Playing The Open Hi-Hats
Another important drum technique involves releasing the pressure of the left foot to partially open the hi hat cymbals and then playing the open hi hat with the side of the stick. An open hi hat is notated by a small o above the note.
The hi hat is then closed where an X appears and played as normal until the next o symbol appears. The exact degree of opening is up to you. Experiment until you are happy with the sound, but don’t open it too far or the sound becomes sloppy and makes it difficult to keep good time.
Once you are confident playing the open hi-hats, the next step is to add the bass drum and snare drum. Practice this example many times until you are totally comfortable with it.
Time to get your left foot to do some work. By taking the pressure off the hi-hat pedal immediately before striking the hi-hat with the stick, we can create a long chattering sound rather than the usual short one. This pattern has an open hi-hat on 1+, which closes on beat 2, and open again on 3+, closing on beat 4.
This is a very common house-music beat.
The amount you open the hi-hats with these patterns is up to your taste. Small variations can add color to a simple groove nicely, but sometimes loud aggressive accents can really push a song along - listen to Joseph Modeliste’s drumming on the famous Cissy Strut by The Meters.
This pattern uses straight 16th notes and 16th note triplets. Keep thinking of the 8th notes to make sure it all stays in time.
The two small notes at the start of this pattern are a type of rudiment called a drag. The notes have no value and are not counted, nor are they any specific required distance from the following notes.
They are placed however far back sounds good - provided the rest of the bar stays in time. They are usually played quite softly. You will need to drop the stick and control the bounces to get this happening quickly and smoothly.
This pattern may appear quite complicated, but it repeats the same sticking on every beat, making it fairly easy to get under control.
