Wilcoxon Swing Solos help

[poco rit.]

So ive been playing out of Wilcoxon Swing Solos the past couple weeks. Very fun so far. I just wanna make sure im playing these markings correctly. This particular solo is on page 28 called “Heating the Rudiments”

Let me first clarify a few things as i understand them.. So a 7 stroke roll (in this context) is LLRRLLR, with the last Right hand stroke being the downbeat on beat 1 of the next measure. The pick up, which is the 7 stroke roll, has 2 diagonal lines going vertically upward. If we look at the and of beat 1 of the first measure, the lines subdividing that note are going horizontally.

My question is: Is the and of beat 1 of the first measure a 7 stroke roll also?? If so, why is the pickup roll have lines going diagonally, yet the 7 stroke roll on the and of beat 1 have lines going horizontally? Or what is the proper sticking for the and?

 

[cworrick]

It's a computer print font thing.

The single 8th note defaults to having the roll lines at more of an angle than when they occur in the paired 8th notes.

 

[Drumstickdude]

I'm sure it's just because it's the correct way to write them, same thing though. Yes they are both 7 stroke rolls. I've got this book, it's great isn't it.

 

[cworrick]

no i think it's a 5

It's a 7 stroke roll. Note the 7 above the note. If the 7 was not there it would default to a 5 stroke roll.

 

[Frank Godiva]

Steve working his black beauty

Steve Smith Wilcoxon Challenge

www.drumforum.org

 

[Drumstickdude]

Having said that and not looked at the book for a while I suppose it could be a 5 stroke I'm not 100% sure. This confuses me as well sometimes. I used to play it as a 7. I'm talking about the roll on the and of one.

 

[cworrick]

I'm sure it's just because it's the correct way to write them, same thing though. Yes they are both 7 stroke rolls. I've got this book, it's great isn't it.

Actually the second roll should be a 5 stroke roll. It is in the notation duration of a 5 stroke roll. If it was to be a 7 stroke roll in that time frame, it should have a 7 above it like the first roll.

* EDIT *

I just noticed the typo on the example.
The NOTATION shows a 5 stroke roll,
BUT
The STICKING implies that it should have been labeled as a 7 stroke roll.

Hmmm..
The Editor missed the contradiction.

 

[JDA]

It's a 7 stroke roll. Note the 7 above the note. If the 7 was not there it would default to a 5 stroke roll.

yea I didn't see the sticking. On the and of 1. It says L so it wouldn't be a 5 stroke.

Could be just a 2 note Drag...
Lotta things back then were a drag. ; )

Has to be a 7

 

[poco rit.]

It's a computer print font thing.

The single 8th note defaults to having the roll lines at more of an angle than when they occur in the paired 8th notes.

Very interesting. I guess the flag of the eighth note is in the way if the lines were horizontal? Im looking at other places in the music and i think your right. Whenever there is an 8th note with a flag, the lines are diagonal.

 

[JDA]

It (the diagonal/horizontal) might be because the pickup is outside the music...

 

[cworrick]

This is what the notation implies with the missing 7

 

[poco rit.]

Ya I was also thinking, does Wilcoxon assume that the player would infer that the and of beat 1 is also 7 stroke roll, if the pick up is a 7 stroke roll?? Therefore, he opted not to right 7 above the and roll.

Buttt, the and of beat 1 starts off with L, the left hand. So if it was a 5 stroke roll, the 5 stroke roll would have to be alternating hands, and would be the length, that is, the duration of an eighth note. So LRLRL R

 

[JDA]

The and of 1 indicates Left to Right

No that's an old Book it wouldn't be lrlrl R





It might be because the pickup is outside the piece.
Look at the other exercises with pickups

 

[poco rit.]

And of course it goes without saying, we can play it however we want. Im not being graded or auditioning. But I just wanna see how Wilcoxon intended it to be played.

 

[multijd]

Both rolls are 7-stroke rolls with an underlying “skeleton” of 16th note triplet, counted “and-trip-let, one”. (Or a hundred other ways). If you look down the page there are two other examples of the same roll notated without the “7”. This is not uncommon. The positioning of the slashes is to accommodate the flag on that particular 1/8th note. The subsequent 7’s are beamed 1/8th’s and don’t need the angle.
This book has been fairly well edited vetted. The only solo I can think of that has some incorrect notation is “Corn Belt Jive” (another story). But “The All American Drummer” has numerous sticking mistakes that contradict the notation. Most of the time you have to defer to the notation and not the sticking. Again this is another discussion. On this case the notation and sticking are both correct just slightly different. Remember two things:
1) Most if not all 7’s in this music start on the left and end on the right.
2) Wilcoxon wrote very naturally and his solos generally lay in the hands well. There are exceptions (Study in Accents is one) but the majority of sticking oddities make sense a bar or two later.
Good luck! This is a great solo!!

 

[paulwells73]

Those rolls that lead into a downbeat from an 8th note are always 7s, except for a few occasions when Wilcoxen specifies they should be 5s.

 

[multijd]

And of course it goes without saying, we can play it however we want. Im not being graded or auditioning. But I just wanna see how Wilcoxon intended it to be played.

Well…This argument comes up a lot. My take on that is no you don’t play it however you want. It’s a rudimental solo which assumes another level of detail from non-rudimental music. Further, why play it if you’re not going to play it correctly, the way the composer intended?

 

[JDA]

Right. the "flag" pickup isn't beamed. 1 + is..

The positioning of the slashes is to accommodate the flag on that particular 1/8th note. The subsequent 7’s are beamed 1/8th’s and don’t need the angle.

genius, multijd
I'm going with that

 

[poco rit.]

Well…This argument comes up a lot. My take on that is no you don’t play it however you want. It’s a rudimental solo which assumes another level of detail from non-rudimental music. Further, why play it if you’re not going to play it correctly, the way the composer intended?

I feel you. Now that I have it figured it out, I will definitely play it correctly. What I mean is sometimes, say if something is written as RLRL, I will maybe play it RRLL, just for fun. This is after Ive practiced and can play the whole piece comfortably the way its written at a nice tempo, and then playing it anytime after I just have a lil fun with it.

 

[multijd]

A couple of other things to add about this particular solo.
1) Wilcoxon’s accent patterns are very specific and not always conventional. When you adhere to what he has notated you get an entirely different level of music. (The “ swing” element?). A good example of this is the single drags at the top of the second page. He does this a lot through all of his books and he has exercises in the beginning of the book to strengthen the concept. He likes to move between accenting the “ruff”, the “ruff” and the tap and then the traditional accent of only the tap. This is an area many people gloss over instead just playing the traditional accented tap. This is a very “jazzy” sounding phrase that can be heard in Philly Joe Jones (who studied with Wilcoxon), Frankie Dunlop (who studied with John Rowland my first teacher, lucky me!) and many other jazz drummers. This figure appears again in the dotted 16th’s and 32nd note figure on the fifth line from the bottom of page
2) Note that most of the 32nd Note rolls are written out long hand whereas the 7’s use roll notation.
3) There is a couple of interesting spots related to the 7’s. One is the 7 at the end of the 4th line on page 2. This roll is again metered as a 16th triplet while the subsequent rolls are slower being metered in 32nd’s. While the end of the 3rd line from the bottom has a 13 stroke roll going directly into a 7 that is metered in 32nds.
4) There is one odd sticking spot associated with this particular 7. Note the that the roll is a right hand 7 ending on the left and the figure following it begins on the left. This all makes sense if you consider where the 7 comes from and where it is going. The slight sticking anomaly there makes everything else lay natural.
(wow that took awhile!! And my phone died in the middle!)
I hope all of that helps!!