This except not with these idiots.
SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT SLASH FEELER: I’m thinking about doing a group zoom call— you join me in an online conversation about all matters pertaining to drumming, teaching, playing, whatever anyone wants to talk about.
Very occasional quote of the day: time and feathering
“[T]here are certain things that will never change. Good time is good time, whether it’s Baby Dodds riding on a snare drum or Jack DeJohnette slammin’ a full kit. Time is time whether you put […]
Developing a Weckl lick – 01
Hot on the heels of the six stroke roll post, here is a related thing, a flashy fusion lick by Dave Weckl. I pulled it off of a Paquito d’Rivera album in about 1987, and […]
Six stroke roll combinations
No big deal, just a page of six stroke roll combinations and phrases, in 16th notes and 16th triplets. I call them that under duress, it just happens to be the common name for this […]
Things to listen for – ballads
Some things aren’t easily dealt with in transcriptions— you just have to listen a lot and notice things, and use them when you play. Here we’ll look at ballads, and the information you want to […]
Other things besides speed
A lot of us have very limited imaginations about how to get better playing the drums— basically, do it faster and that’s it. There are other things— sound, dynamics, touch, a number of musical considerations. […]
Very occasional quote of the day: one way
“I’m one of the cats that used to start them playing like lightning. We used to play like lightning all night long up at Minton’s sometimes. I got tired playing fast all the time. You […]
Syncopation p. 38 in quarter note triplets
Rewriting the very famous page 38 exercise from Syncopation, with all the syncopated rhythms replaced by approximately similar quarter note triplet rhythms. Someday I’ll forgo the bass drum line— which I include out of respect […]
Scale, purpose, context, and economics
Random artistic/critical concept time, about assessing a piece of art or design, or anything else in life. Assessing meaning “liking things or not.” Everything, all around us, every day, we’re surrounded by little things we […]
Rock beats with fill phrases
Using this framework a lot with my students in recent months, marking up Funky Primer with a Sharpie, putting accents over the bass drum notes to indicate a crash, marking over the remaining notes with […]
Free triplet game
Free in cost, free in method. A jazz drumming exerise for getting some variety into your playing, free of meter concerns. The parts here are written two or three beats long, but play them over […]
Reed tweak: RH lead – Guy’s variation
One of my students, age 12, accidentally invented a really good way of handling the right hand lead Reed system. You have to watch out for things like that. Sometimes mistakes point to a better […]