In the beginning, it’s a direct thing. It’s the material that decides. I prepare the ground-by cleaning my brushes on the canvas, for example. Spilling a little turpentine can also work quite well. If it’s […]
Year: 2011
I’m huge in France
Apparently a track from my 2009 CD 69 Année Érotique (the music of Serge Gainsbourg) made it onto Une brique dans le ventre, a program on French national TV this month (it starts around 4’50”). […]
Todd’s methods: Afro-Cuban in 6/8 and 3/4
Here’s something I wrote strictly for my own use, which I thought I would share for you to make of what you will. The Afro 6/8 has been one of my stronger vehicles for a […]
Paradiddle round-up
In case you haven’t gotten enough to work on with the paradiddle things I’ve posted, here are some exercises gathered from around the web. I’ve only linked to pages that actually use notation- I’m a […]
VOQOTD: Pete La Roca on backbeats
What an insult for Fusion to impose the repetitive BackBeat on Jazz drummers! How ironic, since the BackBeat is merely the handclap used by American slaves when they were forbidden to have drums! How bizarre […]
Two videos
Here are a couple of nice videos from my fellow drumming blogs while I recover from my little Oregon coast mini-vacation: First, a video on practicing by Steve Smith, from the excellent new Melodic Drummer […]
Very occasional quote of the day: Brian Eno
I used to think that, given enough goodwill, anybody would be able to “get” any music, no matter how distant the culture from which it came. And then I heard Chinese opera. – Brian Eno […]
The great Jeff Berlin metronome controversy
This has been floating around for some time. His observations are mostly good, but I don’t happen to agree with his conclusion. Watch the video, and I’ll give a few thoughts about it: His major […]
Transcription: Four – more intros
Once you get going on these, it’s hard to stop. And it looks like I’ll have to do one more, because in a near-inconceivable oversight, I left off my favorite one, by Tony Williams on […]
Very occasional quote of the day: Jeff Watts
Messing up is not really that bad; it’s the recovery that’s important. – Jeff Watts
Billy Higgins’ instrument
Here’s a nice follow up on my recent Billy Higgins solo analysis. I was just surfing around and getting discouraged at how little of value I was coming across, when I stumbled across this 2000 […]
Something stupid
I hope you’re ready for a descent several circles deeper than usual into pure drumming geekdom today, as I’ve been fooling with devising a sticking system for all limbs, and combinations of limbs. I don’t […]