Short and boring, but a melody. Not to be confused with the excellent blog of the same name. I’ve gotten involved into some fairly contentious discussion of the role of melody in drumming recently, so […]
Month: January 2013
Survival chops: right hand lead
This is the second in an extremely short series covering the bare essentials of what you need for “drumistic” fill, variation, and solo material across a variety of styles— you can read the intro to […]
VOQOTD: the Blakey hang
“I used to play every night. It didn’t matter how much money I was making, I just had to play every night. When we’d get through playing at night, it was daybreak: 6:00. Then we’d […]
8th notes around the drums — one hand
Here’s a conditioning page of 8ths notes played around the drums, with one hand. It’s easy enough that most drummers should be able to learn it well enough to play the page straight down in […]
Googled: “Elvin Jones triplets”
What the heck, we haven’t done a “round up” style post in awhile. Here’s a quick survey of Internet lore, briefly reviewing some of the information returned when you google “Elvin Jones triplets”: First, the […]
DBMITW: Tanzania and Kenya witchcraft & ritual music
These are from a Nonesuch compilation, Tanzania and Kenya Witchcraft & Ritual Music, that has made a big impression on me since the 90’s. This first clip features a comical-sounding instrument, the “bungo” horn. To […]
Transcription: Elvin Jones — Summertime
Let’s start out the new year with a more substantial transcription than we’ve done in a while, in this case a very famous drum solo by Elvin Jones, on Summertime from John Coltrane’s My Favorite […]
Another best of 2012 list
Another Best of 2012 list for my CD Little Played Little Bird, this time on the Bird Is The Worm blog, written by eMusic contributor Dave Sumner. We’re in the number 12 slot: So, take […]
Crossing accents
This very simple idea occurred to me while I was working on an Elvin Jones transcription today— either I had an insight into an underlying concept in his playing, or I was just daydreaming. What […]