That’s the idea. I was working on a single post about practicing along with recorded music— something I’ve been doing a lot of lately— but it was running long on me, and taking forever to […]
Month: October 2013
Daily best music in the world: Barbara Song
Here are several versions of Barbara Song, from Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera. I could try to write something about it, but what for? The content is self-evident and I see no need to flail around […]
Lou Reed 1942-2013
It’s a good day to give White Light, White Heat a listen in its entirety— news that Lou Reed has died is breaking all over the Internet right now. I first heard this record on […]
Transcription: Raymond “Monchito” Muñoz — Caminando
Here we have a Latin percussionist funking out a little bit on Caminando, a hip cha cha* recorded by Eddie Palmieri on his great album Vamonos Pa’l Monte. The drummer, Raymond “Monchito” Muñoz, brings very […]
2013 tour posters
All right, the posters for my upcoming Europe (well, Belgium, plus the outer tip of Germany and Luxembourg) tour are done! Here are the shows, once again, with times: 9:00, Tuesday, Nov. 12 Hot Club […]
Groove o’ the day: Ronald Shannon Jackson — Yugo Boy
Today we’ll do Ronald Shannon Jackson’s groove from the other day, Yugo Boy, from his 1984 album Barbeque Dog. Jackson was always coming up with distinctive grooves, and I don’t know why I haven’t shared […]
Page o’ coordination: 6/8 Rumba clave in the left hand
Like I said: a lotta 6/8. That feel has always been one of the stronger elements of my playing, but I thought I’d see what happens if I do a whole lot of more work […]
Ronald Shannon Jackson 1940-2013
Very sorry to hear that the drummer and avant-garde master Ronald Shannon Jackson died today. This would be a great time to revisit his Modern Drummer interview from 1984, by friend of the blog Chip […]
Survival chops: cymbal and bass drum licks
Here is a collection of moderately easy, very functional, right-hand lead licks for the drum set. Normally I would arrive at these by other means— like, by playing Stick Control, Syncopation, or any paradiddle rudiment, […]
My art… on pillows!
Here’s a random thing— my sister, Christy Bishop, an interior designer, is releasing a line of high-end printed pillows, and is including some of my old (c. 1997-2001) works on paper in her art. So […]
Afro 6/8 with a backbeat
In my day we didn’t have fancy drum blogs giving us near-daily pages of nicely formatted, well-thought-out drum exercises free of charge. Our teachers just scribbled something in the margin of our tattered copy of […]
Kerrigan syncopation exercise in 6/8
I guess there’s no getting around it: we’re all about the 6/8 these days— there’s a whole bunch more of this on deck. This is a Chuck Kerrigan syncopation exercise, from his very useful Syncopated […]