We continue this month with more ways to interpret Ted Reed’s classic book Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer. This time we’ll be converting the written manuscript from its original 4/4 form to 5/4 time. The following applications can be used with any of the seventy-two repetitive one-measure examples from pages 29, 30, and 33–36, or from the thirty-two-measure rhythmic melodies from pages 37–44 (in the original printing). Let’s begin by exploring Example 1 from page 29. Now convert the phrase to 5/4. It takes five measures from the original manuscript to equal a four-measure phrase in 5/4. As with the 3/4 applications from last month, there are several ways of approaching this conversion in your practice. Begin by reading the original manuscript and omitting the barlines. Another approach is to write in new 5/4 barlines with a red pen so you can clearly see each measure in […]

August 2014 Issue