The Jungle Drummer

Coldcut Vjamm presents the Jungle Drummer

Hi everyone, this month I have my first ever lesson filmed. A few years ago I got asked by Matt Black one half of Coldcut to come to a rehearsal room in London, to do my thing and be filmed. He wanted me to do a range of breaks including Hip Hop but mainly Drum and Bass, so he could use different edits of the footage on video screens at Coldcut shows. Go to my myspace page myspace.com/jungledrummer to check the piece out.
The Drum and Bass was played at 166 BPM and incorporates some different things we haven’t done before in this column. Such as playing some of the snare drums right handed on the snare accents and also shuffling with the left hand at the same time. Also incorporating tom toms in Drum and Bass and Hip Hop in a melodic way. I came up with all these patterns by playing over the top of music and using the beat as a guide over the top of Jungle and Hip Hop. Then I just completely improvised and did my own thing, I also tried to make it look as visual as possible. Lets take a look at this months beats.

Exercise 1
This exercise is called The Metro Rolling Beat. I’m shuffling with my left hand and in the first half of the bar accenting with my right hand.. In the second half of the bar I reverse these roles. Repeat this loop as a 2 bar break. Patterns like this are prominent on 90′s Jungle records. Again as with this exercise and all the other exercises start slow and master the beat and then speed up.

Exercise 2
This is a Hip Hop break called Slo Funky. In this exercise I incorporate the floor tom as part of the groove creating a sloppy half time Hip Hop rhythm. Ending the bar with a hi hat.

Exercise 3
In exercise 3 I utilise the tom toms creating a bass line melody, this is definitely inspired by Jungle music. The left hand plays the ghost the right hand plays the toms and the hi hat. This exercise is called tom fill.

Exercise 4
This exercise is called Good Fill. In this clip I’m playing a fill at the start of the bar, that can re-loop again and again. So practice the fill at the same tempo and then as in the video clip incorporate some of your own beats in as I have done.

Check out the video footage from the links below:

Nice one
Jungle

Exercise 1

Exercise2

Exercise 3

Exercise 4