Over the last few weeks we have made a couple of significant changes to how content is structured in Melodics. We regraded every lesson to move from 10 lesson grades to 20 – and we’ve overhauled all the tags used to classify lessons.

These new tags are a way to navigate the main components and skills required for each lesson. They are broken up into three categories; Rhythm, Technique and Lesson Style. Using these tags, you can separate your training into these areas and work on developing each of these important skills.

Let’s say you want to strengthen your hand independence. All you need to do, is go to the lessons screen and filter by the tag ‘hand independence’. This will give you a list of lessons that we recommend you should play to build that particular skill. The lessons are filtered from easiest to hardest, which will allow you build your skills up gradually.

Tagging is particularly useful it you want to work backwards from a really challenging lesson. Say for example you wanted to learn to play Spinscott’s Jungle Break Fundamentals Vol. 1, grade 19 lesson. This lesson has the tags Endurance, Discrete and Fast. To build up the skills you need to master this lesson, you can find lower grade lessons that have the same tags, and work on building up these skills. In this case, start by filtering by the ‘Discrete’ tag. This will give you a list of lessons that require you to play rhythms consisting of individual hits, where usually no pads are played simultaneously. Justin Aswell’s Daily Warm Up’s – 16th Note Accent, grade 8 also has the tag ‘Endurance’ so this would be a good lesson to start with. When you’ve got that down, play Buddy Peace’s Desert Burner lessons from grade 9 to 11. Spinscott’s DnB Roller, grade 12 introduces the ‘Fast’ tag. You’ll notice when you get above grade 15 all the lessons tagged ‘Discrete’ belong to Spinscott. This shows you that his finger drumming style is fundamental to the ‘Discrete’ skill. If you want to play like Spinscott then that is a tag worth filtering by.

Here’s another example. Want to learn to play Soul Shaker, grade 16 by Beats by J Black? That lesson uses the tags Syncopation, Finger Independence and Swing. Using the tagging system, you can see that a good way to work towards this would be to play these lessons, starting with the first, and working your way up through progressively harder and harder lessons – Broken Boogie – Drums, grade 7, From Home to Work and Back – Drums, grade 8, Sovereignty, grade 8, Caxixi, grade 10, Island Breeze – Drums, grade 10, The Umm – Drums, grade 13… Soul Shaker, grade 16.

Below are all the new tags in Melodics, a definition of each one, and a example of a lesson that uses this tag.

Tag	Description	Example lesson
Advanced Independence	Both hands have two or more fingers simultaneously operating on different time signatures or note divisions.	Bass Kleph – Pad Fever Grade 17
Arrangement	Playing a whole song through different sections. Often features multiple instruments and switching between parts.	Oddkidout – Amore Grade 8
Basic	A basic beat or rhythm, usually straight ¼ and playable with one finger. No more than two pads.	Gaslamp Killer Oscilalting Lucifer (Beginner) Grade 2
Basic Independence	You are using more than one hand or finger but they are operating on separate note divisions.	Justin Aswell – Daily Warm Ups – 8 on a hand Grade 5
Basic Syncopation	A basic beat that shifts the normal accent, usually by emphasising the offbeat.	ASADI – PTM Level 1 – Drums Grade 3
Bassline	Lesson plays the bass part instead of drums.	John Tejada – Demux – Bass – Grade 5
Cue point drumming	A phrase sample from a song, plays as one shot segment following its own tempo.	Soul Flip – Beginner – Grade 7
Discrete	Consisting of distinct or individual hits. Usually no pads are played simultaneously.	Fab Four Technique – Tim Kroker – Grade 6
Drag	A feeling of playing behind the beat.	Drunken Masters & Karol Tip – Calories – Vocals – Grade 6
Endurance	A long pattern that often requires some degree of physical stamina to perform.	Live Evil – Bang That – Grade 8
Fast	A fast tempo or needing physically fast movements to perform, often both.	Spinscott – DnB Roller – Grade 12
Fills	A cue point drumming technique for re-arranging a song using different rhythms.	DJ Day – Impeach – Strobing Flip – Grade 8
Hand Independence	You are using both hands but they are operating on different time signatures or note divisions.	Eric Lau – Mars Guitar – Grade 9
Layout	Very lesson-specific physical arrangement of samples on pads. Can be complex to remember and often requires difficult sight reading.	Decap – Feeling (Condensed) – Grade 9
Melody	You are playing the melodic or harmonic content of the song. Usually a lead, samples or chords.	Leonard Charles – Can We Go Back – Rhodes – Grade 5
Pocket	Locking in with the instrumentation / groove of the song. Drumming is very solid and has great feel.	DJ Spinna – G. Tar Joint Drums – Grade 9
Polyrhythm	When two or more rhythms are played simultaneously.	Carl Rag – Goes Around – Melody 1 – Beginner – Grade 7
Rudiments	Developing the basic principles of drumming.	Tim Kroker – Connect 4 Pt.1 – Grade 10
Shuffle	Rhythm is created by leaving out (resting) the middle note of each three-note triplet group.	Oddkidout – Dreams (Beginner) – Grade 7
Swing	Rhythm is created by dragging the off beat note.	BeatsbyJBlack – Soul Shaker- Beginner – Grade 5
Syncopation	A beat that heavily shifts the normal accent, usually by emphasising several offbeats.	Buddy Peace – Caduceus – Grade 8
Triplet	A group of 3 notes played in a different note division than the regular beat.	A Light Bit Lighter – Grade 11
Unquantized	Rhythm is mostly unrestricted from any timing grid or note division	Jeremy Ellis -Bliss #1 (Beginner) – Grade 9

Try tagging today and let us know how it helps you learn in Melodics. If there any other parts of the app that you want tips on, let us know via the comments section below.