Ghosting

[keish]

Hey, So I have been introduced to the basic jazz, swing grooves and purdie shuffle and I practiced them. But in that music there is alot of ghosting. Do you guys have any suggestions of ghosting exercises i can practice to bring in more dynamics?

[Markadiddle]

Practice and accent stroke followed by a quick ghost note. After playing a full stroke, essentially drop the stick in a controlled fashion about an inch off the head.

I use a Mike Johnston DW Ghost Note pro practice pad. There is an adjustable bar that attaches to it and the goal is to only lift the stick(for lack of a better term) no higher than the bar. The goal is to play strokes as low as you can set the bar and still play. Hope that made sense.

[jedi]

Practice man...practice .

[drummer]

It all comes down to stick control. You have to 'control' the sticks. You can literally use any sticking pattern (even singles!) and simply go from loud to very soft. The more you practice things dynamically, the more you will start to gain more stick control. When you really start controlling the sticks (dynamics), your ghost strokes will be dead on.

I use an exercise where I take my right hand and play R r R r R r ... over and again for like 5 minutes. Then I do the same with my left and keep alternating. It's easy to play those loud strokes (capital R's) but much more difficult at first to play those very quite notes (lower case r's).

As Jedi said, just keep practicing!

[keish]

It all comes down to stick control. You have to 'control' the sticks. You can literally use any sticking pattern (even singles!) and simply go from loud to very soft. The more you practice things dynamically, the more you will start to gain more stick control. When you really start controlling the sticks (dynamics), your ghost strokes will be dead on.

I use an exercise where I take my right hand and play R r R r R r ... over and again for like 5 minutes. Then I do the same with my left and keep alternating. It's easy to play those loud strokes (capital R's) but much more difficult at first to play those very quite notes (lower case r's).

As Jedi said, just keep practicing!

Oh thanks.you consider a ghost note to be d same as a tap?

[drummer]

Oh thanks.you consider a ghost note to be d same as a tap?

I don't get too caught up in names. A ghosted note is in fact a tap of the drum. A very, very quiet one.

[Markadiddle]

I don't get too caught up in names. A ghosted note is in fact a tap of the drum. A very, very quiet one.

Ghost note, dead note, muted note, silenced note or false note. Or as Bernard Purdie says, "Let me 'splain this to ya... Those Ghost notes? Ain't nothin' but rebound!"

[keish]

Ghost note, dead note, muted note, silenced note or false note. Or as Bernard Purdie says, "Let me 'splain this to ya... Those Ghost notes? Ain't nothin' but rebound!"

Haha dont forget grace not lol.

[drummer]

Haha dont forget grace not lol.

Yup, that one too!

[ZackPomerleau]

Try doing doubles where the first stroke of each hand is clearly accented. Then do inverted doubles, which is like this: r ll rr ll (you start with a single so that the beat is on the second stroke, you could alternatively just make sure you're accenting the second stroke). The inverted double can also be helpful for your shuffle. Make sure the "and 2" is on the snare side and build up speed. Get fast and do rimshots with it. It's super helpful. It has really built-up my shuffle from slow and steady to pretty good speeds (and with a good snare sound, too). I just find that have the snare a bit lower helps so that you can take full advantage of the whipping motion, as it allows for full rebound utilization and volume.