In this lesson we’ll be reviewing a note value exercise I developed to improve my own timing and control. It’s a great way to practice all the various subdivisions along with the metronome. Let’s take a look at the provided sheet music.
Everything starts on the first line with steady quarter notes being played on both the hi-hat foot and the bass drum. This is the foundation for the entire exercise as it will be played continuously with the metronome clicks.
In line two, you can see the hands begin to play alternating quarter notes with the click. Then in line three, the hands move to eighth notes where only the lead hands is sink up with the feet.
Next, we move to eighth note triplets. This can get tricky as the triplets require that your hands take turns sinking up with the feet. In other words, if you were to start on the one count with your right hand you’ll be playing the second count with your left hand. This is due to the simple fact that triplets aren’t even numbered groups.
Line five changes to 16th notes and that means you will once again have only one hand that sinks up with the feet and the metronome. Then we go to 16th notes triplets, which are interesting because unlike the eighth note triplets the one hand still sinks with the metronome click. This is because they’re groups of six notes which is an even numbered group.
Finally for the last bar, we’ll move to 32nd note to finish things up. I’m going to demonstrate this entire exercise for you now. I’ll set the metronome to 60 beats per minute.
[Demonstration]
Now, I went through the entire exercise but you don’t have to do it all at once. You can practice one line at a time independently just make sure you keep a steady pace on the metronome so it’ll be easier when you go to put it all together. You’ll also want to be careful not to start too fast because you have to be prepared to hit the fast 30-second notes at eight times the speed of the quarter notes that you started with. Let me quickly demonstrate how everything gets much faster if the metronome is only 10 beats per minute faster.
[Demonstration]
Now, it maybe difficult for you to play the first part at a slow pace, that is normal. In fact, it can be more challenging to play along with a slow metronome than a faster one. That’s because you need to rely on your own internal clock to carry through the long gaps between metronome clicks. That’s okay. Practice playing this exercise with a slower metronome and you’ll get more accurate with time.
Now, if you aren’t too comfortable with triplets yet, that’s okay. You can skip over those two lines all together until you feel you’re ready to include them. This exercise isn’t meant to be a boring and repetitive assignment it’s just a fine quick way you can work through a variety of subdivisions with the metronome.
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