A page of practice rhythms for the bass drum, in an Afro 6 feel. For the most part these are not conventional bass drum rhythms, though a lot of them will sound cool, and will […]
Category: 12/8
Velocity patterns in 3/4
Here’s something I’ve been working with, similar to the patterns in these alternative versions of Three Camps. They’re easy to play fast, and so are good for blazing, double-timey playing. These can be played on […]
Here is the deal with 6/8 time
I had an interesting interaction on a drumming forum recently— it’s ongoing actually— there was an extremely long and frustrating conversation involving a whole lot of basic misunderstandings about rhythm and meter. A user is […]
Three notes, one on cymbals – 01
This little assignment is related to several things we’ve done lately: my harmonic coordination improved method, and my rock drill; playing it in */4 meters with a swing feel gives you something similar to rubadub. […]
Flam combinations in 6/8
Way too many wordy posts recently, with more coming, so let’s do a simple page of flam exercises in 6/8— in a triplet feel. Like p. 34 in Stick Control, but more robust. Whenever I […]
Page o’ coordination: Tekufah rhythm
Page o’ coordination using the rhythm from the bass line on Tekufah, a John Zorn tune from which I recently made a practice loop. The cymbal rhythm is actually an inversion or mode of the […]
Page o’ coordination: basic 6/4
The first of three pages of fundamentals to go with that John Zorn loop from the other day. These POCs are a major part of my output right now, which is a little bit misleading— […]
Practice loop in 6: Tekufah
A fun practice loop in 6/4 with a strong suggestion of 12/8. It’s really a compound pulse where it’s both things at the same time. Hit the time signature labels at the bottom of the […]
Page o’ coordination: another basic 3:2
UPDATE: pdf download now works Back in Portland after a road trip to northern California… recording drums for a quasi-punk record by my wife and one of her 90s East Village cronies, in a Lions […]
Groove o’ the day: Philly Joe Afro 6
From the Sonny Rollins album Newk’s Time, another individualistic version of an Afro 6/8 groove, played by Philly Joe Jones on Asiatic Raes, a Kenny Dorham tune. On the snare line, the x is a […]
Page o’ coordination: Simple 3:2
Coming at that 3:2 hemiola polyrhythm from the triplet side— all of our recent hemiola funk stuff has been using it in a duple subdivision. Here we’ll use the 2 side as the primary pulse, […]
Practice loop: slow blues
Here’s a loop you’re going to need this week, as I finish writing the 6/8 prep for my patented(?) Harmonic Coordination Improved™ method. Sampled from Melvin Sparks’s Blues for JB, the tempo is a stately […]