Hudson_MG-exploringcreativity-sample.pdf

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EXPLORING YOUR CREATIVITY “Discovering the truth about ourselves is a lifetime's work, but it's worth the effort.” - Fred Rogers

Music is my life. Everyday is a new adventure and an opportunity to explore. This book is a result of my love affair with music; more than two decades of inspiration, experimentation and curiosity. I am constantly in search of new ideas and ways to improve my musicianship, and the exercises contained here are the ones that have provided me with the best results. My favorite thing about this material is that no two of us will come out the other side with the exact same content. These concepts are reliant on your own ideas and intuition. We are all a unique combination of our influences. The more you can allow your influences to coexist in an honest way, the closer you will be able to express your true self. My intention is not to show you exactly what to play or how to play, only you can decide that for yourself. I hope the concepts in this book can help unlock your creativity on the drums, and inspire you to develop your own musical identity. What I am most interested in is what YOU will create.

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D.R.O.P. When I was younger, I used to practice in a very deliberate way. I would focus on specific musical statements – grooves, fills, etc. — and work on them until I could consistently play them “correctly.” I did this more and more to expand my vocabulary, but I had no way of changing these ideas once I had learned them. However an idea came in was the same way it was going to come out. As I started playing with more musicians in a wide variety of styes, I realized it would be impossible to develop the amount of vocabulary needed to serve the music in all of these different environments. It was then that I started to reprogram the way I practice. Instead of creating and preparing specific ideas at home—and hoping that they would be appropriate for the music I was playing—I began to focus more on the way in which these ideas were built. I started to investigate the different tools that are fundamental in creating new ideas. By focusing on these tools, I gave myself a much better chance to create musical statements that were true to each moment. In the following chapters, I would like to share with you the four tools that I use most often to create new musical statements on the drum set. Dynamics - the volume at which an idea is played

Rate - the rhythmic subdivision used to play an idea

Orchestration - where on the instrument an idea appears

Phrasing - where an idea exists in relation to the pulse

It doesn’t matter whether are you playing a jazz gig in a restaurant, a pop gig in a football stadium, or just jamming in your parent’s basement with some friends, you can use these tools to help you create personal musical statements in each moment. ***

“The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.” - Steven Pressfield ***

There are no shortcuts. These concepts require disciplined and mindful practice. Be patient. Put in the time. Do the work. Let go.

Be yourself. Create.

And most importantly, HAVE FUN.

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Leaving Space

“Silence allows for deep listening and mindful response…”

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Thich Nhat Hanh

One of the most musical decisions we can make is to leave SPACE. Silence is an incredibly powerful tool and what you choose not to play is as valuable a musical choice as anything we choose to play. Let’s try an experiment: Play this:

Now play this:

How did the placement of the accent sound in each example? Did you find one example more comfortable than the other? Often times it is easier to play that accent in the “correct” place when you play all the notes in the rate. But we don’t want to have to play all the notes all the time (that doesn’t sound like a very musical decision to me!). We have to work hard to make the notes that you don’t play of equal value as the the notes that you do play. A strong INNER pulse is the key to leaving space. In order to play the rate variations on the previous page with confidence, your inner pulse needs to be unflinching. These variations provide all of the different ways to leave space within one beat of each rate, and it is important to develop a strong relationship with each individual option. Quite often, we play things that are the most comfortable to us, so we need to work hard to get equally as comfortable with ALL of them. The more options we have, the better chance we have to serve the music. With the combination of a strong inner pulse and deep understanding of the rate variations, you are on your way to start to creating your OWN phrases inside the music.

CREATING YOUR OWN PHRASES

You’ll notice that on the following “Leaving Space” pages, I have left empty manuscript lines for you to create your OWN phrases. The light gray stems are a representation of the rates from which we are building our phrases. There are two different ways you can build your own phrases: 1. Composition - Decide in advance which notes to play

2. Improvisation - Decide in the moment which notes to play You may draw in the noteheads of the notes you choose to play (composition), or you may choose to create new phrases in the moment using the provided template (improvisation). What I like best about these method is that it’s virtually impossible for two of us to create the same phrases… and that’s how it should be! The more of your own personality you can inject into these exercises, the more you will learn about the musical statements that are unique to YOU.

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Leaving Space

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Here are two eight-bar phrases I created using our eighth-note variations. 1.

2.

Please use the space below to create your OWN phrases.

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Leaving Space Using only triplet variations, here are two eight-bar phrases I discovered.

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Your turn. Get creative! 3

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ORCHESTRATION

The arrangement of a musical composition (or improvisation)

The drumset is capable of seemingly infinite sonic possibilities. It doesn’t matter how big or small your kit is, or what brand of drums or cymbals you have; any quality instrument contains a world of sound waiting to be explored. The instruments you choose to play should inspire you to express your true self in the music.

Discovering the sounds inside of each instrument

It is important to study each element of your kit with great detail. Experiment with different tunings, different heads, different sticks, and take notice of how each change creates a new sound. For example, I’ve spent countless curious hours exploring only my snare drum, asking myself:

. . . . . .

What happens if I change where I hit the drum: The center? Off center? Closer to the edge? What about at different dynamics: Quiet? Loud? Extremely loud? What if I place something else on the head: A cymbal? A t-shirt? Another head? Some rocks? What if I use a single ply head? Double ply? A marching drum head? What if I use a brush? A mallet? A pencil? My hand? What if I hit the rim? The shell? What about flipping the drum over and playing the snare wires?

This is just the beginning. Do this kind of exploring for all the elements of your kit. The most important characteristic in this pursuit of sound is curiosity. All of the sonic results you find will be of equal value and can have their own unique musical application. The more sounds you can create, the more music you can make.

The organization of these discovered sounds

After we have explored the musical possibilities within each element of our kit, we can start to examine ways to organize them collectively. Combining these sounds in a musical way requires coordination between the limbs and freedom to move around the kit. There are certain motions or paths that are more natural for our body than others. For example, going from the rack tom down to the floor tom is more comfortable for a lot of drummers then going from the floor tom back up to the rack tom. (Which path do you use more? Why?) We shouldn’t make a musical decision based on how easy or difficult it is for our body to achieve. We should make the decision based on the sound that we are looking for. The following exercises are designed to help you develop an understanding of all the different paths on your kit and open your mind to the wealth of orchestration possibilities.

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ORCHESTRATION PATHS

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As you can see on page 32, my drumset consists of a bass drum, snare drum, rack tom, floor tom, hi-hat, crash cymbal, and ride cymbal. Excluding the bass drum (we will get to that later), there are six different instruments I can play. So from whichever drum or cymbal I am playing, there are five possible destinations. It is important to familiarize yourself with each unique “path” between any two sounds:

Snare Drum

Tom

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UNIQUE PATHS

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Hi-Hat

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ORCHESTRATION PATHS

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Here’s an exercise that uses single strokes that move between two voices. Start by playing eight notes on each instrument, then seven, then six… all the way down to one note on each. Think of these notes as 16th notes and play a quarter-note pulse with your left foot. Take it slow at first. The goal is to relax and get a good sound.

Refer to the video to see me demonstrate this exercise on several different surfaces and at different tempos.

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IMPROVISED ORCHESTRATIONS WITH BASS DRUM

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Now try to improvise your OWN phrases exploring new orchestration possibilities with the bass drum where the rates are changing in different places. Here’s my attempt: 3.

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Chances are you’ve heard this phrase before. You might have even played it. It is a very familiar sound and I bet that most listeners would assume that the crash with the bass drum lands on beat one. In the following exercise, we will move this phrase around to hear the musical result of beginning and ending our phrase in different places in relation to the pulse. Don’t let the sound of this fill trick you into assuming it ends on beat one! Our goal is to develop the freedom to confidently play a phrase anywhere in relation to the pulse. *The double bar line in the following exercise represents the top of the form. Experiment playing with different forms: 16 bars, 8 bars, 4 bars, etc. Whether the crash at the end of your fill falls on beat one or not, it is important to make sure the top of your form always lines up with the double bar line. **Play these exercises with a metronome! Better yet, choose an album that inspires you and try these phrasing exercises in that context. Look for songs that I have clear forms so you can really hear the musical effect of moving these phrases around the pulse.

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PARADIDDLE PHRASING

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Another way to develop confidence in moving ideas around the pulse is to focus on a familiar phrase and play it starting on each note of a given rate. A good way to do this is to simply add a bass drum note to the end of the phrase.The bass drum note pushes the start of the next phrase to the next note of the rate. Rudiments are a good place to start. For example, play four paradiddles followed by one bass drum note, and loop that. Do the same for three paradiddles, two paradiddles,and finally one paradiddle; all followed by one bass drum note. 1.

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PARADIDDLE PHRASING

Let’s go back to “THE LOOP” and play these paradiddle and bass drum combinations. Four paradiddles followed by one bass drum: 1.

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