Welcome back to another free drum lesson with me at Hackney Wick Drum Studio. In todays drum lesson, we're going to be taking a look at combinations of eighth and sixteenth note triplets, often called Hertas. These groupings are great fun to play and can really add some creativity and colour to your playing, but can be a little tricky in terms of counting if you're just starting out with them. You can start out by taking a look at my eighth note triplet lesson first if you need a refresher on counting triplets.
The best thing to do when counting sixteenth note triplets is to simply play a double stroke on the particular note you need, making an eighth note into two sixteenths. Let's take a look at the full exercise below.
TIP - It's really important to play these with a click. If you don't, you'll find that all the exercises will start to sound the same!
What you'll see in the first three examples, is the sixteenth note triplet moving throughout the bar, one eighth note at a time.
For exercise one, the sixteenth note group is on the '1', for exercise two, it falls on the 'trip', and for exercise three, it falls on the 'let'. These patterns continue throughout their respective bars.
In the next two examples, you're doubling the amount of sixteenth note triplets in each grouping. For exercise 4, you'll be playing those sixteenth note groupings on '1' and 'trip', and for exercise 5 they'll be placed on 'trip' and 'let'.
Probably the trickiest example in this whole exercise is number six. Here, you play the sixteenth notes on '1' and 'let', with the single eighth note falling on the 'trip' each time.
Finally, exercise seven is just full groupings of sixteenth note triplets and exercise eight is eighth note triplets.
Check out the video below to see what each exercise sounds like, played at 90 BPM.
Now that you've got these mastered, why not trying changing up the sticking on all of the above exercises? I've notated them all with double strokes or 'diddles' in the first group of exercises. Below are the same patterns, only played with single stroke stickings, giving you more of the traditional 'herta' patterns.
SINGLE STROKE STICKINGS
I hope you've found the above pieces useful. Like all things, they're not applicable to every scenario, but having them in your trick bag will certainly enable you to throw in some pretty interesting and creative fill ideas.
Many thanks for checking out another blog from me at Hackney Wick Drum Studio. If you're looking for drum lessons in Hackney, or drum lessons in London, please get in touch for more information. I also offer online drum lessons so again, get in touch to find out more.
I'll be back in a few days time with another drum blog. Until then, Happy Drumming!
Jack x