The Eight Points

Once you accept the 8/8 flow as a useful concept, the next logical conclusion is that there are eight points in the bar that you can resolve to: the four up beats and the four down beats. For some reason, the way music has been taught in this country, people learn to think that the one is the most important beat in the bar. In fact, it’s not the most important, and in some ways, as a resolution point, it might even be the least important. I feel that you should be able to resolve equally well to any one of the eight points. By resolve I mean that you can start a phrase somewhere before any given point and have it land naturally and easily on that point.

The way to master the eight points is not an intellectual process but is best achieved by becoming familiar with how they feel. They each have a distinctly different feeling. There is as much difference between 4 and the & of four as there is between the color blue and the color green. This leads back to attitude. One of my concepts of music, which I apply to all instruments and all music, is that every note should be played for a reason. When I play an & of four, I play it because it has a certain feeling, and it is my conscious choice to play that feeling.

One of the basic rules of any kind of communication is to choose your subject matter. No matter what it is that you want to get across. For example, if I were giving a speech, I wouldn’t have a sentence about politics, then a sentence about baseball, and then a sentence about ice cream. I would choose one topic. Perhaps I would say different things about the topic from night to night. One night I could be very abstract; another night I could be funny; another night I could be sad or serious. But my audience would always know what my chosen topic was because I would stay with the topic I chose. Advertisement

The same is true with the resolution points, it is important to realize that because they each have a unique feeling, jumping randomly from one to another is like changing topics in a speech. This is not to say that you can never use more than one point at a time, or that you can’t use combinations of points, but again you must know exactly how each point feels, and you must consciously choose to use that feeling.

Let me now bring up something which makes this easier: Although there are eight points in the bar, there are really only four different feelings. Although there is a difference between the one and the three, these points feel very similar. Likewise, the two and the four have a similar feeling, as do the & of 1 and the & of three, and the & of two and the & of four. I am going to give you a methodology for working on each of the eight points, but because of the similarity of feeling, I am going to first discuss them in groups of two.

1 and 3

To me, the one and the three are anchors. They tend to stop forward motion, almost like putting a stake in the ground. They tend to give a feeling of reaching the end, and for that reason, I tend to use these the least of all resolution points. Ironically enough, they are the ones that almost everybody seems to be able to do. Advertisement

2 and 4

These are very valuable resolution points. They are where the swing resides. These are the beats that you snap your fingers on or clap your hands to these are the beats that make it swing, and resolving on these beats is very effective.

The & of 1 and the & of 3

To me, these feel like an elbow in the ribs; They have kind of a jerky feeling that wakes you up. They also remind me of a contraction; They have a pulling in kind of motion. They are very effective because they tend to propel the music.

The & of 2 and the & of 4

These are the opposite of the previous feeling they are like an expansion rather than a contraction they are a stretching, a leaning forward. There is a famous Miles Davis composition called “Four” that is based on the & of 2 and the & of 4. Advertisement

If I had to pick one point that is the most important, I would pick the & of 4. But again, I stress: don’t skip any of them. They are ALL important.

Methodology for Mastering the Eight Points

In the following months, we’re going to deal with each resolution point individually. To do that effectively, we will work with two bar phrases, let’s look at the reason for that.

The idea behind a resolution point is that it gives you an element of repetition that is necessary for groove. We do not necessarily need something that repeats in every bar, however, because we are not just hitting these points, but rather, we are resolving to them. One bar doesn’t really give you enough room to resolve. In order to have enough room to make a resolution, most of the time we’re going to want at least a two-bar phrase. It could, in fact, be a four (or an eight) bar phrase, but in this book we will focus on two bar phrases because they are so basic and common to music.

I feel that it is very valuable to visualize music whenever you can. You should not just hear it, but also see it. When working from a resolution point, start by visualizing a two-bar phrase with a grid of 8th notes, which you will use as your framework.

The next step is to zero in on one of the points. For the moment we will pick the & of four in the first bar, and we will mark that point with an accent. (Note: in actual practice, the resolution point does not necessarily have to be the loudest note in the bar, but more about that later period.) Advertisement

So you are now visualizing a two bar phrase of 8th notes, and one of the notes has been chosen as your resolution point

The ability to internalize the 8/8 framework with a resolution point in it is the key to freedom on the drums. Working off of a point will give you the element of repetition that is necessary for groove, but it will also allow you all the freedom you could ever want. In other words, that one point -in this case the & of four- is always going to be there, and that’s enough to give your playing the cohesion it needs. Around that point though, you can be playing different things all the time. The things that lead to or follow that point can be constantly changing.

There is another advantage to using a point: it can help you keep good time. Some people have trouble with rushing or dragging, and one of the reasons is that it is very difficult to memorize pure pulse after a few minutes, it can become a shade faster or slower. Granted, few people have metronomically perfect time; Nevertheless, you want it to be as close as possible. A resolution point helps with this by serving as an aural landmark. After hitting the point consistently for even one minute, it starts to become inevitable. You become so used to hearing the point in its exact spot in the phrase that, if you should get even a little off, you will immediately be aware of it.

In the coming months, we are going to apply these concepts to each of the eight points. Since we are dealing with two bar phrases, we have a choice of putting each point in the first bar or the second bar. Therefore, we are actually talking about 16 possibilities, and we will deal with each of the 16 in the following months. But let’s start with the & of 4. Advertisement

The & of 4 in the First Bar

Developing Your Internal Hearing

First, visualize a two-bar phrase, with the 8/8 framework, and focus on the & of 4 in the first bar

Before trying to play anything, spend some time singing the above two bars. This phrase will become your internal hearing when you are actually playing off of the & of 4 in the first bar. Until you can internalize this phrase it will help to sing it out loud. It may be played or sung as swung or straight eighths

Exercises

Before you can use a resolution point to its full advantage, you must be able to feel it without having to count. To develop that ability, I suggest that you start out playing something very simple, such as a basic time keeping pattern, while marking the resolution points. A common way to mark the point is with a combination of a cymbal and bass drum. A suggested exercise, based on the typical jazz time-keeping pattern, is given below. Play this exercise many, many times, until it feels completely natural, and you do not have to count in order to hit the resolution point. When you do this exercise, be sure to play swung 8th notes.

At first, you may tend to sound like a big band drummer when marking these resolution points. However, until you really get the feel of them, it is helpful to be very obvious about them, maybe even a little over obvious. Once you have mastered the feel of a point you can start to use it internally rather than externally and you can be much more subtle about the way you mark it. Advertisement

The next exercise is based on a straight eighth note feel and could be used for rock playing. Again, practice this pattern many, many times, until you can feel the & of 4 without having to count it.

Make up your own time-keeping patterns based on the & of 4 in the first measure, using both straight and swung eighths.

Applications

Music consists of phrases, not just individual notes. The purpose of the resolution points is to give us something to resolve to, not just a single point to hit. Rather than starting with a drum set pattern and then trying to make a phrase out of it, it is better to start with a musical phrase, and then apply it to the drum set. Below you will find four two-bar phrases each of which resolves on the & of 4 in the first bar.

Let’s take the first example and examine different ways that one could apply this phrase to the drum set.

As you can see from these drum set examples the resolution point can be incorporated into very simple time keeping patterns, as well as more complex solo or fill patterns.

For the remaining 15 points I will only be giving some rhythmic examples of phrases which resolve to the given point. I will not illustrate how to apply those phrases to the drum set, because it is more important that you develop your own ability to do this, rather than memorizing the way I -or anyone else- might do it. Advertisement

Rather than practicing specific exercises, you need to develop your own creativity and your ability to use the resolution points in whatever type of music you play. After you feel that you can hold the 8/8 framework in your mind, along with a specific resolution point, start creating your own two-bar phrases which resolve to that point. At first you might want to practice the individual phrases repeatedly, but ultimately you should be able to play a different phrase every two measures with the only common element being the resolution point itself. You can use the following example as a framework for your playing, filling in around the resolution point in any way you choose.