Dynamic Playing:
An exercise in expression
by Chris Mattoon

Drummers should not be content with simply playing a collection of notes. Instead, they should interpret those notes in a musical way such that the sum of the parts played is greater in feeling and energy that the individual notes. In other words, anyone can sit at a drum set and play a beat, but a drummer will sit at a drum set and play music. This exercise will help anyone to develop a wider dynamic range, and will further the idea of expressive playing over mechanical playing. Consider the following beat.

Part A: Limb Independence
Let’s break this beat up into voices. To begin, visualize the hihats, snare drum, and bass drum as individual parts of the whole, and try to focus on each one independently as you play.

Next, focus on just the hihats. Bring their volume up as you bring the snare and bass volume down. How does it sound? How does this change in dynamics alter how the entire beat feels? The purpose here is to go to extremes; play the hihats a little louder than you normally would, even at a loud volume, while keeping the snare and bass very, very quiet. Do the same with the bass drum and the snare drum (as in the table below) bringing one instrument’s volume up as you bring the other two instruments’ volumes down. Try to play as smoothly as possible, and shoot for continuous playing for 5 minutes each.

Notice that when one instrument is overly loud compared to the others, the entire beat sounds like it is played wrong, even though the notes may be correct. This is the reason for a well balanced, dynamic beat.

Part B: Stretching the Beat
Next, imagine the beat is broken into two halves. While still playing the measure as a whole, i.e. don’t stop playing between halves, make the first half of the measure very loud, and the second half very quiet. Again, go to extremes, but play as smoothly and consistently as you can. Now reverse the rolls, and play the first half of the measure very quiet with the second half very loud.

Common mistakes while playing this is to alter speed while changing volume, play the halves disjointed, or gradually change the volume as you play. Instead, shoot for a consistent speed; playing with a metronome is always handy and encouraged. Play the measure as whole, and imagine halfway through, someone turns down or up a volume knob as on a playback system. Finally, as we are going to extremes with this exercise, abrupt volume changes are in order.

Last, let’s depart from the normal exercises dealing with dynamics, and have some fun while expanding our ideas of what expressive, musical drum set playing is all about. Take the two halves of our measure, as we had above, but this time we will play one half very slow, and the other very fast.

Don’t think you have to play one half time, and one double time, or anything so regimented. Instead, have the extreme speed change influence the beat in color and feel, as a classical or orchestral piece would. Play the measure multiple times and try not to stop between repetitions. How does the beat feel when played in this manner? When I do this, it reminds me of a leisurely stroll through the woods suddenly being interrupted by a werewolf lunging at your face! Ideally this exercise will bring some strong, colorful imagery to your mind as well!

Combining these ideas, follow the chart below and apply different volumes and speeds to each half as you play.

These concepts are not necessarily that far removed from playing pop, rock or country music, and certainly can be applied directly to many examples in jazz, blues or classical. Volume drops are fairly common in all forms of music. While we usually drum concerned with consistent tempos, dramatically changing speed does get us thinking about playing expressively instead of always concentrating on mechanics. Remember, the whole point of drumming is to play beautiful, expressive music!