March 1st Issue, 2008

In this issue..

1) Funk & Illusion Drumming goes bush! Pics and vids from the weekend gone, filming at The Grampians.
2) On With The Show - lesson on Metric Modulations. Implying an 8th rock feel over the top of triplets.
3) Priority Notification List for Funk & Illusion Drumming DVD set.

1) Funk & Illusion Drumming filming at The Grampians! 

This weekend gone, we packed ourselves and our gear and headed to Halls Gap to film at the nearby Grampians National Park. Once we finally found the desired location (after I took us on the "scenic route" - woops) we setup by the lake and rolled tape. Check out the pics and footage below. Here I covered Metric Modulations and Beat Displacements. Specifically, I covered how to imply triplet beats over the top of 8th notes, 8th and 16th beats over the top of triplets and much more. I also covered shifting entire beats by a quarter, 8th or 16th note forward and backwards. Basically, all of these implied time feels are taking the listener on a rhythmic tangent or illusion. Once you learn the basic concepts you realize it's not hard to do at all. You're not actually playing anything that is technically difficult. CLICK THE PICS TO ENLARGE.

A German backpacker by the name of Kris stopped by to check out the filming, and even sat down for a hit on the drums! See Kris, I told you you'd be in the next issue :) Hope you enjoyed your holiday mate.

2) Get on the Priority Notification List for Funk & Illusion Drumming!

When we release Funk & Illusion Drumming in April 08, we will be doing a special launch price, like we always do. We haven't arrived at a price yet, but we will be doing a similar deal for the first 200 copies as we did when we released UDS 2007 back in December 07.

To guarantee you are among the very first to hear about F&ID, make sure you sign up ONCE ONLY to the box below. Remember, signing up to the box DOES NOT lock you in to buying, it simply means you will hear about it before anyone else.

3) ON WITH THE SHOW - Implying an 8th Groove over the top of Triplets!

This is one of the many Metric Modulation ideas from Funk & Illusion Drumming. Don't worry if this takes a while to grasp. I go over all the breakdowns in detail, slowly before launching into the applications and actual beats.

In this example I'm playing a triplet beat. Everything that I play is triplets, including what sounds like an 8th note beat. At no time do I literally play 8th notes, but I change where I accent the triplets to make it sound like I am. Let me explain..

In the Ezybeat video below, I play 2 bars of regular triplet time, followed by 2 bars of implied 8th beat time. You don't have to stick to even bars like this, you can play any number bars of implied time and you can start implied time on any beat of any bar. I just explained it in 2 bar slots to keep it easy.

This is my 2 bars regular triplet time..

As you can see, the above beat has accents between snare and bass on every 3rd triplet. Nothing unusual about that, you're just accenting on the downbeats - 1, 2, 3 and 4.

What I now do is accent (bass, snare, bass, snare) on every 2nd triplet. This sounds like I'm now playing an 8th figure, because typically 8th rock beats place the accents every 2nd 8th. So now it is written like this..

This pattern SOUNDS LIKE the following is being played, particularly if there is no quarter note pulse being played (click track, hihat chick etc)..

So that's a basic example. In Funk & Illusion Drumming I go over heaps of different ways to further strengthen and suck the listener into the implied time. One of these is to play, in this case IN TRIPLETS, common 8th note patterns. For example, a common 8th note beat is this..

So why not put that same series of bass drum accents into triplets. So long as all the notes are exactly spaced apart as they would be in 8ths, is will sound exactly the same. So the above pattern, if written in triplets, would actually be written like this..

CLICK THE EZYBEAT PIC BELOW TO SEE THE ABOVE 2 EXAMPLES IN ACTION!

Don't forget to sign up to the Priority Notification list for F&ID DVD above!

Signing up to the Priority Notification list for Funk & Illusion Drumming DVD does not lock you in to buying. It simply means you will be among the first to hear about it when it's released at its launch price. The launch price is for the first 200 copies.