In this month’s educational column’s you might see a theme: Sevens (or septuplets.) But why sevens? First, playing seven equally spaced notes within a beat has nothing to do with playing in 7/4 or 7/8. Sevens are a natural rhythmic extension beyond sixteenth note triplets and thirty second notes and are not only complex vocabulary that is used in modern progressive music by drummers like Danny Carey and Mike Portnoy. Think of sevens as another gear in your drumming transmission. You wouldn’t shift from sixth gear to eighth gear on your mountain bike (or from second gear to fourth gear in your standard transmission car.) It would feel jagged and create an unnatural progression or acceleration of speed. The same happens in drumming. Simply put, the vocabulary of rhythmic grouping of “sevens” fit between the more common rhythms of six (sixteenth note triplets) and eight (thirty second notes.) And this […]

April 2026 Issue