Video transcript
@The Arts Unit Art Bites – Creative use of rudiments for the drum kit – 02. Performance from Rudimental Ritual

[music playing]

JASON ISAAC: Hello, and welcome to this video, a performance of the '26 American Drum Rudiments' section of Alan Dawson's 'Rudimental Ritual.' This is a video that should enable you to learn this first section of the ritual aurally. It should also enable you to learn it by looking at the notation, which I've pasted on to the screen as it occurs in the performance.

And, there are 2 other aspects of the video that should also assist you in learning this section of the ritual. The first of those aspects is that the performance itself of the ritual is on a snare drum, with sticks taken in an overhead shot. So, you'll be able to tell which one is the left, and which one is the right, and see the way the sticks are moving, at the same time as hearing it, and viewing the notation on the screen. And, that performance is recorded on one channel on the right speaker, or the right headphone.

The other aspect of the ritual, of course, is the repeated phrase that's played between the bass drum and the high hat with our feet. And, I've recorded that separately, and that's on the left speaker, or the left headphone.

And, my hope is that this will enable you to learn all of these different aspects of the ritual in many different ways. So, you'll be able to pause the video at any time, look at the notation, try and figure out how it works just with your sticks. And, then you'll be able to maybe go back a little bit in the video, press play, and perform it with me.

You'll also be able to perform the ritual just on its own, just with the snare drum, just with your hands, moving through all 26 of the American Drum Rudiments in this first section of the ritual. And, then you'll be able to perform it whilst listening to the snare drum performance, and the foot ostinato, and you'll be able to hear how they fit together.

This is actually one of the challenging parts of learning the ritual, learning how all of these various rhythmic modulations - when the rudiments move between groups of 2s and groups of 3s, or duplets and triplets, quavers, triplet quavers, semi quavers - learning how those movements fit with the unchanging foot pattern, the foot phrase, the bass drum and the high hat.

So, what you'll be able to do is then just try playing the snare drum with only the foot ostinato playing. And, you can take out the other headphone, or you can turn off that speaker, so you're just hearing the bass drum and the high hat, and seeing on the screen which rudiment you should be up to.

And then, of course, you can do the opposite. You can work on just the foot phrase, just the foot ostinato, whilst listening to the performance of the snare drum and looking at the notation. And, of course, at any time, you can pause the video, really zone in on the notation that's on the screen, and try practising it. Do it at various tempos with your own metronome.

So, I really hope that this is a useful tool for you in your development of your rudimental technique, and your vocabulary, what you understand that we can do, as percussionists and drummers, with the sticks. And, I very much hope that it's an enjoyable way of learning the ritual, by looking at the notation, investigating the rudiments, learning it aurally, and also being able to hear how the 2 aspects, the foot ostinato and the rudiments themselves, fit together.

If you just set yourself the goal of learning 1 rudiment a day in this way, you'll be surprised at how quickly you will have memorised, just absorbed the ritual, and how quickly you'll be able to, like me, make this ritual part of your daily practice.

Have fun with this. All the best with learning the first section, the '26 American Drum Rudiments' section of Alan Dawson's 'Rudimental Ritual.'

[clock ticking]

[drum beating]