Instrument practice

Guitar and ukulele strumming patterns are written here as strokes on the eighth grid, D for down and U for up under the sounded boxes. The hand swings like a pendulum, down on the beat and up between, and keeps moving when the pick misses the strings. A hollow box is a skipped stroke, not a pause or a quiet hit, and equal boxes do not give every player’s feel.

Four downs is one down stroke a beat; Down-up eighths adds the ups. Old Faithful (D DU UDU), the island strum on the ukulele, sounds six strokes across eight positions with gaps at 2 and 5; say “down, down-up, up-down-up” as the hand swings through both gaps, including the missed down that opens the second half. D DU UD drops Old Faithful’s last up. D DU D DU and D DU DU DU fill the bar differently, and Skip on three (DUDU UDU) is built on its missed down. Skank (ups on the ands) sounds only between the beats, and Chop on 2 and 4 puts muted C strokes on the backbeat; in both, a beat with no stroke is real silence while the count and the hand go on.

Waltz strum (D DU DU) puts three beats across six eighths; 6/8 strum (D DU DU) groups the same six as two threes. Boom-chick (bass, strum) leaves the eighth grid for bass notes on 1 and 3 and strums on 2 and 4, its B and C naming those jobs, not the direction of the pick.

Mute the strings, swing through Down-up eighths for four cycles, then add Old Faithful’s sounded strokes without changing the motion. If the hand stops at a gap, go back to the mute.

These are the piano left hand’s accompaniment figures. Oom-pah is bass note then chord, two counts; Waltz bass (oom-pah-pah) adds a second chord for three; Boom-chick runs bass, chord, bass, chord through four. The words under the boxes (“oom”, “pah”, “bass”, “chord”) name the hand’s job on each count, and the accent marks a place in the cycle, not an order to thump the low note.

Boom-chick prepares Stride, the same alternation at a quicker pace with a larger leap the click cannot show. Alberti bass is sixteen small boxes of low, high, middle, high, four times, with a stronger click at each group of four. Broken chord (6/8) goes up the chord and back in two groups of three. Walking bass puts a note on every beat, while Boogie eighths and Blues shuffle bass ask for different motion inside the beat; the grid keeps their pulse, but a fixed click cannot play a convincing shuffle ratio or choose the notes through the changes.

Start with Oom-pah, moving between one bass note and one comfortable chord, then Waltz bass, counting all three aloud so the hand does not return to the bass a beat early. Leave Stride and Alberti bass until those first shapes turn around without your eyes on the boxes.

These are violin bow-arm rhythms, the Suzuki Twinkle variations among them, that many players first learn as spoken phrases. Whole bows (∏ V) is a down bow and an up bow, a full beat each, its marks showing bow direction. Keep the change of direction as steady as the count, without pressing for volume on every click.

Mississippi hot dog, the first Twinkle variation, puts four sixteenths and two longer notes across eight small boxes, its syllables under the sounded positions; a hollow box there is part of a note’s length, not a gap in the pulse. Mommy and daddy and Run pony rearrange the short and long notes. Chocolate (triplets) and Peanut butter (sixteenths) divide each beat evenly in other ways.

Say Mississippi hot dog, then say it while bowing a comfortable open string, the arm loose enough to give the long notes their full length, and change to another Twinkle rhythm without changing the beat underneath. The grid does not show bow pressure or articulation; if the syllables and the bow disagree, slow down.

These sitar exercises are written in bols, spoken stroke syllables. Da Ra alternates the mizrab’s inward da and outward ra strokes across eight small units, both written under the boxes, with accents at the start of each group of four. Say them first, then play at a pace where each stroke has room to finish.

Da Ra Da Chik gives every fourth stroke to chik on the chikari strings. Jhala (Da Chik Chik Chik) has one melody stroke and three chikari strokes a beat, across sixteen sixteenths. The letters say which kind of stroke goes where; the click cannot sound the difference between melody and chikari strings, so the playing hand has to.

Play Da Ra for four cycles without speeding up, then Da Ra Da Chik, listening for every fourth stroke. Jhala is the closing rush of a performance, but the exercise starts slowly. If your da loses its place, go back to speaking the group of four.

These rows practise spoken syllables, konnakol’s ways of dividing a beat and the tabla phrase tirakita. A gati is the number of smaller pulses inside a beat. Taka (2 a beat) says “ta ka” twice in each group of four small units. Takita (3 a beat) says “ta ki ta”, the threefold tisra gati, and Takadimi (4 a beat) says “ta ka di mi”, the fourfold chatusra gati. The accented box marks each new beat.

Tirakita is the tabla phrase “ti ra ki ta”, four strokes a beat, repeated four times across sixteen boxes with a stronger click at each start. Takadimi takajonu (8) says two groups of four syllables in an eight-unit cycle. Taka takita (5 a beat) and Takita takadimi (7 a beat) divide the beat in five and seven; their mark strips are blank, so the names give the syllables.

Start with Taka, then alternate one beat of Takita with one beat of Takadimi at one comfortable pace, speaking evenly; the click marks where the beat lands, not the stress of every consonant. For five and seven, go slowly enough that the last syllable has as much room as the first, since the end of a group is where speakers usually rush.

The drum kit rows start with Rock beat (K S K S), which puts K, the kick, on 1 and 3 and S, the snare, on 2 and 4, with the backbeat accented. The catalogue also gives eighths on the hi-hat, which the click counts but cannot sound as a separate hat beside kick and snare. Tap the hat’s steady eighths while counting four aloud, then place kick and snare over them without letting the eighths change.

For sticking, R and L are right and left. Single stroke roll alternates the hands; Double stroke roll gives each hand two strokes in turn. Single paradiddle (R L R R L R L L) combines singles and doubles so the lead hand changes halfway through its eight units. Double paradiddle is two groups of six, four singles and a double in each; Paradiddle-diddle is six strokes, two singles then two doubles. The accent at a group’s start is a landmark, and dynamics, ghost notes and the kit’s other voices are beyond this click.

Play Single stroke roll until every stroke sounds alike, then Double stroke roll at the same beat, and only then Single paradiddle, saying the hands aloud.

These are bluegrass banjo rolls and the mandolin’s chop. In the banjo rows, T, I and M are thumb, index and middle finger. Forward roll (T I M T I M T M) sets those letters under eight sixteenth-note boxes, grouped four and four; the accents at the group starts keep your place and do not ask the thumb to flatten the notes between. Backward roll begins middle, index, thumb. Forward-reverse roll changes direction partway through. Alternating thumb roll puts the thumb on every other note. The letters give the picking order, not the melody notes a tune needs.

Mandolin chop is the muted chord on 2 and 4 of four counted beats, the bluegrass backbeat. Its other boxes carry no letters because the mandolin does not strike there in this outline.

Pick Forward roll slowly, speaking the fingers and keeping all eight units equal, then try Mandolin chop if the instrument is at hand. Forward-reverse roll is the harder banjo exercise, changing direction without letting the pulse wobble at the turn.

These rows cover the bass and two hand drums, cajón and djembe. Walking bass (quarters) puts a note on every one of four beats; Rock bass (eighths) fills the spaces between with steady notes. Neither prescribes pitches, so learn the count on one comfortable note. Slap and pop (T P) does mark technique under its four boxes, thumb slap then finger pop, twice, with 1 and 3 accented.

Cajón (bass, slap) writes B and S for its two sounds, bass on 1 and 3 and slap on 2 and 4. Djembe (bass, tone, slap) sets B, T and S under eight smaller units in two groups of four. The letters say what to practise; one click cannot sound three hand-drum sounds at once or turn the pattern into an ensemble.

Tap Walking bass for four cycles, then move to Cajón, saying the sound names as your hands alternate. Djembe is the coordination test. Count all eight units quietly and let each kind of stroke keep its place without hurrying the final slap.