When you buy your new computer, you should put 'PPAP Drum Solo by 手数王kozo suganuma & hiroshi matsuo' first
- PPAP Drum Solo by kozo suganuma & hiroshi matsuo
- When I thought it started to be cute, all of a sudden...
- He's playing drums on his face as well
PPAP Drum Solo by kozo suganuma & hiroshi matsuo
I was surprised to find out that my colleague at work knew a professional drummer. And I never thought that I would have a chat with colleagues during my work break about odd meters, "TE-KAZ-OH", and his band FRAGILE. Professional musicians are all around us.
When we had the chat, she took me to this interesting video.
Kozo Suganuma, known as "TE-KAZ-OH" which means the king of many strokes, plays drums on Pikotaro's PPAP. You see a heavy technical fusion drum performance that doesn't match for that light pop music PPAP at all! That big gap is an important point here.
When I thought it started to be cute, all of a sudden...
I took a few bars from the begining:
The sextuplets in the first 4th and 5th bars also entertain us with his stick twirling as shown in the video. The left hand moves in the order of snare > high-tom > low-tom > floor tom, and right/left kicks fill up between them to create 2 sextuplets. In the meantime, he twirls the stick on his right hand in idle. Next, on "the other hand", the right hand moves in the order of floor tom > low-tam > high-tom > snare, and he twirls the stick in idle. The R/L sequence is as follows:
That is a phrase that requires practice and preparation in advance because it could not be improvised instantly. When you think of the cute beginning of "Pi ko ta ro ohhhhhhhhhh, Piko!" it heavily starts like above. That is a big gap amazes us.
He's playing drums on his face as well
More generally, the gap between ultra-fast technical performance and his smiling face is still striking. This smile sets him apart from other drummers. From around 0:58, the heavy metal pattern with sextuplet kicks is the best part of his dazzling smile. He is the king of many strokes who entertains the audience not only with his hands and feet, but also with his face. He has the fifth element for drum performance. I am so inspired by watching the video that I decided to practice to flash nice smiles during my playing drums.
The magic of Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik which makes your life exciting
- Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik
- Chad Smith's highly skilled performance
- The ideal fill for all drummers to reach for
- He is a professional
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Check out Red Hot Chili Peppers again! This is another old 30 year old album, which is similarly old as the RHCP's album that I picked up previously. Today let us check from the sort of controversial album "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" released in 1991, the song "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" titled as the title of the album.
See also the previous article for RHCP:
Chad Smith's highly skilled performance
This is the basic drum pattern starts from the beginning of the song.
(0:00-)
The tempo is about 73 bpm. The slow and heavy groove is very comfortable. The 16th note opened high-hat in the 1st beat may not be very easy to play staying your body in balance, but it is much essential to play it like that because it is the most important opened high-hat that definitely characterizes the song. Chad Smith performs the basic pattern quite stably that shows how skilled he is.
The ideal fill for all drummers to reach for
(1:06-)
The stable groove continues and just before the chorus, we need to focus on that standard fill in the 2nd bar. An onomatopoeia representation in Japanese could be "Tan-takara-don". That is snare (with a flam occasionally) + snare + high-tom + floor-tom + kick. The fill is so perfect that I colored the notes with red. Although the fill is typical and ubiquitous, that sudden "Tan-takara-don" sounds real cool while we let our guard down to the slow groove. Its time, feel and notes distribution are perfect. This is the ideal "Tan-takara-don" which all drummers should aim. Before the second half of the chorus, there is "Tan-takara-don" at 2:23 (Tan-takara-don-don, to be exact.), which is perfect as well. In the chorus, from the 3rd bar in the score above, he then goes with the ride cymbal, and unlike the hi-hat pattern so far, kick and snare come in up/down beat on 16th note. Rather, is this his more favorite pattern? Also his stability free of hurry in this slow tempo is wonderful.
He is a professional
There's another nice little fill at the end of the song.
(4:08-)
When the song comes to the climax, the fill with polyrhythmic accents and 32nd notes on the 2nd bar is a bit nice. It still proves his skill to keep the tempo without hurry even when it's time to release the wild instincts at this climax. Perhaps he pretends to be at climax to make the song feel good in a non-emotional manner. Yes, he is a real professional who can control his emotions by his own will.
YOU! Do the Reggae..!
Today we are going to check out some of the drumming concepts of Reggae..!
Reggae is a Jamaican popular music created through the influence of various forms of music and was registered as an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2018. Wikipedia has a detailed description of its drum play style.
Reggae drumbeats fall into three main categories: One drop, Rockers, and Steppers.
I learned a lot from the Wikipedia article above because I didn't know very much about regage until I read that. Let's look into the 3 main categories.
One Drop
With the One drop, the emphasis is effectively on the backbeat (usually on the snare, or as a rim shot combined with bass drum). But one is empty except for a closed high only used, which is unused in popular music. There is some controversy about what other reggae should be counted so that this beat falls on two and four, or why it should be counted two as fast, so it falls on three. An example played by Barrett can be heard in the Bob Marley and the Wailers song "One Drop". Barrett often used an unused-triplet cross rhythm on the hi-h, which may be many years on records by Bob Marley and the Wailers, such as "Running Away" on the Kaya album.
If you want to play drums in Reggae style, would this be the first? This is a One drop pattern that Bob Marley and the Wailers performs in the song One Drop:
(00:00-)
On the other hand, every reggae song has a bit of percussion, which is an important element of spatial expansion, liveliness, and rattling. So I don't think we can create a full-blown and authentic sound like Bob Marley and the Wailers without percussion. First of all, we have the small number of percussionists out there and it is not easy to introduce it, which sets a hurdle higher.
Rockers
An emphasis on the backbeat is found in all reggae drumbeats, but with the Rockers beat, the emphasis is on all four beats of the bar (usually on bass drum). This beat was pioneered by Sly and Robbie, who later helped create the "Rub-a-Dub" sound that greatly influenced dancehall. Sly has stated he was influenced to create this style by listening to American drummer Earl Young as well as other disco and R&B drummers in the early to mid-1970s, as stated in the book "Wailing Blues". The prototypical example of the style is found in Sly Dunbar's drumming on "Right Time" by the Mighty Diamonds. The Rockers beat is not always straightforward, and various syncopations are often included. An example of this is the Black Uhuru song "Sponji Reggae".
I understand by listening to I Need A Roof and Right Time of Mighty Diamonds that Rockers is like typical rock drums, with high-hats accented on quarter note. Mighty Diamonds' Right Time goes like this.
Steppers
In Steppers, the bass drum plays every quarter beat of the bar, giving the beat an insistent drive. An example is "Exodus" by Bob Marley and the Wailers. Another common name for the Steppers beat is the "four on the floor". Burning Spear's 1975 song "Red, Gold, and Green" (with Leroy Wallace on drums) is one of the earliest examples. The Steppers beat was adopted (at a much higher tempo) by some 2 Tone ska revival bands of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
This is also a pattern that can effectively produce Reggae style. High-hat is polyrhythmically hit at a specific timing on top of four bass drum kicks in quarter note to make it go Stepers style. One drop style may also include this high-hat (for example: Running Away by Bob Marley and the Wailers), so it may not be a feature of Steppers alone. Bob Marley and the Wailers' Exodus steps like this:
Reggae Drumming Tips
The Wikipedia article also has some tips for Reggae style drumming:
Reggae drummers often involved these three tips for other reggae performers:
(1) go for open, ringing tones when playing ska and rocksteady,
(2) use any available material to stuff the bass drum so that it tightens up the kick to a deep, punchy thud, and
(3) go without a ride cymbal, focusing on the hi-hat for timekeeping and thin crashes with fast decay for accents.
Once you know some of these classifications of styles, you will be able to play in a wider range of drumming styles. I think we can take a different approach from a plain One drop cliche when we try to make a song sound like Reggae.
