1:2:3:4 - The Basic Rhythmic Scale

The Basic Rhythmic Scale is an important tool in your development as a jazz drummer. It will also open up a number of possibilities for your jazz drumming in your soloing and, later on, in metric modulation too.

Internalising the rhythmic scale will give your time a strong foundation because you will become more comfortable with the different ways the beat is subdivided. It is really worth adding your practice routine and working on.

How to practice:

• Start slow, 40 bpm, and then work up.
• Start with single strokes - right hand and left hand lead.
• Practice the transitions from one sub division to the next, particularly eighth notes to triplets, and triplets to sixteenths.
• Move around the kit, but apply the same idea/pattern to each subdivision.
• Repeat with double strokes.

In the PDF there is an eight and four bar pattern without the quarter notes - something Mark Guilliana refers to as "The Loop" in his book. Apply the same ways to practice as above.

For more advanced drummers, try taking any sticking from the first three pages of Stick Control and move up and down the rhythmic scale all the while maintaining the same sticking pattern. A great little rhythmic and chops workout when done at tempo.