Inspired by The Professor, I’ve taken up a new drum exercise. Mr. Peart does it a bit differently. You can see how he does it in the video clip below.
The exercise starts with triplets. I play triplets with my hands while playing 2/2 with my feet. This was not easy for simple little punk drummer like me to do. It took me about an hour to figure out the basic structure. Then, I start moving the triplets from the snare all over the kit. Again, about an hour.
Then, when I conquered that, I moved on to playing off time all over the kit while maintaining the steady 2/2 with my feet. One for the hi hat, one for the bass, one for the hi hat, one for the bass.
All the while, I’m trying to do off-time stuff with my hands. The exercise helps me break the synchopation I’m stuck with (when my left foot moves, my left wants to move with it) and looks pretty neat… if you know what I’m doing.
It’s one of those things only drummers will understand. But, if you want to see how The Professor does it, check out the video below. Remember: he’s keeping waltz time (3/3) with his feet while playing 7/8 and other times with his hands. Try just keeping up with your feet (boom-pah-pah, boom-pah-pah). Just that. Just try keeping up. Then, remember that he’s keeping 7/8 time in his head as well as the 3/3 time.
Go on. Try it. You’ll never listen to a drummer the same way again.
