Here’s a little video of me stunningly adorned in lush Irish wool, playing some crap for a second in response to a drum forum question, about technique for low-volume rimshots. You’ll notice there’s very little […]
Month: October 2021
Page o’ coordination: basic triplet texture in 3/4
Same deal as the recent triplet texture in 4/4 page, done in 3/4. A simple linear triplet pattern with added bass drum variations. I already did this with a student, looking at the page in 4— […]
Tom tom sizes rated!
The genesis of this post. Let’s do something dumb: critically assess the full range of tom tom sizes for goodness and badness. Reward the good, denigrate the bad, punish the weak and strange: 6″: A […]
Very occasional quote of the day: practicing vs. playing
Most important thing on this site: DL: How important is it to play, and how important is it to practice on your own? SM: It’s more important to play. I’ve always felt that playing is […]
Transcription: Tony Williams – Life Suite, Part 2
Some more from that self-titled Stanley Clarke album. I must have gotten the record in high school. Nobody ever told me to get it, I was just rooting through the stacks at the used record […]
Organizing practice loops
UPDATE: Download links are working now! My archive of sampled practice loops has gotten so big that it’s become kind of unmanageable, so I’ve organized them into categories. Here are the first three new zips […]
Ornamentation overdose
This has been going on a long time. Another entry in the ongoing real-world musical saga I call “Music didn’t suddenly get good when a lot of people learned how to play fast.” Let’s reminisce […]
Subtractive method: batucada
This developing subtractive method is becoming really interesting. It makes it much easier to write and communicate more complex orchestrations than in the past— which is not an end in itself, it just makes it […]
Lopsy Lu revisited
Someone left a rather odd comment on my old Lopsy Lu transcription, of Tony Williams playing with Stanley Clarke, and I saw that my own notes from that 2015 post are also rather obscure, so I […]
Groove o’ the day: Jack Dejohnette – Fiesta
A bright samba groove played by Jack Dejohnette on Fiesta, from Stan Getz’ My Foolish Heart album— a live record from the mid-70s. Tempo is about half note = 130. Here’s the very beginning of […]
Very occasional quote of the day: a lot of technique
“I could be playing for a month and never run into anything that requires a lot of technique. It might require that I play very simply. If you’ve got a lot of chops and you […]
Subtractive patterns for jazz hihat
What this new subtractive method is good for: making it easy to create and communicate rather specific, specialized orchestration/voicing systems on the drum set. Like, for the hihat in jazz— I have never cared for […]