Once you are past the first flush of joy at drumming, comes time to enter the world of patterns.
Patterns are rhythms. meaning that each pattern creates a sequence of movement.
There are long and short patterns. Shortest is the pulse, the 1/1 beat, then there are the male and female rhythms which I have spoken of before. Now it’s time to get into the proper stuff.
The Africans are the masters of rhythm. India is the home of the most sophisticated rhythms, but their patterns are way beyond this arena. I call the Africans the masters of rhythm because they grabbed it like no one else, and they did something startling and simple, which has defined the rhythm of drummers ever since.
The male rhythm is the 4/4 beat plus its extensions, and the female is the 3 beat cycle - 3/4, 6/8, 9, triplets etc. What the African did, was to combine these two rhythms into a slightly longer pattern.
I’ll only talk here about the base pattern. This is the most common variation of this combination, and once it has been grasped, you can explore the rest more easily.
There are two ways to learn this pattern - one is by osmosis, by listening to someone who demonstrates it to which you can play along, and the other is to rebuild it from its mathematical basis.
I am going to do the second here, so this will require some concentration and experimentation.
The Africans began with the 4 beat cycle, as it has the greatest opportunity for improvisation around it. then they extended it to 16. That is 4 sets of 4. Within that, I am again going to begin with the base sub pattern. They left the first 3 sets almost alone - 3 sets of 4 beat cycles, then converted the last set into the female rhythm. But they did this not by making it a 3 beat cycle, and here is the cleverness of their grasp, they feminised the 4 beats by shifting the emphasis from the third position to the second. And that’s not all, they also feminised the three 4 beat sets at the beginning while retaining the masculine quality. they did this by making the third position a deep note rather than a high note, adding a slight swing or shuffle to the set, and making the forth position silent.
The classic 4 beat cycle, as used in most rock music, has two emphasis points. The secondary emphasis is on the first beat, and the primary emphasis is on the third beat. The third beat is hit with the high hat - a high trebly sound. It sounds like this, with even beat spacing:
da ta Tish a, da ta Tish a, da ta Tish a, da ta Tish a
that’s 4 sets of 4 beats, a 16 cycle, with the Tish emphasised.
The Africans changed this, by shifting the second beat of each set closer to the third beat, giving a swing effect, or what I call a lope effect as they also dropped the third to a deep note. Then they left the fourth silent. It sounds like this:
da t’Dum _, da t’Dum _, da t’Dum _, da t’Dum _
This is how they feminised the male rhythm, by letting it swing a little. And this itself demarks the European and African rhythmic culture - it is the cause of the African foot bounce, where they gently bounce on the balls of their feet. Western music is a flat footed beat, whereas African music is an elastic ankle/foot bounce. This looping 4 beat pattern is almost never heard in western music, although its presence is growing in the younger generation of hand drummers as they discover African beats.
Now for the tricky part, how they add in the female rhythm.
Take the fourth set, and apply the triplet curve, using four beats - ie 1 2 3 1. But for the sake of this specific pattern which emphasises best this quality, we use only two of those beats. There are so many subtle variations, so excuse me as I target only one. The second of these beats is then emphasised with a high strike tone - a shark strike (with little sustain like the third note is for the previous Dum’s of the male sets). It sounds like this:
da t’Dum _, da t’Dum _, da t’Dum _, da Da!_ _ (The last ‘Da!’ is an up beat.)
There you have it. To see the female rhythm in the fourth set, just repeat that part alone dropping of the fourth silent beat:
da Da! _, da Da! _, da Da! _ etc. This is the classic 3 beat cycle played with two strike per each hand, where the da is the second strike of right hand, then Da! is the first strike of the left hand, the next da is the second strike of the right hand, and the next Da! the first strike of the right hand etc.
So there you have it, the ‘old’ African rhythm, the base rhythm from which we can then get into the really interesting stuff. But this rhythm is to be practised and perfected to being able to do it asleep. And done with both hands like this:
da t’Dum _, da t’ Dum _:
da (rim hit RH) t’ (rim hit LH) Dum (centre of drum skin hit RH) _, da (rim LH) t’ (rim RH) Dum (centre LH) _
Start like all new patterns, slow and deliberate, then once the hands can do it without the brain’s constant telling, quicken the pace to a rhythmic flow. The important thing is to allow the body to feel and move with the rhythm.
To do the full 16 set, it is sometimes better to not shift between sides on emphasis. There is a theory here, that when practising, always reverse the pattern to give the non-dominant side equal show, but in actual play, it is natural to allow the dominant side to lead, and the non-dominant follow. the better you get at the equal practice, the more likely you will be able to also do it spontaneously in play. And it is easier to keep all hits on the side of the drum head instead of shifting to the centre and back - the classic drum hit style is best to practice where the hand strikes the rim on the centre of the palm - that is a very powerful strike. So assume equal strike position in the following, with emphasis rendered by loudness rather than tone, and assume a right handed person:
da t’Dum _, da t’Dum _, da t’Dum _, da Da!_ _
da(RH) t’(LH) Dum(RH) _, da(RH) t’(LH) Dum(RH) _, da(RH) t’(LH) Dum(RH) _, da(RH) Da!(LH) _ _
Notice the last set - the right hand (RH) doubles up, and the left strikes with emphasis. This is important, as it in itself adds a very characteristic quality to the rhythm. With two drums in front of you, the Africans place the higher toned drum on the left, which then gives a high tone to this last strike by the left hand. (The Indians place the high toned drum on the right, to facilitate their finger/one-hand drumming by the right hand on the high pitch furthest edge.)
That’s it. Now I’ll just foreshadow the next pattern after this, but never leave this base one till you have it nailed.
But first, a hand variation. It is very pleasant to adopt a technique where the right hand moves towards the centre of the drum head, and the Dum is done with the back edge of the hand (including the top of the wrist). The da is done with the tips of the right hand fingers (this is accomplished by the right hand being cupped so that it pivots from wrist to finger tip). The t’ is then left to the left hand. This creates a very Indian variant of the pattern, and as I say is pleasantly sensual.
The musicians in Africa found that a more exciting version of this pattern, which also allowed for some very interesting variations, was to move the forth set to third position, thus:
da t’Dum _, da t’Dum _, da Da!_ _ , da t’Dum _
or more:
da t’Dum _, da t’Dum _, da Da!_ t’da t’Dum _
I’ll get to that in detail another day.
