Hip Grooves for Hand Drums: How to Play Funk, Rock & World-Beat Patterns on Any Drum

100 Pages·2001·6.48 MB·English

by  Alan L. Dworsky

Important Notice
The print version of this book comes with an audio CD that
contains recordings of all the drum patterns. If you would like
to order the CD as downloadable audio files, go to
www.dancinghands.com.
If you would like to see how every pattern is played, a DVD of
all the patterns and downloadable video files are also
available at www.dancinghands.com.
At the end of this ebook, you’ll find information about other
instructional books and videos for hand drummers available
from Dancing Hands Music. These include the “Gentle
Djembe for Beginners” video series, as well as the videos
“Bongo Grooves for Beginners” and “Cajon Grooves for
Beginners.”
Hip Grooves for Hand Drums - How to Play Funk, Rock, & World-Beat Patterns
on Any Drum
Copyright ©2001 by Alan Dworsky and Betsy Sansby
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any
means without permission except the blank charts on pages 86 through 91.
Published by
DANCING HANDS MUSIC
4275 Churchill Circle
Minnetonka, MN, 55345
phone or fax: [phone]
dancinghands.com
Book design and layout by MacLean & Tuminelly
Cover art by Toni Pawlowsky
Illustrations by Jay Kendell except for the illustration on page 83 by Robert
Jackson
Patterns on the CD played by Marc Anderson, marcanderson.com
Printed in the United States of America with soy ink on recycled, acid-free paper
by Banta ISG (Viking Press)
ISBN: 0-9638801-5-2 ISBN OF EBOOK VERSION: 978-0-9857398-2-9
To Barb and Jim, our best friends
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1Who this book is for and how it works
2How to read the charts and work with the CD
3Playing Position
4The Patterns
Lesson 1: Slap on the backbeat in four
Lesson 2: Kassa
Lesson 3: Straight-eighth feel
Lesson 4: One-bar clave
Lesson 5: Hip-hop
Lesson 6: Kpanlogo
Lesson 7: Tumbao rock
Lesson 8: Paradiddle funk
Lesson 9: 3/4 time
Lesson 10: Slap on the backbeat in six
Lesson 11: The 6/8 bell
5Glossary
Blank charts
Also available from Dancing Hands Music
CHAPTER 1
Who this book is for and how it works
Y
ou don’t need a drumset to lay down a groove. All you need is one drum. It
can be a djembe, a conga, or anything else you can get both your hands on.
Whether your goal is to play in a band, jam in the park, or just drum along with
your favorite CDs, this book will show you how, step by step.
There are no boring exercises in this book, just great dance grooves. Many of
them are adapted from drumset patterns used in rock, pop, and funk music.
Others are based on traditional African or Afro-Cuban rhythms. You can play all
these grooves in a wide variety of musical styles and settings. And you can hear
how each one sounds on the CD that comes with the book.
If you’ve never played a hand drum before, that’s okay. We’ll show you how to
make all the basic strokes on a djembe or a conga in the very first lesson. These
same techniques can be applied to almost any hand drum. We use life-like
illustrations to show how each stroke looks from the outside and give detailed
descriptions to explain how each stroke feels from the inside.
If you’ve never read music before, that’s okay too. We use simple box charts that
even non-musicians find easy to understand. And we don’t just dump a pile of
charts on you and split. We’ll be with you every step of the way, anticipating
your questions, pointing out whatever is most important, and explaining
whatever we think will make your journey easier.
The book is organized into eleven lessons arranged roughly in order of difficulty.
Within each lesson, the patterns start simple and gradually get more complex.
But you’ll hardly notice it, because we make sure you get the right-size steps, in
the right order, at just the right time.We’ve done everything else we could to
make this book as user-friendly as possible. Whenever we introduce a new
Playing Principle or Practice Principle, we highlight it in the margin for easy
reference. Whenever we introduce a new term, we print it in bold letters, define
it on the spot, and toss it in the Glossary. Whenever we introduce a new musical
concept, we separate it and explain it in a Musical Time Out. At the back of the
book you’ll find blank charts you can photocopy and use for writing down new
patterns. And on the CD we’ve recorded one pattern from every lesson for a full
two minutes so you can play along.
On the next page, we explain how to read the charts and work with the CD. After
that, we get right down to business. So turn off the ringer on your phone, grab
your drum, and let’s get started.
CHAPTER 2
How to read the charts and work with the CD
Here’s a sample chart: