Sorry for that graphic. I promise, no more AI slop. Not much more. Here is more video— I’m recording lots of my practicing right now, as I get my video act together. Here I’m playing […]
Very occasional quote of the day: rehearsal with Charlie Parker
“I’d say, ‘Well, what am I supposed to do?’ He’d say. ‘Oh, you know what to do.’” – Max Roach, Down Beat Magazine, November, 1978, interview with Bret Primack
Another aside: interesting clave item
A little piece of rhythm analysis— an interesting item that came up, of all places, through a J.J. Cale song, that accidentally reveals something about the structure of the Son clave rhythm, similar to what […]
More EZ bossa subtractive systems
Some patterns that might be helpful along side the original EZ bossa system— itself really good for not just developing a simple, functional bossa vocabulary, but also for developing rock beats in a hip way. […]
CRUISE SHIP DRUMMER! – reader survey!
UPDATE: OK, between this and the sign up form we have exceeded our first 25 new friends, so it’s time to draw for the first free book. And the winner is…. …. …. . …. […]
An aside: another approach to counting triplets
In the continuing saga of how to count things. Someone on Reddit— where I have become active— suggested counting 8th note triplets like this: 1 e & 2 e & Wrong as it seems, I’m […]
Warming up with Betty Davis…
As you can see, WordPress now has an AI slop generator as part of their suite of tools. Something else, isn’t it. If you hate it as much as I do, fill out this form […]
Embellishing a cut time funk groove
This is a summary of something I’ve been doing with a few of my students, adding some moves to the basic cut time funk grooves, which we get by reading Syncopation, pp. 34-37— book rhythm […]
Timbale fills for Mozambique
Or any quasi-Cuban, Caribbean, salsoid Latin style. Mozambique is our default for thing for that type of groove. I’ve covered this way of filling before, here I’ll give suggested accents and stickings for a timbale-like […]
Transcription: Pete La Roca trades
Here’s Pete La Roca trading 4/8s (four bars horn, eight bars drums) on Homestretch, a blues on Joe Henderson’s album Page One. I’ve written out the full choruses— four total. On the fourth chorus there’s […]
I transcribe myself
Please forgive the slow posting here— lots of work going on with site other than just writing for it. As soon as I have my act together there, we’ll be back to a normal pace […]
Listening to Ginger Baker again
Note: Having finished the following piece of writing, I’m going to file it under rants. I set out to make an impartial analysis, but got so annoyed with the music, I think that category will […]