How to Play Jazz Beats on Drums

Video Transcript

" Hi! My name is Ken Marcou and I’m going to show you a demonstration of a very simple jazz beat. Jazz beats are different than rock beats in that, there’s no real back beat what you’re doing is you’re pushing along the song in general, the kick drum hits on all the quarter notes so it’s 1234, 1234 pushes it along, you’re not hitting it very hard you’re tapping the drum a lot more softly than you would in a rock song typically. You’re right hand is generally providing the swing feel which is like this…this feel is more your focus than the solid rock beat 1234 of the rock beat. Now the snare drum’s roll is a lot more of a garnish than a definitive aspect of the beat, swing is more about just pushing things along, it’s more about what you don’t do and letting the other music come through by still having a metronome behind it, still having something pushing it a while but then it’s all about when you flourish you know the very little moments of splash, so I’m just going to kind of play something very basic here… Now basic jazz you know snare drum is coming in for little pops and splashes, what you do depends greatly on the song you’re playing and when the accents are required, generally you hit the snare and the cymbals where the accents in the music are required and that all depends on how you write your music."