 Hello everybody, my name is Aaron Walker-Loud of Big World Breaks. I'm very happy to be invited by The Creative Advantage here to work on different technique, on percussion and rhythm. Before I was using any instruments, I was hitting surfaces like tables, lockers, lunch tables, bathtubs, anything I could get my hands on. And I'm sure a lot of you watching this might have the same experience. And I also know that even when we changed to using some of the other instruments today, maybe you don't have that at home. And that's totally fine. That's why we're going to use some techniques using this table. And we're going to also be using some other percussion as well. So when you see me change to using different percussion, that doesn't mean you can't do it anymore. That just means we're going to talk about what's the equivalent between these three different instruments we're using today. And that's going to be the table, the gym bay, and a snare drum. So to get started, looking at low, mid, and high pitch. There's a low, mid, and high pitch in almost anything that you can use as a percussion instrument. And for tables, what I taught myself and what friends were showing me when I was young growing up was essentially three different sounds. Now some of you might already make it more complex than using rings or pencils and pens and rulers who knows. And that's great too. But just with your bare hands, if you look at using your fist in the middle of a surface to get the lowest pitch like that, or you might be left-handed, you might prefer using your left hand either way, the middle pitch using what we would call an open hand slap, right? And depending on where you hit it, you can see there's a variety there, but we'll just call this the middle pitch. So we have fist, slap, and then if you use your knuckles, not too hard because you don't want to bruise your knuckles, to get the highest pitch. So low, mid, high, all right? Now we're going to do a little experiment just to warm you up where I'm going to play a rhythm and you play it back. I just call it the echo game to be simple. And I might play something that's a little challenging, but don't worry about the challenge. Just do your best. So we're going to go back and forth with the echo game. I'm going to use all three pitches. Just repeat after me as best as you can. Three, let's try that again. Now I'm going to keep changing it every other time. Here we go. Now I'm going to change the speed. We call speed tempo in music, all right? So I'll do a little bit faster tempo. One, two, repeat after me. One more time. Now I was changing some techniques there. I'll tell you a little bit later about that today. Now I appreciate that you might have done something different on accident or maybe it was a little challenging and that's fine. You may hear some teachers talk about growth mindset or perseverance. Those terms really just have to do with the idea that we embrace that we're not perfect. We're human. And we embrace the fact that through our learning process when we deal with things that are not perfect or we call them mistakes, that helps our body and our mind to align better. So we keep learning new things. And if we can have a sense of humor and laugh at the mistakes, what that means is that we're going to be learning quicker and we're going to be less stressed out or less concerned about being perfect in front of other people and just go through the process. You'd be surprised what happens with how quickly you can learn if you stop being concerned about that I mess up in front of somebody else or am I doing this right or not? Now you want to strive to be focused on your details but let's just keep that in mind that it's not perfect we're looking for but just effort and staying focused and coming back for it every day, every day. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to have us listen to a song that I have been working on that no one else has heard yet and let's check it out and we're going to use it to help us with some new techniques. So thinking about counting and subdivision of rhythm is something that's really important. Some artists that have really influenced me in listening to how they do subdivision and how they produce their drums or their beats have really influenced the music that I'm working on with this here. So if we're listening, we're talking about groups like Outpass, Organized Noise, Three Six Mafia, No Limit Records, TI, some of the great hip-hop innovators of the South. And if you listen to a lot of their music you'll hear what I'm talking about with a subdivision. So we're going to start simple looking at whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, and eighth notes. Starting with using our fists for the lowest sound and you'll see me moving to the other two sounds as we go. So play along with me on whatever table or surface you're hitting. Here we go. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, these are whole notes. Three, four, they last for the whole measure. One, two, now let's try half notes. Here we go. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, nice. Now, quarter notes. Let's try it with the knock. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. Now let's try eighth notes. Back to the fifth. One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one. Now let's play whichever sound you want. One and two and three, low, mid-high and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four, nice. Okay, one more time. Okay, now I'm going to switch over to another instrument and I'm going to keep showing you some ideas with that. So follow me over to the gym bag. So these drums here, if you have a conga or a bongo or any kind of hand drum that's totally fine, this is a gym bag. If you don't have any of that, still use the table, it'll still work for you, alright? So essentially, the idea is three sounds just the same, low, middle and high, right? So bass, starting with the middle with your hand right in the middle. Try that again. Okay, tone the middle pitch with your fingers only halfway up through the drum bouncing off of your palm. We call that tone once again. Now with slap, just your fingertips, right? Towards the edge, the last inch. The highest pitch, we call that slap. Bass, tone, slap, bass, tone, slap. Try that with me. Bass, tone, slap, slap. One more time, bass. So who has taught me about hand drums meant for me for a long time? Good friends of mine, Chon Deo, Yvonne Galvez, Theo Schantz, they've been showing me great things about it. I'm more specialized with sticks but I love hand drums also. Now, let's try a little back and forth, a little call and response. An echo game where you can repeat what I do using the hand drum. Here we go. And if you're still on the table, that's fine. Let's mix it up. Again, great. Okay, nice. Now the next thing we're going to do is I'm going to improvise, which is another way of saying freestyle. Freestyle is a term that came from hip hop culture which started in the Bronx in New York before I was born in the 70s. And to freestyle to improvise means you go without a plan. You let your emotions and your personality take over and you just see what happens and you think too much about it. You let your hands do the work. So let's try that. When I leave you some rest, some space do whatever you want to do. I'll go first. Here we go. One, two, three, and okay, one more time. Nice, nice. Here we go. One more time. One more time. Okay, nice, nice. Thank you. Now, I'm going to head back to the table to look at a couple other techniques. Let's check out something new. Before we start the other music that I've selected, I want to talk a little bit about something called ghost notes and accents. Ghost notes and accents is the relationship between high volume, low volume. When you have a lot of other instruments in the world that use different pitches like piano, violin, vocalists, they have so many options and they train using scales and arpeggios and whatnot. For percussionists, if we're limited to three sounds or even less, what we need to think about is how can we create more variety? So dynamics, a.k.a. volume help us create more variety and musical interest. So when I was studying snare drum first in fourth grade, I was focusing on some of the same things I showed you before, right? Looking at rudiments where we're doing different patterns with our hands and I didn't think too much about volume. But there was a song when I was in fourth grade called It Feels Good by Tony Tony Tony and that was one of the first things I tried to teach myself. It was on a desk though. I didn't have sticks on my hand. And if you'll notice, some of the notes are louder than others. Watch this. So accents, that just means one note or more notes than one that are louder than the others. An accent. A ghost note means it's almost hard to hear, it's so quiet and we have the exaggeration between. So what we're going to work on is an exercise using doubles right, right, left, left or starting with your other hand, whatever you prefer and we're going to start to see that some of them are louder than the others. So let's try that together. We're going to do it flat first. Now you're going to see me start to shift. Now we're going to do a little faster tempo and we're going to do singles instead of doubles. So just single back and forth and try and follow me to see where I hit the accents. You might see me change from a fist to a slap or a knock. Just try and follow along as best as you can. I call this freeway chase. Watch this. Play with me. Alright, not bad. One more time. Okay. That's just a little bit to get started, but you have so many ideas you could use that you make up, that you freestyle listening to songs you like and imitating them just like all musicians do. So we're going to move over to the snare drum now and I'm going to show you a little bit more snare technique and then we're going to work on some ghost notes using the other song I worked on. So after studying with the snare drum for a couple years and fourth and fifth grade I started really getting excited about music and I decided I wanted to do it more and more. So in middle school I met one of the most important teachers in my life at Washington Middle School in the Central District of Seattle where I grew up and Mr. Robert Nat changed my life forever. He helped me understand the importance of being dedicated to something you love and there were some challenging times and I was intimidated but after a while I realized he was just trying to help me go after what I love and be committed to it. And so one of the main things he always told me which I tell all my students, there's no shortcut in music. So you spend a half hour focused, you'll get a half hour out of it. You spend a few years, you'll get that back. But if you're not putting time into it, music will not just pat you on the back and say that's alright, you're going to sound good anyway. So thinking about that, you've got to be patient with yourself, alright? So thinking about the equivalents of the table fist, slap and knock, low, mid, high, or base tone and slap on the jimbey. Another way to look at the snare will be hitting it right on the head for the lowest sound and then the middle sound using a cross stick like a drawbridge pulling it up and then the rim has the highest sound hitting the edge on the metal. So, alright? Now if you don't have a snare at home, that's totally fine. You can use a practice pad, you can use a table or whatever you have and that's totally fine. Now we're going to use another piece of music to help us explore something a little bit more complex using the ghost notes and accents that I talked about before. So, earlier we discussed whole notes half notes, quarter notes and eighth notes. Now we're going to start utilizing sixteenth notes. Alright? And then, in using ghost notes on the drum set, the way I'm doing here on the recording, I was influenced by people that came before me. So, what I'd love for you to check out is a drummer named Clyde Stubblefield who played with James Brown. I'd love for you to check out Ziggy who played with the Meters. These drummers changed the whole way everyone looked at the drum set and using ghost notes with some loud and some quiet. Let's start by playing eighth notes and then we'll get to sixteenth notes to make sure we're on the same page. So, eighth notes, one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and let's try that right in the middle. Okay? Now we're going to go from eighth notes to sixteenth notes back and forth. You're keeping the volume flat. Here we go. One, two, eight to sixteenths. Okay? Not bad, not bad. Now we're going to start using sixteenth notes steady, but we're going to start changing where the accents are. So, accents and ghost notes. Check this out. And we're going to use the rim and the head, the highest and the lowest sound. Two, ready and so do your best to follow along with your hands or your sticks. One, two, three, huh. Okay? Not bad, not bad. Now, we did an echo game before with the other instruments. We're going to try it with this snare drum. Do your best to copy me as much as you can. Here we go. Not bad. Let's use some of the other sounds. Not bad. Rim and the cross stick. Let's do another one. Okay? Now, let's be free with it. Instead of copying me do anything you feel. After you hear me, you can imitate what I'm doing or make it up on the spot. Challenge yourself. Here we go. One, two, ready and two. All right, one more time. Okay. Let's keep it going. Two, ready and not bad, not bad. Here we go. Okay, nice, nice. Okay, okay, nice. That pretty much wraps up what we're doing for this video today. But I wanted to re-emphasize to you a few important things. I mentioned some artists that you should be checking out. Please look it up. When I was young I didn't have the internet. I didn't have Google or YouTube. So I'm so fascinated how you guys have so much more access to things quickly. And check out those artists. Remember the terms we talked about? Notes, accents. We talked about the different pitches, right, on the table between the fist, the slap and the knock on the gym bay, between the bass, tone and slap, on the snare, the head, cross stick and the rim, right? We talked about whole notes, half notes, eighth notes and sixteenth notes. We talked about improvising which also is called freestyle. And I want you to remember once again there's no shortcut in music and I want you to know that it'll be more loyal to you than most humans in the world. You put in an hour, you'll get an hour. You put in 32 years like I did you'll get 32 years out of it. So keep up the challenge. Keep up the creativity. Look for songs you like. Even if they're none of the songs I picked find your own artists you like and learn those pieces. Teach yourself and find teachers you trust to help you get better. And once again this is Aaron Walker Loud with Biggs working with Creative Advantage. Thank you very much for your time.