Worship Musician August 2020 | Page 107

PERCUSSION FUNDAMENTAL FRIENDS | Mark Shelton While sight-reading a song in a rehearsal, your eyes glance ahead on the chart and see the words, TWO-BAR SOLO. Your brain suddenly recalls a paradiddle-based lick that you made up last week. Seconds later, your hands start to improvise around that lick with every note in proper relationship to the click that’s thumping in your ear. After eight beats your solo ends and you continue through the song. An inner voice whispers, "Aren't you glad you practiced that stuff?" What do you include in your practice sessions? Preparing your assigned music for rehearsals and worship events should rank high on your practice schedule, but make sure to devote time to the fundamentals of music-making. Maintaining the basics allows you to more easily express your musical ideas. Here are a few of the musical fundamentals to review frequently along with some helpful tips and resources. CLICK ACCURACY The click is here to stay. The ability to perform with a click has become a common requirement in many musical settings including worship services, recording sessions, video productions, and concerts. Turn on your metronome and concentrate on sharpening your click skills. The beginning of a practice session is a good time to warm up both physically and mentally with easy rhythms and simple movements that will allow you to focus attention on click precision. RHYTHMIC SUBDIVISION The spaces between the clicks deserve attention. Incorrect spacing of notes within a beat causes rushing and dragging. If your metronome can produce sound on subdivisions of the beat, make use of that feature to practice correct rhythmic spacing. SIGHT READING Even in our quick-delivery technology world, there are still musical situations that require sight reading a chart at a rehearsal or recording session. Improve your sight reading skills by frequently playing through a page or two of unfamiliar music during a practice session. Keep sight reading material handy so that you can quickly incorporate it into your practice time. Sharpen your sight-reading with these classic books: • Modern School for Snare Drum by Morris Goldenberg • Modern School for Xylophone, Marimba, Vibraphone by Morris Goldenberg • Rhythmical Articulation by Pasquale Bona RUDIMENTS How's your ratamacue? Are you keeping the grace notes close to the drum head when playing alternating flams? Rudiments such as the flam and drag, along with the single stroke, double stroke, and buzz rolls, are essential elements in our western culture stick-drumming. Rudiments can also be shaped into rhythmic licks and applied to a variety of percussion instruments including congas, timbales, and drum set. A regular dose of rudiments will help maintain your drumming health. I highly recommend a weekly brush up on all forty of the Percussive Arts Society International Drum Rudiments. Download a free copy of the rudiments at www.pas.org SCALES Are you called upon regularly to play keyboard percussion on choir anthems? Perhaps you occasionally play the hook to a worship song on the glockenspiel, or maybe you find yourself hammering out a chimes melody during the Christmas season. Since most of the music we encounter is organized around a system of scales, it's a good idea to routinely insert scale studies into your practice mix. The Source by Steve Barta is a collection of traditional and contemporary scales. After you've reviewed the major and minor scales, flip open The Source and work on the blues scale or the Mixolydian mode. IMPROVISATION Creating spontaneous music is fun plus it prepares you for those moments when you are called on to improvise in a rehearsal or performance. Make it a point to inject some focused noodling into your practice routine. Keep in mind that you can use your improv time to reinforce other areas of musical study. • Improvise variations based on a rudiment that you've been practicing. • Make up a melody using a scale that you recently memorized. Music fundamentals are your friends. Maintain a good relationship with them and they will assist you in expressing your musical ideas. Visit those friends frequently. Get a weekly dose of percussion education on #percussiontiptuesday with Mark Shelton on Instagram @marksheltonperc ©2020 Mark Shelton Productions / Percussion For Worship Mark Shelton A freelance musician and educational consultant based in Dallas/Fort Worth. Performance credits include North Carolina Symphony, Gateway Worship, Daystar Singers & Band, TALEA, Wichita Falls Orchestra, Tin Roof Tango, and Dallas Wind Symphony. www.marksheltonmusic.com percussionforworship.blogspot.com August 2020 Subscribe for Free... 107