Canadian Musician - September/October 2020 | Page 28

PERCUSSION
Ted Warren teaches at the University of Guelph and is a well-regarded clinician and adjudicator. Ted has worked
with many acclaimed performers, including Mel Torme, Rob McConnell, Slide Hampton, Bob Newhart, Maynard
Ferguson, Lew Soloff, Chuck Mangione, Jeff Healey, Norma Winstone, Sheila Jordan, Howard Johnson, Nick
Brignola, Kenny Wheeler, and Jerry Bergonzi.
By Ted Warren
Ratamacue Variations
Pity the poor ratamacue! In the early days of
marching drumming, it was the belle of the
ball as part of the original 13 drum rudiments.
The ratamacue, however, fell on hard times
with the rise of the modern drumset. Why?
Well, it’s very stogy, symmetrical, and just not very hipsounding.
But fear not! In this article, we’ll look at simple
ways of displacing the lowly ratamacue to make it more
suitable to modern music.
To the right are the single (Ex. 1), double (Ex. 2), and triple
ratamacue (Ex. 3) in their original form.
Yawn, right? Okay, I’m going to slightly cheat here, but
what would happen if we took the “ruffs” in each passage
(the little 1/16th notes ) and gave them rhythmic value
rather than being just embellishments? Also, let’s move
each phrase over by an 1/8 th note twice. This gives us
some cool rhythmic cells that a) start with doubles and b)
end with the accent on either the second or third note of
a triplet, rather than a downbeat. Check it out in Exs. 4-9!
Now, once we get these ideas together with our hands,
we can:
1. Accompany them with the hi-hat and bass
drum patterns of our choice.
2. Play all R accented notes on the floor tom
and all accented Ls on the small tom.
3. Same as 2 but play all R accents as BD and
right side cymbal and all Ls as BD and left
side cymbal.
4. Play through all with RH on hi-hat and LH on
snare with the BD pattern of your choice.
5. Play through all with RH on bell of cymbal
and LH on any combo of rimclick/open
snare/toms and BD and hi-hat pattern of
your choice.
EX.1
EX.2
EX.3
EX.4
EX.5
EX.6
EX.7
EX.8
These are just a few possibilities. Use your imagination.
Remember, the rudiments are really just raw material
that we can use to create our own grooves and ideas.
Have fun!
EX.9
28 CANADIAN MUSICIAN