I’m working out the format for putting this “Basic Funk Ideas” series into book form, tentatively titled “Funk Control.” The top of the page, labeled “Basic rhythm and iterations” shows the source rhythmic idea for […]
Month: October 2016
Double bass drum: 5 and 7 stroke singles
A student request. This is the first thing I’ve ever written for double bass in my life— I don’t play it, it’s not my thing. It doesn’t matter. This page of exercises will work for […]
Daily best music in the world: Paul Motian Trio / Lisbon ’86
We’re very lucky. When I was first getting into this group around 1989, the only way to see them was to fly to New York, or catch them at a festival in Europe or maybe […]
Paul Motian documentary
Alerting you to a filmmaker raising funds to complete a documentary on the great Paul Motian. It looks pretty awesome, OF COURSE, and includes interviews with Bill Frisell, Joe Lovano, Gary Peacock, Masabumi Kikuchi, and […]
Bossa/Samba bass drum workout
It says “workout”, like it’s some kind of technical challenge, but it’s really a page of exercises for opening up some musical possibilities with your bass drum when playing sambas and bossa novas. A lot […]
Three Camps in 5s
Another variation on the very famous old rudimental piece Three Camps, this time based on five-note groupings. We’re in 10/8, counted in 2— 5+5/8: All forms of this piece are excellent for working on endurance […]
Transcription: Gerry Brown / School Days
Here’s a funk/fusion classic: School Days, by Stanley Clarke, with Gerry Brown on the drums. Along with Weather Report’s Teen Town, and Donna Lee, this was one of the most-learned fusion things by electric bassists […]
Daily best music in the world: OH S___
In writing about playing the drums, you tend to focus on what is definable. You write the things you can say for sure, and you don’t write about things you can’t. That can give people […]
Basic funk ideas in 6/8: four iterations – 01
I’m not happy with this title for this series, but I’m going to hang with it as long as we’re posting on the blog. It’s rapidly evolving into a Stick Control-like system for funk drumming […]
Orchestrating and embellishing backbeats
What do we do with this? Someone bored with playing backbeats all night asked this question on the Drummerworld forum: “What do you do to spice up the 2 & 4?” My answer is: I […]
EZ Tony Williams-like method: another setting
Here’s something that was leading me into a very modern, hiccupy, vaguely Chris Dave-like jazz concept. I was practicing along with the Coltrane recording of Big Nick, a medium-slow swing tune, and found myself doing […]