Beat 341 of my DrumBeatProject

Beat 341 7.10.26 backstage again making the best of a rained out show in Charleston, SC. I was messing around with an alternating sticking pattern to improve my flow around the drums while waiting to hear the status of show due to inclement weather. I decided to put a Bembé groove in between repetitions in order to break up that toms pattern and put it into a more musical context. I then decided to put the right hand of the Bembé groove on the Aluphone bells to add a pitched melodic layer that alternates nicely with the melodic ascending and descending pattern on the snare and toms. The first part of the video is with sticks. The second part is with mallets and both are from the Wilco backstage at Green Field Lake Ampitheater in Wilmington, NC. In the third part of the video. I’m using the handles of Promark Brooms and for the fourth part, the “tips” - both in the catering area at Firefly Distillery Charleston (hence the background sounds and also why I’m using brooms - as to not be too annoying while the crew was desperately trying to dry out our sound board after it got drenched!). You can hear the bass drum part the best in the last video. The most difficult aspects are the quick jump between bells at the end of measures one and three and the bass drum doubling the bells on the bembe. I suggest trying this one out by putting the aluphone part (if you don't have those) on the ride cymbal. You can then orchestrate any way you’d like.

Here’s an additional video of me using rods to get a little more articulation while still trying to stay relatively quiet.

And here’s one at a slower tempo to better hear (and see) what’s going on.

Here’s a link to a wonderful Bembé explanation and breakdown by Patrick Cleland. It’s on the Sunhouse page and explains it much better than I do!

Patrick Cleland for Sunhouse

And finally, this one was just a solid extra take from NC - again waiting for the rain to pass…

Check out a 6 minute video breakdown lesson on this beat below the paywall.