Chords for Billy Cobham Paradiddle Sextuplets | Study The Greats

_ _ _ _ _ [Ebm] _ Hey, [Am] what's up guys?
In today's episode, we're going to be breaking down a pretty awesome paradiddle 16th note
triplet lick by Billy Cobham from an old Zildjian Day performance.
So let's go take a look at what he's doing and we'll see if we can break it down.
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_ All right, cool.
So this is Billy Cobham at the Zildjian Day in 1984.
And there's this one little section where he's just playing a groove and then goes into
this paradiddle phrasing.
So let's watch it a couple times and we'll see what he's doing.
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_ _ _ _ _ That's pretty cool, right?
_ Okay.
So this is the transcription that I have.
I'll just go ahead and play it real quick for you. _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ All right, so let's head to the kit.
We'll break this thing down and we'll see what's going on here. _ _ _
_ All right, guys.
So let's just start off with the basis for this pattern, which is just regular paradiddles
orchestrated on the kick, snare, and hat.
He plays everything left hand lead.
I'm going to do everything right hand lead, but you can just do whatever's comfortable for you.
But yeah, just regular paradiddles sounds like this. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ _ Now the next step is where it gets tricky because we have to phrase that pattern over
16th note triplets.
So when we do this, it creates this polymetric phrasing because we're playing an eight note
pattern over a six note subdivision.
And this can kind of mess with your head and your ears when you try to play it to a click.
So I'll try to demonstrate that for you slowly so you can see what I mean.
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_ _ _ _ _ Okay, so what you most likely heard there was a normal quarter note count in.
So one, two, three, four.
But then when I started playing, you probably heard the click switch to sounding like a
dotted quarter note.
So one and two and three and four and one and two and three.
If that didn't happen to you, well, I guess that means you're a genius.
But for the rest of us, the reason why that happens is because your brain latches onto
that paradiddle accent pattern and you can't really hear the underlying triplet subdivision anymore.
So my advice is to just let that happen because that's what your brain wants to do naturally.
But the key is to learn how to keep track of that click underneath by hearing it as
a dotted quarter note.
So that way you can know if you're still in time and you can kind of keep track of where you are.
Okay, so hopefully that makes sense.
But now I'm going to try to play everything like it's transcribed out and I can't execute
it at the speed that he does, but I'll just push it to my limit.
So we'll see how that goes. _
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_ All right, guys, so hopefully that gives you some cool ideas to work on.
This is a really good pattern to practice _ internalizing subdivisions and being able
to hear _ polymetric phrasings and stuff like that.
So yeah, give it a shot.
See what you can do with it.
Just a quick announcement.
If you guys want these transcriptions, I'm putting them on my website now.
So for the past couple weeks, I've been revamping my website, trying to condense all the content
from these videos into one place where it's all nice and neat and organized instead of
using like links to Google Drive in the descriptions.
So yeah, definitely go check it out.
abbdrums.com.
There's a transcription section and that's where I have [B] all these transcriptions linked
and you can download them straight from there.
So yeah, go check it out and see what you guys think.
But other than that, thanks for watching, guys.
Go ahead and subscribe to the channel and I'll see you in the next one.
Take care.
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