March 2nd Issue, 2008

In this issue..

1) Funk & Illusion Drumming at the Howqua Slate Mines
2) On With The Show - lesson on turning polyrhythms into beats.
3) Priority Notification List for Funk & Illusion Drumming DVD set.

1) Funk & Illusion Drumming filming at The Howqua Slate Mines! 

Over the long weekend we headed up to the Howqua Slate Mines past Mansfield to film the Polyrhythm section of Funk & Illusion Drumming. Here I went through the following polyrhythms: 2 over 3 3 over 4 2 over 5 3 over 5 4 over 5 2 over 7 3 over 7 4 over 7

I also went over the simple formula for working out ANY polyrhythm. You can literally take any 2 numbers of accents with this formula and work out how to play them simultaneously.

Finally I showed beat applications of each of the above polyrhythms, to give a musical and useful application of each. The beauty with the polyrhythms above is that once you see how they're worked out and counted, they're incredibly easy to play. There's nothing technically difficult going on.

CLICK THE PICS TO ENLARGE.

On the way to the Slate Mines we nearly skittled a tortoise who was brave enough to cross the road! It was 35c and extremely dry, so we picked him up and drove him to a creek for a well earned drink. We also saw a fair few kangaroos on the way back.

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 for the first 200 copies as we did when we released UDS 2007 back in December 07. Once the first 200 go, the price will jump up considerably the way UDS 2007 has.

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 - 2 over 3 Polyrhythm turned into a beat.

You can literally combine ANY 2 numbers and figure out how to play them simultaneously. The reality is though, that as soon as you get away from numbers under 10, it gets tricky. Remember when you combine 2 numbers together you have 2 options. The polyrhythm I'll demonstrate in this issue is a 2 over 3. But because I have a 2 and a 3, I could just as easily demonstrate 3 over 2, which is not the same thing.

This is probably the most basic of all polyrhythms, and it's the first of 8 that I go over in Funk & Illusion Drumming.

2 OVER 3 - What does that mean?

It means you are playing 2 accents over 3 beats. If we have 3 beats, we're in 3/4 time..

What we do to get the polyrhythm (which is explained in detail in FAID) is we subdivide each of the beats by the first number. Which is a 2 - 2 over 3. So 2 per beat is just 8th notes..

Then we accent every 3rd 8th note. Why every 3rd? Because 3 is the second number - 2 over 3..

The last thing we do is take away the unaccented subdivisions, and that's it! We have our polyrhythm!

From here you can apply it on the kit by putting the rhythms on different drums.. 

Click the video that best suits your computer

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.