Carter Beauford Style

TamaDrummer777

Junior Member
Hello,
I really love Dave Matthews Band, and I was just wondering if anyone had any practice tips on how to really learn how to play those crazy syncopated hi hat rhythms that Carter plays. Thanks guy!
 
You can't just learn his style. You can adapt your playing to be similar, but everyone has their own specific style.
That being said, there is a drum book that has 10-15 dave mathews band songs, but the drum parts are really complex. I learned about half the book, but I kind of lost time when I started college.
The best way to go about it in my opinion would be to listen to the music as much as you possibly can, buy the book, and try to follow along with the sheet music as the music plays. From there, (trust me its incredibly difficult), you should begin trying to just play his stuff. Don't drink the water is a good starter, that ones pretty easy but the rest of the book is insane. Rapunzel took me months to learn.
 
You can't just learn his style. You can adapt your playing to be similar, but everyone has their own specific style.
That being said, there is a drum book that has 10-15 dave mathews band songs, but the drum parts are really complex. I learned about half the book, but I kind of lost time when I started college.
The best way to go about it in my opinion would be to listen to the music as much as you possibly can, buy the book, and try to follow along with the sheet music as the music plays. From there, (trust me its incredibly difficult), you should begin trying to just play his stuff. Don't drink the water is a good starter, that ones pretty easy but the rest of the book is insane. Rapunzel took me months to learn.

nothing he is plays is incredibly difficult and for the most part lots of his playing sounds a lot more complex than it actually is because of his accent patterns and simple syncopation

you just have to understand it

find the time signature
pick out the dominant subdivision
find the pattern (if there is one)
find the accents

to the OP

pick a song where he does these things you enjoy and try to transcribe it

Joe Crabtree shows you a great way to go about doing that here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa4ZLE0Xj-4&feature=channel&list=UL

you will learn a lot more about what Carter is playing and your own understanding of it by transcribing it yourself

have fun
 
Just looked for a while but didnt find it- I am sure there is a great video on youtube of carte goingt hru one of his songs and how he approaches the hi hat work he does.

Gotta love the smile, gum cheweing and gloves. So good,
 
Buy his instructional video Under The Table and Drumming. It's packed full of great performances and he breaks down all of his parts one by one. I really enjoyed it. Here are some results from a youtube search. http://www.youtube.com/results?q=un...al&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=w1


great finds

the way he describes his approach to the hi hat in the first video is very similar to Benny Grebs Binary system

so to the OP I would recommend Grebs book the Language of Drumming and going through his systems

you will find exactly what you need
 
Not to get off subject here but check out the fill he does at 2:57. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2zpoIlEasY
That was SICK!!!

Yep, but not his trickiest.


The RIGHT HANDED sticking for it is:

RLL RLL RLL RLL RLL RLL RLL RLL

(reverse for left handers)

Transcript is:

Rss Sss Rss Rss C11 C22 C33 c44

Where...

R=Ride

s= ghost snare

S=Snare accent

C=Crash or China (your choice)

1=first tom

2=second tom

3=third tom

4=fourth tom

Play it as 8 beats, each with 3 subdivisions.
 
This cat shreds. Did you guys notice how far back he holds his sticks?

I've always thought holding more towards the middle of the sitck gives you a better fulcrum angle and reflex? He's gotta be using lots of wrist action?

But hey, it works for him and he's big time....
 
yeah, BigD. I know that Tony Williams strongly advocated holding the sticks pretty snug with the last two fingers (ring and pinky) real low on the stick and allowing the sticks to be free up higher. The opposite of how many of us use the index, middle and thumb further up on the stick.

Maybe I should learn something here. Beauford looks like he might do it. Tony Williams...umm...yeah.
 
Hudson produced a DVD which features Beauford and Victor Wooten, going through their whole creative studio process.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szIEr2F61DU

That would certainly be worth checking out!

If you are interested in accent pattern grooves and open handed playing, be sure to check out any material from Claus Hessler. Great stuff.

-sheldon

You sure named three incredible musicians here. I just found out about Claus Hessler recently. Man, I swear I could watch him play for hours.
 
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