Let drums do the talking

Daniel van Dalen

About this exposition

Name: Daniel van Dalen Main Subject: Jazz Drums Research Coach: Yvonne Smeets Title of Research: Let Drums Do The Talking Research Question: In what way can you apply communication by spoken word to the drum set in order to improve your playing? Summary of Results: For many musicians music is a language in itself and therefore they do not feel the need to look at our regular language. Some musicians are even far better in communicating on their instrument than communicating in real life. With this research I was not looking for a way to replace language with music, but to be able to get inspiration out of something that is not a primary source for musicians (such as music books, albums, teachers etc.). By looking at just the words of a speech and their phonetic sounds, you will need to use an entirely different approach when you want to create music based on this. You will come up with other melodies and rhythms than you usually would when you work out of your musical idiom. Also the ‘logical form’ in blocks of 4 bars will be far less present as a speech is not written in a logical amount of bars. As a drummer you can play licks and tricks you have mastered in your practice environment, play what you have heard on albums or just play instinctively what you feel like. Personally I wanted to create a method of maintaining a lot of freedom but yet having a certain way of building my grooves and solos. To avoid having to steer your mind with musical theory (play like a certain artist, play sixteenths, use dynamics, play a drum roll etc.…) I wanted to be able to play an idea in as many ways as possible. Using the spoken language covers many difficult theory but yet a person speaks naturally without having to think about all this. Getting to have this natural instinct on your instrument is difficult and subjective to ones opinion but it does lead to a very different way of composing solos and grooves. This research tells you about ways to use the spoken language as an inspiration on your instrument. It covers theory about how we can analyze speech, which is then converted to a method to play this on drums. The presentation will include audio examples of the rhythms written down in the research. Also the rhythms will be shown within a PowerPoint presentation. Biography: Daniel van Dalen is a frequently asked drummer in several groups varying in styles from jazz, pop, theatre and classical music. He is currently most busy with ‘Fuse’ (string ensemble) and ‘Zosja’ (for which he composes as well). Several albums are soon to be released with Daniel playing drums or percussion. Before starting his master study in The Hague in 2013, he studied at the Conservatory of Amsterdam where he graduated in 2010. From his teaching practice he found that comparing speech to playing drums was a good way to get students to comprehend differences in sound on the instrument.

type	research exposition
date	01/01/2015
published	30/05/2015
last modified	30/05/2015
status	limited publication
share status	private
affiliation	Sound on drums
license	All rights reserved
url	https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/82361/82362
published in	KC Research Portal
portal issue	3. Internal publication
connected to	KC Research Portal

name	obama speech
copyright	youtube
license	All rights reserved
usages	audio

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Let drums do the talking (2015)

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