This is entertaining: Wynton Marsalis’s Jazz at Lincoln Center has posted an ad seeking a new drummer. It’s mostly realistic, though very high, standards for a jazz drummer working a top-level gig. Maybe it’s 15% […]
Month: July 2018
Bass drum rhythms for Latin
These bass drum rhythms are lifted from a page of Songo independence exercises I posted a few years ago. I thought it would be good to have them presented by themselves, apart from all the […]
EZ RH/RF lick in 16th notes
More easy rock stuff, this time developing a basic RH/RF pattern in 16th notes, adding various left hand parts, and moves between drums and cymbals: Play all of the exercises many times, then improvise combinations. […]
Page o’ coordination: Afro 6/4 – triplets
Here we have our standard Afro-Cuban bell pattern extended a couple of beats to put it in 6. This page will work well with that Jimmy Garrison loop from the other day. Pairs well with […]
Practice rhythms: partido alto logic
This is a collection of two measure practice phrases based on the concept of the partido alto rhythm, which typically has 3 or 4 quarter notes alternating with 3 or 4 upbeats. I’ve expanded on […]
Practice loop in 6/4: Greensleeves
Practice loop in 6/4, sampled from Greensleeves, recorded by John Coltrane on the album Africa/Brass. Here we just have the bass line played by Jimmy Garrison. Tempo is 142 bpm. Garrison is phrasing the 6/4 […]
Best books: Rhythms and Techniques for Latin Timbales
UPDATE: I just realized we’ve already shared another excellent free-online book by Rendon, Timbale Solo Transcriptions. Get that too, if you haven’t. Rhythms and Techniques for Latin Timbales by Victor Rendon is sort of the […]
Double time rock beats
Easy page of double time rock beats. We’re playing a little bit of a mind game here to get people to play these beats fast enough, since a lot of students get married to one […]
Page o’ coordination: jazz waltz with syncopated 4:3 – 02
Here’s a variation on the last jazz waltz POC we did, which has a syncopated 4:3 polyrhythm in the feet. Here the bass drum plays dotted quarter notes, and the hihat plays half notes, starting […]
Groove o’ the day: Contortions – Designed to Kill
Here’s kind of a hip funk-type groove from the late 70s, by James Chance and the Contortions. It’s New York scene shit— arty discordant high energy punk/funk jams with a charismatic front man, and not […]
Three camps – alternative versions
Here are some different forms of the snare drum piece Three Camps— actually we’ve seen them all before, except for the last one: See this page which breaks down the piece to see how these […]
Happy 4th
Oh, and happy 4th of July. Get the transcription of Billy Higgins’s playing on this.