Lesson 7: Accents, ghost notes and dynamics

Play every note at the same volume and a beat is a typewriter. The difference between a beginner and a drummer people want to play with is mostly this: which notes are loud, which are quiet, and how far apart those two things are.

Watch first

Stick heights

Volume comes from height, not from hitting harder. Three heights to practise on the pad: full (stick pointing at the ceiling), half (about forty-five degrees), and low (an inch or two off the head). A backbeat is a full stroke. A ghost note is a low one. Everything else is somewhere in between. Practise the three on single strokes until they come out on demand.

RLRLRLRL

▶ Play70 BPM−5+5

Ghost notes

A ghost note is a snare note so quiet it is felt more than heard, written in brackets. Put two in the money beat, on the “a” of two and the “and” of three, both with the left hand, low as you can, while the backbeats on two and four stay full. If someone in the next room can hear the ghost notes, they are too loud.

▶ Play80 BPM−5+5

That beat is the doorway to funk. Play it slowly and the gap between the loud and the quiet is the whole feel.

Accents on the hi-hat

Accent the hat on the beats and play the “ands” lighter. It is the same eighth notes as the money beat, but the pulse suddenly has a shape, and the beat sits down. Most drummers do this without noticing; doing it on purpose is the step.

▶ Play90 BPM−5+5

Then reverse it, accents on the “ands”, and hear the beat lean forward.

Practise

Five minutes of three heights on the pad. Five on the ghost-note beat at 80, listening for the gap between loud and quiet. Five on hat accents, both ways. Then log it, and write one line about which was hardest; that is next week’s first five minutes.