13 Levels of Drumming: Easy to Complex | WIRED

my name is Lorna Lewis drummer composer educator and today I've been challenged to go through the levels of complexity at the drum kit [Music] this instrument has existed for over a hundred years there have been tons of interpretations on it just for today though we're going to hang out in my world I'm going to go through my interpretation of complexity on the drums so level one is the bass drum that's a little bit of a precursor we're dealing in four four times what that really explains is the value of the note and how many of those quarter notes exist in the bar I like to put the bass drum on one and three that's how we're going to start [Music] level two we're gonna add the snare drum I like to consider the snare drum the BackBeat that's a very common phrase that you'll hear in drumming it's similar to clapping we're going to put the snare drum or your clapping on beat two and beats four and that sounds like this [Music] let's take it up a notch level three the hi-hat this is a really interesting kit piece meaning one of the parts of the drum kit and for the hi-hat it's something that you can do consistently we're going to actually play the hi-hat on all four quarter notes now let's put it all together [Music] all together you call that a Groove another term for that is a drum pattern I'm going to play two grooves one is a funk groove I will evolve into that and the next one's a rock Groove which I will also evolve into [Music] thank you [Music] you may have noticed with the hi-hat you were hearing a really sloshy extended sound that was actually being achieved by me raising my left foot just a little bit which allows the symbols to spread apart and gives them that shimmering sizzling sound so when I say open hi-hat when I say closed hi-hat all right beats that we've been hearing are these quarter notes and I'm playing what are called additional eighth notes but I'm accenting those as well in Funk you'll probably hear more of a tighter hi-hat sound with rock however you will hear more open hi-hat throughout the groove as your constant pattern when you're dealing with funk is a term called on the one which means you're putting the emphasis on that downbeat which is with the bass drum rock also shares that but it's a little more evenly spaced in terms of the energy that you're putting on all of those beats so one emphasizes the downbeat one Smooths it out and you have clear sailing from top to bottom it might feel like it's a completely different style but they are neighboring Styles and the complexity might just be in the way that you play them but the patterns themselves aren't always more complex in one way than another to help us lock in this groove a little bit more we should add some music this is a song of mine called change your mind it's a little bit faster get ready let's go for a ride foreign [Music] foreign [Music] let's move on level five rudiments rudiments are a grouping of notes or rhythms that are also defined by what we like to call stickings mentions of when you play your right hand versus your left hand the single stroke is a consistent set of notes alternating between your right hand and your left hand now double Strokes are two hits per hand is a grouping of notes which is a right left right right these four notes can also be played the opposite way left right left left now a little bit faster for the right-handed and left-handed paradiddle alternating back and forth you can actually create a little more of an expression with what you're playing by adding accents accents are when you are playing one note louder than another I'm going to put the two paradiddles together now I'm going to be accenting the first note of each group of four notes then the second time around I'm going to Accent the second note of each grouping of four notes foreign [Music] I just want to talk a little bit about the hi-hat bark where we are lifting our foot up hitting the hi-hat and then closing our foot right back down again this takes the level of coordination because you need to time when you're opening your hi-hat or when you're lifting your foot up against when you hit the hi-hat I could do it the other way around where I hit the hi-hat and then lift my foot but it won't be the same effect so you lift your foot strike the hi-hat and then bring your foot back down you can also do that in a variety of times so you can make it longer or extremely short but you can make it a little more complex by adding another counter Rhythm or syncopation let's say on your hi-hat or on your bass drum or even on your snare drum now a syncopation is when you accent something that's other than these strong beats or the average beats that you'd play in a bar let's put it all together next level more complex grooves [Music] now the group that you just heard was similar to the pattern that we've learned already but I've actually added a couple of elements and I'm going to break it down let's see what we get so for the most part I was playing one and three on the bass drum played an open hi-hat on the downbeat there was another skip note or added 16th note that I was playing just before I played the downbeat I've also played some other rhythms or syncopations on the bass drum using syncopation you can create elaborate rhythms or even very simple rhythms that complement any drum group that you're playing [Music] snuck a paradiddle in there right hand on the hi-hat left hand on the snare [Music] Next Level polyrhythms now polyrhythms is next in the level of complexity really because it takes just a little bit more than a level of our understanding of coordination a polyrhythm is actually two rhythms layered on top of each other it makes a really interesting pattern that you hear overall the most standard version of a polyrhythm you'll hear is the three over two [Music] another one is the four over three so I'm going to go from two over three and then I'm going to go to four over three [Music] a little more complex this one is going to be five over four [Music] now for the purpose of making sure that we understand what this sounds like in a musical context we're going to add the music again [Music] next level orchestration which by the way is just me taking a rhythm and putting one of my hands on a different part of the drum set but playing the same Rhythm sidebar four-way Independence four-way coordination all of your limbs are playing different rhythms its multiple rhythms happening on multiple kit pieces at the same time foreign base through the Rhythm through rudiments polyrhythms you can take all of those levels and you could re-orchestrate anything that we've done so far if you remember our paradiddle from earlier I'm going to play it on the snare drum I'm going to take my right hand and I'm going to continue with that concept moving my right hand around to different parts of the drum kit first time second time this other drum that I have here which is a snare drum my floor tom and of course we can't forget the rest of the kit crash cymbals I have another one that's a similar crash symbol has a bunch of holes in it so if I play it very lightly I get a really nice Sizzle this is called a splash this is a trash former on top and I have another Splash underneath it as well here's another stack over here the symbol sandwich three symbols here one on top is a 16 inch symbol the one all the way on the bottom is a 14 inch China and in the middle is a really interesting looking symbol that has a lot of little holes in it has a really nice trashy rattly sound like this and you can't forget the ride symbol now let's put this drum kit to good use paradiddle reorchestrating right hand moving around to the different kit pieces [Music] [Music] and now gotta have some music moving the paradiddle around adding a little more spice [Music] good beauty of orchestration is that it gives you a ton of options without needing to change too much rhythmically or with the rudiments that you're actually playing it actually moves you right into the next level which is drum fills [Music] a drum fill happens somewhere on the drum kit that takes you into another section of a song or helps to elevate the energy sometimes it helps to bring the energy a little bit lower any of the things that we've discussed before you can actually make those happen as drum fills I'm gonna play a drum Groove and near the end of the drum Groove before I stop I'm going to play a drum fill thank you here's another example of that and the third option because why not [Music] That's The Power of drum fills the first one was probably a little more complex in terms of it had more rhythms going on the second one didn't have as many rhythms and it stayed on a couple of Kit pieces and of course the last fill that I did was really sparse [Music] meaning there wasn't a lot of information a lot of drumming happening and it gave that sense of going down a gear or we were about to get a little bit slower now for something a little more advanced a 30 second note drum fill [Music] here's another option A Little More wild some crashes sprinkle some stuff around [Music] moving on from drum fills we have embellishments some people might think embellishments belong just a little bit earlier but I actually like to add embellishments or ornamentation after understanding drum fills when you know how to play a drum fill you can always push the envelope and embellish a certain part of the drum fill it's really just that added expression to the moment to take it up another notch I'm actually going to level up a drum pattern into a drum fill with more embellishments as I go along foreign there was a lot of improvised information and playing happening I started out with a main pattern and the type of things that I did were to break up the monotonous flow [Music] so now I'm adding a really interesting element maybe on the hi-hat there was some activity that happened on the bass drum from there I started adding some tongs Point you're getting more energy more excitement and I'm adding bits and pieces adding symbols adding Toms it's getting even bigger to the point where you may not even recognize the original pattern but now we are adding to the story we're adding to the excitement and take you even higher and higher and higher until you get lost inside of all of it I'm gonna try it again but this time I'm going to put a little more emphasis on some of the lower drums I'm going to do what's called grounding the pattern in a different way by accenting rhythms that feel like they're connected to the stronger beats that we've been hearing whether it's speed one two three or four here we go foreign [Music] I was grounding the overall pattern by playing eighth notes on the floor toms so that you felt this really big uh having lower tones at that part of the beat was a really cool embellishment and helped to ground what you were hearing then anything I added whether it was Toms or hi-hat these were all rhythms that took me towards these bigger embellishments eventually I changed the bass drum pattern so now the core drum pattern felt a little bit different but it had the same Spirit let's pull it all together you got grooves polyrhythms four-way coordination [Music] Embellishments demonstration so many of these things are going to come together in a drum solo what you're about to hear is the last and final Vamp section of change your mind going into the drum solo [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] that's definitely one way to level up your heart rate my goodness Pro tip make sure you're breathing when you're playing the drums one thing I've come to appreciate about the levels of complexity of the drums is that once I understood from drumming how to find my voice I realized that I didn't have to always be complex I didn't have to always play really fast because the purpose for me is to drive home a story or drive home a feeling the art is in the way that you can hang left right or go straight through all of these levels of complexity I hope you learned something and if you didn't you better hit rewind and make sure you go out and learn how to express yourself levels to this thing [Music] foreign

Channel: WIRED

Views: 1,812,704

Keywords: drumming lessons, drumming tutorial, larnell lewis, larnell lewis drum lessons, larnell lewis drum tutorial, larnell lewis drumeo, larnell lewis drummer, larnell lewis drumming, larnell lewis interview, larnell lewis snarky puppy, levels of drumming, pro drummer, wired, wired levels

Id: Ez8Q68h9i4M

Length: 18min 46sec (1126 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 09 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/omnificunderachiever]

As a non-drummer I found this video educational and fascinating. Larnell is so good at explaining the different elements.

By the way, you may have seen Larnell on a semi-viral video where he plays the drum part for Metalica's "Enter Sandman" after just one listen.

[u/chathamhouserules]

Larnell with Snarky Puppy - What About Me?