In this lesson, we’ll put to the test all of the skills we’ve learned across the previous nine-stroke lessons. We’re going to realize the full nine-stroke ostinato until it naturally loops with a 4/4 backbeat.
The key to learning difficult patterns like this is to take your time and to be patient with yourself. You almost certainly will hit hurdles when sitting with ideas as complex as this – speaking from first-hand experience. Just remember the process – take it one looped section at time and listen to yourself when your brain tells you “I need a rest“.
The big challenge I’m going to set in this lesson is for you to work through this whole process because this process, literally, is the level of detail you need to go into in order to quickly learn a really complex pattern. You could listen to it for ages and eventually you might start to understand it – but the following process I’ve outlined above when combined with a visual guide (the transcription in the loop exercises or following the MIDI in a DAW) will significantly expedite the learning process for you.
When you’ve been through this process once or twice, there’s no turning back as you’ll soon realize how effective it it – and THIS is the lesson I’d like you to learn. As well as gaining new levels of limb independence from sitting with this complex pattern – the process itself it the lesson.
Transcription / MIDI / Guitar Pro files
Loop 1 – the first two nine-strokes
With this first loop, the snare drum accent is going to replace a kick drum hit. Rather than playing the heel-toe kick double stroke on the 8th and 9th sixteenth note, we’re going to replace that 9th note with a snare accent instead.
Loop 2 – four nine-strokes
Now we’ll loop the first four sets of nine-strokes. To place the second snare accent, we’ll have to play a double stroke on our right hand (at the end of bar 3).
Loop 3 – Beginning of nine-stroke set seven
We’re going to get up to the seventh set of nine-strokes now, up to the snare drum accent in the eighth bar. This feels like a nice loop point to me – if you need to make a shorter loop though, definitely do that.
Loop 4 – Finish the seventh nine-stroke set
This loop adds just a little bit more onto the previous to finish the seventh set of nine-strokes. Adding just one or two more notes is sometimes a necessary step to being able to move past a roadblock with more-difficult patterns like this.
Loop 5 – Work up to the next snare accent
Working up to the next snare accent feels like the next step for me:
At this point, you have a couple of options:
Option 1 – continue to add small sections onto this pattern and practice it from the very beginning each time. To do this, use Loop 6.
OR
Option 2 – start from the halfway point – I tend to do this with difficult patterns as I feel it doesn’t disrupt the continuity of the groove and can really help to speed up the learning process by effectively splitting the pattern in half. If you’re starting to get a little lost in the complexity of the pattern, DO THIS. To do this, use Loop 7.
Loop 6 – Work up to the next snare accent
Adding another small section onto this pattern, up to the next snare accent.
Loop 7 – OR – start from the halfway point (this is easier!)
I tend to do this with difficult patterns as I feel it doesn’t disrupt the continuity of the groove and can really help to speed up the learning process by effectively splitting the pattern in half. If you’re starting to get a little lost in the complexity of the pattern, DO THIS
Of course, you can create a much smaller loop than this too – perhaps at the halfway point, start the above process again and learn the first two sets of nine-strokes, then add the next two, and so on.
Loop 8 – The full second half of the loop
Loop 9 – Practice the whole loop with a rest at the end
Loop 10 – Finally – practice the whole loop without a rest. Aim for 3 to 4 reps.
If you’ve got to this point – CONGRATULATIONS. You’ve just worked through the difficult process that I follow every time I’m learning a new complex idea for TesseracT.
The key lesson to take away from this is the process itself and the level of detail you must go to in order to get something like this down, to a point of comfort.