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We see a lesson on Nate Smith style funk beats (truly James Gadson, Clyde Stubblefield, Mike Clark, Lenny White, etc. beats), and we assume “one-handed 16ths”.
And if you’re like anything like I was, you find this style of “continuous 16th funk” challenging.
But I submit to you that it’s not because of the hand technique.
If I gifted you Isac Jamba’s right hand, would you suddenly sound like Nate? No, right? So why?
To illustrate the real reason, I went digging in my analogy bag, and pulled out a doozie: the bowling alley.
In a bowling alley, of course, you have a long strip of hardwood, and gutters on either side. If you roll the ball straight down the center, you’ll miss the gutters. But you’ll also miss the opportunity to shape your shots, or catch challenging spares. The more you explore, the more you risk gutter balls.
When I watch some drummers try to emulate the beats of Nate/Corey Fonville/Yussef Dayes, their playing sounds like a bowling alley. They’ve got a narrow lane where their stuff sounds pretty “pro”, but as soon as they deviate from it, they lose control. A kick drum is early or late. They flam hands or feet. Something feels “off”.
The thing that makes Nate-style beats challenging is they’re improvisational. If you listen to Mike Clark with Herbie, practically every bar is different. So you can’t “play like Nate” simply playing “boom chick”. You need to be able to improvise within the groove.
But that’s where the trouble starts.
Because improvisation is chaos. Infinity possibilities. And you can only do a few of the confidently. Jump into that abyss, and you’re not going to get enough reps with any one thing to “widen your lane”, unless you do it for years. There are simply too many possibilities to get the “spaced repetition” necessary to improve.
But stick to “written down” exercises, and you fail to simulate real life. Then you get that familiar “stuff I practice isn’t coming out in my playing” conundrum.
The solution? Algorithms.
A system that gives you discreet things to practice, but which mirrors the “possibility-tree” of real-life playing. And to which you can add more and more conditions until, for all intents and purposes, it becomes indistinguishable from real life.
This is building a lexicon from the “inside out”.
Phew, is anybody still reading? Anyway, today we tackle algorithms through the prism of Nate Smith beats.
Hope you enjoy!
Hope you enjoy!