Dynamics
Lesson time: (6min 37sec)
Alex Reeves shows how to play loud and quiet within your drum fills, using stick height for control so your grooves have dynamic light and shade.
Course preview
This lesson is part of the course Fills In Time: Drum Fills & Time-Feel in 15 Lessons
Watch a preview of the full course below.
Lesson transcript:
Lesson 12: Playing Different Volumes Within Our Fills
In this lesson, we're going to be looking at playing different volumes within our fills.
Understanding Volume
First, we need to make sure that you can play both loud and quiet.
- Watch how high the sticks go when I play here on the snare drum.
- If they're low, it's quiet.
- If they're high, it's loud.
Exercises
Here I play exercises one to three four times each.
After locking on with this bass line, I play exercises four to seven using my own interpretations.
- Listen to how each one affects the groove and feel of the tune.
Accenting
I'm only going to briefly look at accenting, as it's a big topic and it's been covered elsewhere.
Here I play a couple of accenting patterns from the book.
Rock Tune
Here is a rock tune that was written for this DVD.
- On it, I play a variety of accented fills.
About the instructor
Alex is a freelance musician who has performed live and in the studio with artists as diverse as Dizzee Rascal, Unkle, Bat for Lashes, Guy Garvey and Elbow. He has played headline slots at all the major UK festivals, including televised appearances on Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage, Oxygen Main Stage and T In The Park. International TV performances also include Live on MTV, the Jools Holland Hootenanny and The BBC Electric Proms with Dizzee Rascal. On stage Alex has played with artists who have scored number one singles and albums all over the world, including Boy George, The Jones Girls and Johnny Hates Jazz. Alex has also been Musical Director for Island Records' Cocknbullkid, produced an album for Lotte Mullan, and performed live with Mercury nominated rapper Ty, American Blues legend Earl Thomas and singer-songwriter Ezio. Alex has recorded in all the major studios in London, including Abbey Road, Angel, Air and Rak, and runs his own private drum studio from East London's Fortress complex. Recorded highlights at The Drum Fortress include the top 5 single Shine with the Lovefreekz, Wretch 32's Breathe, UNKLE's collaboration with Nick Cave and the beat for American rapper Nas's single Nasty. He has also played drums and percussion on major TV adverts for companies that include McDonalds, X-Box and Toyota, provided beats for computer games like Sega Rally 2 and Shellshock 2, and appeared on many TV and film soundtracks, including the major release of Brideshead Revisited. Alex writes a regular tuition column for Drummer magazine, has written a book with accompanying DVD, and recorded a 1960s funk breaks sample CD. In his MusicGurus course, Fills In Time, he distils all that studio and stage experience into 15 quick lessons that sharpen your time-feel and build a vocabulary of drum fills you can drop straight into your own playing. And yes - he still calls his mum every week. read more