Question for Alan: "military beat" on the speed bag?

[Tim]

Alan - At the gathering this year, Dee Pooler was explaining to me the "military" beat on the bag. But I didn't have a chance to write it down , or record it. If I recall he said it's something you told him about. Can you clarify what's the punching combination for the military beat?

[Speedbag]

Alan - At the gathering this year, Dee Pooler was explaining to me the "military" beat on the bag. But I didn't have a chance to write it down , or record it. If I recall he said it's something you told him about. Can you clarify what's the punching combination for the military beat?

He is probably talking about "Cadence Punching", or more specifically, IMO, Punching standard marching drum cadences on a speed bag. And most will fit perfectly with most songs written in 2/4 or 4/4 time. For people who are not musical or Drummers, this may sound confusing. But think of a Marching Band, or Military Band in a parade. They March down the street and the drummers play a "Cadence beat" that is usually 2,4 or 6 measures long and generally repeats. Most cadences will have two or maybe three patterns or variations for a bit of variety. We'd play and repeat pattern 1, then do pattern 2, then back to pattern 1. Back in "my day" drum cadences were fairly simple with just the Snare and Big Bass Drum. Today's drum corps and high school drum sections have a variety of drums and much more complicated "cadences" but the theory is the same. A constantly repetitive rhythm for marching. Then the band stops and plays a song, and then they march on in to the Cadence. Dee was probably connecting the Marching cadence to the Military since that is where it started, AND a lot of Military Marches stick closely to "rudimentary drumming", which is very "strict beat" and very little or no "funky" or Syncopation

Anyway, I sort of explain this in my Youtube video titled "Marine Hymn Yankee Doodle speed bag punch drumming (TM)"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFbVRcsHXzU&t=13s

I can't get the normal "youtube Link" to work with this video

Another place you can see and hear this is in the "viral Video" of me explaining speed bag beats at a speed bag gathering in Reno Nevada, March 2015.
the Cadence starts at :51 or :52 from the Front Fist Roll and goes until 1:04 when I stopped.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q-Iu_IFzGk

Technically, the Cadences that I used in Reno (and everywhere else..) is based on 3-punch triplets to single fist linking that naturally repeats from the other side (triple in front of bag, then triple from behind bag). I also added 5-punch and 7-punch fist rolls with Single Fist Linking. These Odd number beats fall very easily into a pattern that syncs up with 4/4 time signature.

Some really smart folks at "DRUMEO" actually wrote out the speed bag beat pattern as a written Drum Music. Here it is.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/E0lZcCrDE4g

And here is a Young man name "Yannis Groffy" who was visiting America, saw my "viral video" and gave himself 30 days to learn it. We connected on zoom for a few sessions to get some "inside Tips". Anyway here is his video. For the record, he nails it at: 9:08 (actually at 10:40)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjIp4yPxOnM

Thanks Yannis! Safe Travels to you...

[dad]

Sorry Alan, but you're going to have to put some kind of health warning on these video's for those of us who have a little age to them. I was just out of breath when you finished Enjoy.

[Speedbag]

Sorry Alan, but you're going to have to put some kind of health warning on these video's for those of us who have a little age to them. I was just out of breath when you finished Enjoy.

LOL. I'm 73 so I guess I should know better - but if it makes you feel better, I too was out of breath when I got down typing it and looking up the links.

[Dutchman]

Street cadences , boy that takes me back.....

[Tim]

He is probably talking about "Cadence Punching", or more specifically, IMO, Punching standard marching drum cadences on a speed bag. And most will fit perfectly with most songs written in 2/4 or 4/4 time. For people who are not musical or Drummers, this may sound confusing. But think of a Marching Band, or Military Band in a parade. They March down the street and the drummers play a "Cadence beat" that is usually 2,4 or 6 measures long and generally repeats. Most cadences will have two or maybe three patterns or variations for a bit of variety. We'd play and repeat pattern 1, then do pattern 2, then back to pattern 1. Back in "my day" drum cadences were fairly simple with just the Snare and Big Bass Drum. Today's drum corps and high school drum sections have a variety of drums and much more complicated "cadences" but the theory is the same. A constantly repetitive rhythm for marching. Then the band stops and plays a song, and then they march on in to the Cadence. Dee was probably connecting the Marching cadence to the Military since that is where it started, AND a lot of Military Marches stick closely to "rudimentary drumming", which is very "strict beat" and very little or no "funky" or Syncopation

Thank you for the links. I'll be working on this.

[Speedbag]

Street cadences , boy that takes me back.....

Notice What we call a "Roll Off" at 1:04 - 1:08 Usually a Roll Off is used as a signal to the Band to "get ready to play". Like Marching in a street parade.... The drum major will turn and signal the drummer to "Roll Off" and that is signal for a the rest of the band to play the next song. There are slight variations to this but every drummer knows them.

Notice the repetition of the beats and Roll Off at 1:04 again.

Roll Off

Just for Fun... See what speed bag beats you could add (in your head) to this. (How I wish for a marching speed bag to join in with them!) Personally I could rock this dead on.

Actually, you can easily mix speed bag Rhythms with ALL of these cadences.

[Tim]

Technically, the Cadences that I used in Reno (and everywhere else..) is based on 3-punch triplets to single fist linking that naturally repeats from the other side (triple in front of bag, then triple from behind bag). I also added 5-punch and 7-punch fist rolls with Single Fist Linking. These Odd number beats fall very easily into a pattern that syncs up with 4/4 time signature.

Alan, Can you clarify exactly what you are doing at :59 of the Reno clip (please). Is it F-ROLL - RSP (R)- RSP (L)- SDP-SDP ? I've watched it in slow-mo, regular-mo, and fast-mo but it's not making sense to me.

I can do the 3-punch triplets with the single fist link ... but stumped on this part at the moment.

https://youtu.be/0Q-Iu_IFzGk?t=59

[Speedbag]

Alan, Can you clarify exactly what you are doing at :59 of the Reno clip (please). Is it F-ROLL - RSP (R)- RSP (L)- SDP-SDP ? I've watched it in slow-mo, regular-mo, and fast-mo but it's not making sense to me.

I can do the 3-punch triplets with the single fist link ... but stumped on this part at the moment.

https://youtu.be/0Q-Iu_IFzGk?t=59

At :59 I think that is the transition to the "second" part of the Cadence, with a 7-punch Roll, (F-Roll x7) Single fist pass through off the roll R-FCP ' ' RSP ' ' (to front) and then

SDP ' ' SDP. [ R-L (SDP) ' ' ' L-R (SDP) ' ' (SDP) ] . Normally I would do that (7-F-Roll) ' ' RSP ' ' SDP ' ' SDP sequence twice, but in this video I clearly did that ONCE and on the second (repeat) I added two more SDP, so it is

(7-F-Roll) ' ' RSP ' ' SDP ' ' SDP ' ' (7-F-Roll) ' ' RSP ' ' SDP ' ' SDP ' ' SDP ' ' SDP ' ' FCP ' ' RSP ' ' SDP ' ' FDP (end - second fist was clearly FCP with R)

[Tim]

At :59 I think that is the transition to the "second" part of the Cadence, with a 7-punch Roll, (F-Roll x7) Single fist pass through off the roll R-FCP ' ' RSP ' ' (to front) and then....

Thank you - gonna practice that part now.