and the dashboard.

R-RL RRLR LRRL RRLR
R-RL RRLR LRRL RRLR
R-RL RRLR LRRL RRLR
R-RL RRLR LRRL RRLL

I know what he means!