(upbeat music)
-: Hello everybody.
Aaron Walker-Loud here.
I'm the director and founder of Big World Breaks
and I'm brought here to you today
by the Creative Advantage.
We're gonna be studying rhythm, percussion,
technique, cultural innovation, and improvisation.
You may have seen one of the other videos we've done,
you may not have, but this one
is level three challenge.
So we look forward to pushing ourselves,
myself included, because I always love a good challenge.
I also want you to remember that no matter
what equipment you do or don't have at home,
it's totally fine to use whatever's available,
whatever the adults in your family
feel that it's okay for you to use as a striking object.
I'm using a table, because this was my first
instrument I ever used, a lunch table,
and you may have pots and pans and wooden spoons.
Use what works for you,
and make sure to get permission from your family.
You may have a snare drum or a hand drum.
Whatever is gonna work for you,
make it happen, and we're gonna have some fun today.
So, as a teaching artist, I get the opportunity
to study with other educators,
work with students, work in the studio,
work on stage as a performer and a producer,
collaboratively writing curriculum with other educators,
so I'm all over the map: stage, studio, and classroom.
And I love the balance.
And working with students helps me become a better artist.
And working in the arts allows me
to have more information and more inspiration
to bring back to my students,
so I'm very thankful to live this life that I do.
And we've talked about rudiments in the past.
We're gonna do a quick review
of some of the rudiments we've done before,
just to get our hands warmed up
and to connect our brain to our hands.
So we're gonna combine all at once
singles, doubles, triplets, and paradiddles,
and we're gonna do it at single time
and then double time, in sequence.
So follow me.
We're gonna do it together.
One, two, one, two, ready and
(drumming)
Doubles.
Triplets.
Paradiddles.
Okay, nice.
Now let's try that two times in a row
and see if we can keep up the momentum.
If you prefer using the lowest pitch
on the table, the fist,
or knock, the highest pitch is fine.
I'm using my open hands, the middle pitch.
Here we go.
One more time, twice in a row.
One, two, one, two, ready and
(drumming)
Nice.
Double time.
Doubles.
Nice!
Okay, now that we've done that
we're gonna move over to the snare drum
and start doing a little bit more advanced work
with some rudiment technique that I've learned.
Now, the five stroke roll,
we haven't talked about yet.
Essentially, like it sounds there's five notes.
So right, right, left, left, right,
or left, left, right, right, left.
Let's try that together.
One, two, one, two ready and
(drum beats)
Let's increase the tempo, the speed.
One, two, one, two with me
(quicker drum beats)
Okay, now we're getting a little more comfortable
what we're gonna do is do three layers
of single time and double time,
and then we're gonna eliminate the rest in the middle.
I'll do it a couple times,
then I'll pause just so we can clarify
and then I'll do it one more time.
Here we go.
(drumming)
Ah, I made a mistake, and that's okay.
We're gonna keep rolling with it.
I'm human, too.
Here we go.
One, two, one, two ready and
(drumming)
Okay, now that was a little bit better.
Here we go, let's try it again.
One, two, one, two ready and
(drumming)
Okay, all right.
Now, I encourage you to find more rudiments.
There's so many.
We've dealt with singles, doubles,
triplets, paradiddles.
That was a five stroke roll.
Let's revisit the paradiddles
before we move on to something else, though.
The thing about my learning
is that I've been blessed with a lot of teachers
in my path and when I got to community college
I met Mister Brian Kirk.
And he gave me so much knowledge,
but specifically one of my favorite things
is he showed me how to change
the accents on a paradiddle
so it makes it more challenging
to where we can have accents and ghost notes,
almost like we discussed in video number one.
So, doing paradiddles where we make the accent
on every downbeat, and then we move the accent
forward one note at a time
every four repetitions.
I'm gonna do it once.
And then I'll start speeding it up
to make it more challenging.
Here we go.
Paradiddles with rotating accents.
One, two, ready and
(drumming)
So we got that, we know what we're doing.
So now we're gonna play most of them quiet
and one really loud.
Here we go.
One, two ready and
(accented drumming)
Okay.
Now the accents keep moving, though.
Instead of hitting the downbeat,
(accented drumming)
on the second time we hit
(accented drumming)
On the third iteration we hit the third note.
(accented drumming)
with the accent.
And the fourth iteration, same thing: the fourth note.
(accented drumming)
Okay, now I'm going to attempt to do that in sequence.
Try that with me.
Here we go.
One, two, one, two ready and
(accented drumming)
All right.
So, try that in different tempos and feels.
It's really gonna help your control
with picking where you can hit accents
on the downbeat and the upbeats.
Now what we're gonna do
is we're gonna move back to the table
to talk about a concept called three over two feel,
and then we're gonna apply it with some music
on the djembe a little bit after that.
So when someone says three over two feel,
they're not talking about time signature three over two,
they're talking about a feel that's implied in music, right?
And usually that's implied by the drums,
percussion, or the rhythm section.
Now, if we were to take our lead low,
whether it's your left or your right
hitting the lowest pitch on the fist,
that's gonna be where we hit our downbeats on one and two.
Then I'm gonna show you how we apply three
against that with our alternate hand using slap.
Here we go.
One, two, with me, play along.
One, two, then we, with our other hand.
One, two, three, one, two, three,
one, two, three, one, two, three,
one, two, three, nice!
Now let's switch hands to challenge ourselves,
but also to realize the closer we get
to being ambidextrous, the stronger we're gonna be
overall as percussionists.
Leading with the left hand now on the first.
One, two, one, two,
adding three.
One, two, three, one, two, three,
one, two, three, one, two, three,
Now another level of challenge we can do is rotate.
You've seen I like playing with single time and double time.
Let's try it with the three over two concept.
Follow me.
Here we go.
(drumming)
Double time.
(faster drumming)
Now, for those of you who might be like
what just happened there,
let me just show you with one hand at a time.
One, two, one, two,
one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two.
One, two, three, one, two, three,
one, two, three, one, two, three,
just so you can see.
But the trick is combining them.
Let's try this one more time.
Here we go.
One, two, with me, and
(drumming)
Double time.
(faster drumming)
And last time double time.
Not bad, not bad.
If your hands are getting a little sore
from whacking on tables, I understand.
Stretch them out, loosen them up.
All right, we don't want to beat up our hands too bad,
but stretching and hydration will always help.
Now that we've reviewed some of the three over two feel,
we're gonna move over to the djembe
and try some of it live with some accompaniment,
as also using some improvisation, as well.
So there's some music that I put together
with my team that I think would be
a fun accompaniment for that.
Follow me over here.
(lively music)
So there's a lot of influence that came together
for inspiring us to put this one together.
Artists like Celia Cruz,
Hector Lavoe, The Fania All-Stars,
Yerba Buena.
There's more than that, but that's a good starting point
for you to check out some of their work.
So we're thinking about the three over two feel
against this.
Let's start with tone, the middle pitch.
(lively music with drumming)
One, two, three, one, two, three,
one, two, three, one, two, three,
one, two, three.
Okay.
Now, whichever hand you want to use,
let's switch it where we have one of them
playing on the two and the other three.
one, two, ready and
(lively music with drumming)
Okay.
So once again, bass, middle,
tone, slap on the edge, all right?
So, the idea is we're gonna do single time and double time
right now, so what we just did
and then switching it to double time.
We're gonna go back and forth.
Follow me, play along whether you have a table,
or a drum, a snare, anything you got is totally fine.
Here we go.
One, two, ready and
(lively music with drumming)
Double time.
(lively music with faster drumming)
Okay, not bad.
Let's try that again.
Ready again.
(lively music with drumming)
Switch.
(lively music with faster drumming)
One more time.
Okay, now let's free ourselves up.
Let's do some improvisation.
So rather than copying me,
just do whatever comes naturally
with your hands, with your sticks, whatever you got.
I'm gonna play a rhythm first,
and then you fill up the rest.
I'll show you where to go.
Here we go.
One, two, one, two, after me freestyle.
(lively music with drumming)
One, two, three, four,
two, two, three, back to me.
(improvised drumming)
One, two, one, two, three, and
(improvised drumming)
Let's do a couple more, all right?
Nice, back to me.
(improvised drumming)
Two, three, four, one, two.
All right, one more after this.
(improvised drumming)
One, two, three, four, okay!
Nice, cool.
Now, as this music fades out,
I'm gonna return back over to the snare
and we're gonna start looking
at some more complex rudiments: subdivisions.
When we're looking at subdivision at a greater level,
the rudiment of doubles, which we've heard some of
start to get a lot more rapid to create
what we call the roll.
Have you ever heard of drum roll,
when someone says drum roll, please.
(drum roll)
Okay, so there's different types of rolls,
but essentially the fundamental DNA
of a roll is two quick bounces at a time back and forth.
So instead of
(drum beats)
We increase our speed and our ability
to bounce the stick using the force of gravity
(drum roll)
So an easy way to start developing that
for yourself is increase your tempo like a train, right?
(quickening drumbeats)
All right, and we end up getting a day at a time,
a little bit better, a little bit better.
You gotta be patient with yourself.
So keeping in mind, we done some of the other
subdivisions and rudiments.
Now we're going to get a little more complex.
We're gonna look at eighth note triplets,
sixteenth note triplets, 32nd notes,
32nd note triplets and 64th notes, okay?
So follow along with me.
If you feel a little overwhelmed or whatever,
just laugh at the mistakes and have a sense of humor
and keep pushing yourself.
All right, here we go.
Follow me as best as you can.
One, two, one, two, ready
(drumming)
okay.
I've given you some clues
about diving deeper into the challenges
of subdivisions and rudiments,
but you could have nine lifetimes
and not learn it all, all right?
So keep pushing yourself every day.
We're gonna be moving forward now
looking at a different concept,
playing three against four,
not three four time signature,
but three against four feel.
So we're gonna move back over to the djembe,
and we're gonna pull up another one of the productions
form Big World Breaks to help as an accompaniment for that.
Follow me over here, please.
(upbeat music)
So, this song here that we put together
has a lot of influences.
I'm blessed to have been listening
to so many types of music, had great mentors,
and family that was open-minded to what I was listening to.
So all in a nutshell, I hear elements
of Kendrick Lamar in this,
Jimi Hendrix, who was from my neighborhood,
the Central District in Seattle,
Buddy Guy, another great blues artist,
Dungeon Family, Outkast, Goodie Mob,
Janelle Monae,
Bootsy Collins, Parliament-Funkadelic.
You name it, it's a big potluck
of all kinds of sounds, right?
And what I love about working with something like this
is hearing the subdivisions and possibilities.
We're gonna focus on three over four, first.
So if I'm looking at sixteenth notes,
counting it at this tempo would be,
one-y and a two-y and a three-y
and a four-y and a five.
Every third note, it would sound like
(drumming)
You see how it doesn't carry over to the one every time
because it's odd going against even.
Now what if I hit another sound in between that?
Accents here every third note,
and then ghost notes in between, like this.
(drumming)
Now that we've done that together,
let's try to do it single time, then to double time.
You know how I roll.
We're always trying to figure out
how to challenge it and switch it up.
One, two, one, two, ready and
(drumming)
So on and so forth.
Now there's a lot of variety.
I was just using tone and slap,
but imagine
(drumming)
between your left and your right
and the different pitches here on a djembe
or a table or snare, there's a lot of options, all right?
Now that we've gotten through all of this
technical stuff and discussing,
I'd like us to just get completely free
and now what you're gonna do
is you're gonna battle me.
There's no cash prize, there's no trophy.
It's just about pushing each other to get better.
So we're gonna go back to the table, then come back here
and go to the snare to finish, all right?
So follow me over here to the table
and we're gonna do a little table battle.
We're gonna trade two bars at a time,
just so you know what's going on.
I want you to know the parameters
before we battle, all right?
So it'll be one, two, three, four,
two, two, three, switch.
All right, you guys ready?
I know I'm ready, you ready?
Here we go.
Repeat after me, anything you want.
Be free.
Ready?
(drumming)
One, two, one, two, ready and
(drumming)
all right, all right.
Keep it going.
(drumming)
okay.
Now that we've done a little bit with the table,
let's switch back to the djembe
and we'll start using some of our
three against four concepts
or your three over two feel.
Do what you want.
We'll keep freestyling.
Here we go.
Follow me back to the djembe.
I'll count us in.
Battle round two!
Ready, here we go after me.
One, two, one, two, ready and
(drumming)
One, two, one, two, ready
(drumming)
all right, all right, nice.
(drumming)
Nice, all right, here we go.
(drumming)
All right, all right.
(drumming)
Not bad, all right.
(drumming)
Okay, all right.
Now for this last battle round three,
let's get back to the snare.
No matter what you got at home, it's all good.
But let's get it.
Follow me to the snare, here we go.
Time to shine, here we go.
(drumming)
All right, here we go.
(drumming)
All right.
(drumming)
Okay.
(drumming)
I'm gonna use some of this cross stick, here we go.
(drumming)
Little rim shot, use what you got.
(drumming)
All right, all right.
(drumming)
Keep it going, we got a few more bars.
(drumming)
All right, all right.
(drumming)
Nice, nice!
(drumming)
Okay.
Man, you've given me quite a workout today!
Definitely burned some calories.
As this song fades out,
I'm just gonna help us review
back over here at the table
of some of the essentials we've talked about today.
So, it's been quite a journey.
I'm really excited about everything that we've gone over.
So once again we've talked about
some extra subdivision today,
looking at quarter note triplets,
eight note triplets, 16th note triplets,
32nd notes, 32nd note triplets, 64th notes.
We talked about some alternating ways
of looking at rudiments with doing
five stroke rolls at different tempos
and eliminating the rest between the five stroke rolls.
We looked out how to take a paradiddle
and flip it inside out and add accents that move around,
and you saw it was challenging me,
so it's always good to review things,
especially when they challenge us, right?
We also talked about playing
two different ways of three over two feel
looking at where your tempo's at
and then trying double time to see
how your hands can keep up,
alternating left and right leads,
and looking at playing three against four,
finding different ways to push
odds against evens to develop tension
and suspense while you're leading through improvising
and creating your rhythms.
And ultimately, as Mr. Knatt,
my original music mentor, always told me
is that there's no shortcut in music.
It's really important to be patient with yourself,
to remember that you're human
and you can get better a minute at a time,
but you can't get better just because you want.
You gotta decide what you love
and put your time into it and just be patient with yourself.
And if you feel like you're not growing quick enough,
find a way to put more time into it, all right?
And I'm really excited to see what comes
of all this work we have together
and hopefully we get a chance
to work together in person in a classroom,
on a stage sometime.
Once again, my name is Aaron Walker-Loud,
director and founder of Big World Breaks,
and this has been brought to you
by the Creative Advantage.
Thank you again.
(percussive music)
(upbeat music)