How to Play Jazz on the Drums - Introductory/Beginner Drum Lesson

https://learnjazzdrums.co/

Feathering the Bass Drum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO_YkRJmO40&t=42s

Comping Course (Coming Soon): https://learnjazzdrums.co/comping

I’m going to break down the basic Jazz pattern into 4 easy steps. Click the link above download a free PDF of everything I’m demonstrating in this video.

Step 1: The Ride Cymbal

The ride cymbal is the calling card for all Jazz drummers and is vital to the feel of the music as a whole. For the last 60 years or so, the ride cymbal has been a standard in all Jazz.

So when you’re first learning this, make sure that you are playing solid triplets on the ride cymbal pattern. Don’t use a triplet subdivision on a metronome, but keep them going in your head.

There are two main schools of thought with playing the ride cymbal. The first is to take the quarter notes, and then add the skip notes in between as a pickup. This is more in line with what I learned from Peter Erskine, and it can be a very effective way to keep a strong quarter-note pulse.

The second school of thought for the ride cymbal is what I got from Jeff Hamilton, and it comes out of the lineage of Mel Lewis and John Von Ohlen. The idea here is to be as loose as possible, and treat the 3 note pattern as one big fluid motion that starts on beat 2.

Depending on the style of Jazz, and the style of drumming you prefer, you’ll find your own voice. I usually find that it takes longer for students to develop the loose, Jeff Hamilton/Mel Lewis/John Von Ohlen 3 note ride cymbal technique, but when they do, it’s incredibly worthwhile and opens up a wide variety of possibilities on the drums. However, if this is literally your first time playing Jazz, it might be best to just start with quarter notes.

Step 2: The Hi-Hat

The hi-hat is played with your foot on beats 2 and 4, perfectly in sync with the ride cymbal pattern, like so

Pretty self-explanatory, but incredibly vital to Jazz drumming. Make sure that you’re able to both play the hi-hat heal down, and heal up.

At fast tempos, heal up with come in handy, because your leg will get in a flow bouncing in time with the fast tempo.

But you don’t want to only be able to play heal up. So make sure that you practice all tempos heal down as well. Both have their sonic advantages that you’ll discover over time.

Since there is so much weight coming down on the pedal with your entire leg with heal up, you’ll notice a crisper, snappier, and sometimes louder hi-hat sound. Incredibly effective when you need it.

On the other side, since there is much less weight coming down on the pedal with heal down, you’ll notice a longer, more legato, wide, and sometimes relaxed hi-hat sound, which sometimes ends up softer. Also incredibly effective when you need it.

Again, if this is literally your first time playing Jazz drums. Go ahead and start with just quarter notes on the ride, and 2/4 on the hi-hat heal down to get the coordination going.

Step 3: Feathering the Bass Drum

The bass drum feathers on all four beats, to blend with the acoustic bass that is commonplace in most Jazz. Make sure that the beater comes off of the drum, your heal is down, and the dynamic is super quiet. This is something that shouldn’t be heard but should be felt.

For more on the subject, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO_YkRJmO40&t=42s

Now, many great Jazz drummers choose not to feather the bass drum, but the vast majority prefer to do it. So ultimately it’s up to do whether or not you do it, but it’s important to learn, and be able to do regardless of whether you end up choosing to use it or not down the road.

But, once you have that down, we can add some snare.

Step 4: Snare Drum Comping

Referring to the PDF linked above, there are 4 comping examples to add on top of the ride, hi-hat, and bass drum.

So that’s just 3 basic comping patterns, and when you listen to or play Jazz, those are always changing, since Jazz is improvised.

There’s no book that will fully teach you how to comp, and if you only rely on a book, you’ll never truly play Jazz correctly. You have to listen to understand it, a lot.

To start out with, I’d recommend listening to the albums Relaxin with the Miles Davis Quintet, with Philly Joe Jones on drums, and Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, with Jimmy Cobb on drums. These albums are full of great comping ideas, and they’re just great, fairly simple albums to play along with as well.

Then, head over to https://learnjazzdrums.co/comping to check out our full eBook with hundreds of comping examples and exercises to learn and practice.

This is hard stuff at first! So cut yourself some slack! 4 limbs doing different things, and making sure they’re in sync, at different dynamics and they feel good!


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Additionally, head over to learnjazzdrums.co/ for more lessons, blog posts, and podcast episodes all dedicated to the art of jazz drumming.