[theory] Dynamics and phrasing: Creating melodic "shapes"

One of the real eye-opening, or perhaps ear-opening experiences I had in my drumming life was living in a dormitory. I had a fairly large room, and the temptation to set my drums up and rock out was strong, but it was also pretty much out of the question. I still kept the drums set up most of the time though, and while I carted them downstairs to the basement practice rooms for rehearsals and jam sessions, I would occasionally take out a pair of brushes or multi-rods and mess around a little, around the toms mostly. Playing quietly and playing the parts of the kit that are more tonally focused forced me to really listen to not only the rhythms I would play, but the melody of the drums as well. What's more, playing at such a low volume made accents and other nuances stand out much more than I was used to.

Take, for example, this ridiculously simple fill-in.

Nothing to it. Boring as hell, actually. There are many ways, however, to make it more interesting without changing the "melody" of the fill. The most straightforward way might be to effectively "hold" the notes longer, by playing sixteenth-note triplets or thirty-second notes in place of the simple quarter notes, but accenting the first note of each group, and playing the rest quietly.

This maintains what I call the shape of the fill, but the effect is totally different. Similarly, we can replace each quarter note with an accented eighth note and two unaccented sixteenth notes.

Try this example again, only with flams on the accented notes. Now we've got something that sounds good, and is a bit more challenging to play. Yet all three of these are essentially the same fill. Teasing out the shape of the parts you play helps you get past just playing licks, because you're no longer focusing on every note that you're playing.

If you want to pursue this further, you can take an eighth-note reading text, such as Ted Reed's Syncopation, and play the written notes as accents on your toms, while filling in the rest of either the eighth notes or sixteenth notes as unaccented notes on the snare.