{"id":25457,"date":"2020-09-25T09:10:39","date_gmt":"2020-09-25T16:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/?p=25457"},"modified":"2022-08-20T09:38:36","modified_gmt":"2022-08-20T16:38:36","slug":"5-tips-for-writing-drum-solos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/5-tips-for-writing-drum-solos\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Tips For Writing Drum Solos"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Cr2D7bTI6gE\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Every drummer has their own vocabulary and way of expressing it on the drums &#8211; that&#8217;s why solos are so personal, and why there&#8217;s no one right way to go about playing them. You wouldn&#8217;t tell an author how to write a book, right?<\/p>\n<p>However, Mark Kelso has some tips you can use to pull out ideas that you already have in your toolbox. Here are five things to keep in mind when you&#8217;re soloing (that you didn&#8217;t know you already know):<\/p>\n<h3><strong>1. Dynamics<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>It&#8217;s of the most underused tools in music these days, and especially in drum solos. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/the-right-way-to-write-a-drum-solo-larnell-lewis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Solos aren&#8217;t just about ripping around the kit at one volume<\/a> like a machine gun &#8211; no one wants to hear someone constantly yelling. But if you have soft parts to pull in the audience &#8211; quieter parts prompt the audience to pay attention &#8211; you can then build and create intrigue. Monotone drumming isn&#8217;t as fun to listen to. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/the-jazz-drum-soloing-formula\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ebbs and flows with dynamics<\/a> will be more interesting and might even give you more ideas. Within power where is softness. Like yin and yang, don&#8217;t be afraid to explore those subtleties.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>2. Maximize one idea<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Everyone has those licks they love. Like a safety net, we tend to fall back on the grooves or ideas we&#8217;ve played a million times and know we can execute perfectly every time. If you&#8217;ve already incorporated it into your solo, where do you go next? Take your favorite idea and see how many ways you can manipulate it. You could play it on a 16th note grid and move it to a triplet grid, change the sound source, add accents or dynamics, displace it or play with it over the bar line. Now you&#8217;re still in your comfort zone, but finding new ways to approach it.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>3. Melody<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Drums can definitely be a melodic instrument! <a href=\"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/how-to-make-your-drum-solos-more-interesting\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Create melodic motifs using the toms<\/a>. Sing something in your head and transpose that onto the kit (two pitches, two toms, and so on). Come up with a melodic ostinato, play it around the toms, use dynamics, maximize the use of one idea, and make those drums sing between high and low notes.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>4. Switch up the tempo<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Let&#8217;s say you&#8217;ve repeated the same idea a couple of times &#8211; a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/single-paradiddle\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">paradiddle<\/a> pattern, maybe. It&#8217;s exciting if you suddenly double the speed! Make sure your technique and control are solid and pick something you can play well. Think of it like adding a flourish to the end of a phrase.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>5. Design by subtraction<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Instead of adding to your solo, take things away. For example, instead of playing every note, take a partial out of that subdivision. Maybe you only play on the &#8216;and&#8217;, or the last note of triplets. Instead of adding notes and getting busier, &#8216;pull out the rug&#8217; rhythmically and wow your audience.<\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"email-form-include-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/weeklyemail\" frameborder=\"none\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every drummer has their own vocabulary and way of expressing it on the drums &#8211; that&#8217;s why solos are so personal, and why there&#8217;s no one right way to go about playing them. You wouldn&#8217;t tell an author how to write a book, right? However, Mark Kelso has some tips you can use to pull [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":25475,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4017],"tags":[130],"class_list":["post-25457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beats-and-fills","tag-drum-solo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/103"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25457"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31704,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25457\/revisions\/31704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drumeo.com\/beat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}