What are ghost notes and why would you want to play them?
Before we talk about ghost notes, please let me explain why I am writing this blog. A little over four years ago I was playing a gig and my left arm just stopped working. I didn’t think much of it because I thought I had tendonitis. Unfortunately, a month later the same thing happened. So off to the doctor I went. He took a look at me and said I had some atrophy in my left arm. He referred me to another doctor who said I had a pinched-nerve in my neck. She gave me a cortisone shot and asked me to come back a month later. This cycle continued and after a series of other doctors, I was finally diagnosed with ALS.
For those last four years I’ve been managing my illness, but the whole time drumming still has been on the forefront of my mind. I have always loved drumming as well as teaching drums and writing about drumming. With that said, for the last few weeks I’ve had a burning desire to share some of that knowledge that I’ve accumulated over the years. Then, by divine inspiration, ghost notes came to mind. Now back to the blog…
What are ghost notes and why would you want to play them? A ghost note is defined as a note that is felt more than heard.Ghost notes were brought to my attention by some of the other local drummers when I was 17 years old and playing in my first professional rock band. Why would I want to play notes that people wouldn’t hear? This sounded ridiculous to me.
Then it all changed a year and a half later when David Garibaldi came to sit in with my community college jazz band (Chabot College in Hayward). After he played, he held an impromptu clinic for a few of us jazz band drummers. He started by applying paradiddles to the drum set by playing the right hand notes on a tightly closed hi-hat and the left hand notes on the snare. He played all of the unaccented left hand notes as ghost notes, at about one inch off of the head and he played the accented note of the paradiddle with a solid rim shot. Enter my ah-ha moment…I finally got it. What a beautiful thing it was. I believe he played a simple 2 and 4 rock beat and went into this paradiddle version. It was like magic! The ghost notes changed everything.
I went home and became obsessed with ghost notes. I broke it down to single ghost notes, double ghost notes and every variation of ghost notes I could think of. What I soon came to realize was that the ghost notes added subtleties to the groove that were undeniable.
To hear some great examples of drummers playing ghost notes, listen to Jabo Starks and Clyde Stubblefield from the early James Brown band as well as David Garibaldi from Tower of Power. As a matter of fact, most of today’s great drummers like Steve Gadd, Vinnie Colaiuta, Dave Weckl and Steve Smith all incorporate ghost notes in their playing.
If you like, you can take a look at my ghost note video from 2011 entitled “Ghost Note Drum Lesson – Online Drum Lessons with John X”
All the best,
John X
johnxdrumsblog 