Hi everyone,
Here are your practice assignments for this week:
Alexy
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: The end of the bridge from “Smoke on the Water” by Deep Purple.
How to practice it most effectively: Practice the four bars at the end of the bridge. Work on the fill that is in the middle of these four bars. Try to memorize the rhythm so that you don’t have to think too hard about it when you get there. This will slow you down. Also, practice transitioning from the earlier part of the bridge into these last four bars where the beat changes and then transitioning back to the beat from the beginning of the song. Nailing the transitions from one section of this song to the next will be the hardest part.
Oscar
Recommended minutes to practice: 20-30 minutes per day
What to practice: The three beats from “Watermelon Man” by Herbie Hancock.
How to practice it most effectively: In the first beat, remember that three ghost notes are played at slightly different volumes. They are all soft in comparison to the main beats on the snare (2 and 4), but the middle one should be slightly louder than the first one and the last one. Also, remember the 3 variations of the bass drum rhythm at the beginning. For the second beat, work on coordinating the hi-hat and the bass drum on the accent pattern. Remember that the first time there are two accents, then the second time there are three, then it alternates back and forth. The third beat is the most straightforward. Just listen closely to the recording for the slight variations that the drummer inserts into the beat.
Nate M.
Recommended minutes to practice: 15-20 minutes per day
What to practice: Beats and fills from “The Seed 2.0” by the Roots.
How to practice it most effectively: Work on the two main beats that we worked on in your lesson, the “verse” beat and the “chorus” beat. Also, practice the three main fills that we worked on: the one with the flams, the one with eighth notes on the snare, and especially the one where the rhythm moves back and forth between the bass drum and snare drum: bass snare bass bass, snare bass snare snare. With all of these beats and rhythms it is really important that you count in your head or out loud to ensure that you’re getting the timing right.