Here’s a playlist I put together for one of my new students, a 5th grader who is talented and motivated, but hasn’t heard a lot of music yet. Hopefully this will help get him hooked: Track list […]
Year: 2016
2-3-4 Method
With today’s “2-3-4” method, I’m getting into the “give your practice idea a name so people will remember it and treat it like it’s a thing” racket. This is a pretty easy method for use […]
Transcription: Barney Miller Theme
Here are the drum performances on two versions of the very famous theme song from the TV show Barney Miller, which ran from 1974-82. The show was in syndication for many years, so the tune […]
Transcription: Billy Higgins / Tears Inside
Tears Inside, from Pat Metheny’s album Rejoicing, is such a favorite track of mine, I’m surprised we haven’t done anything with it before. I did transcribe the drum intro for the forthcoming[!!!] Book of Intros. So […]
Page o’ coordination: Afro 6 – 6/4 feel
Another Afro 6 POC. It’s a very rich and rewarding style, which is why I do so bloody much stuff with it. I was surprised to see I had never written up this variation before— […]
GOTD & POC: Elvin Jones — That 5/4 Bag
First-ever combined Groove o’ the Day and Page o’ Coordination. We’re completely off the chain. From Elvin Jones’s second album as leader, Dear John C., here is the major groove for That 5/4 Bag, with […]
David Bowie (1947-2016)
(h/t Luqman Brown) UPDATE: A very cool article about Bowie’s final album.
Simple one-handed Reed interpretation
UPDATE: Download link is working now… This is a simple exercise which arose while working on my Zigaboo Modeliste-like half time feel funk method. It will be easy to master— it’s fun to work on […]
Daily best music in the world: Howlin’ Wolf
We’ll be getting back into regular blogging soon enough— I’ve just finished the 2015 Book of the Blog (available for purchase soon!), and am chilling out with some Howlin’ Wolf right now…
Daily best music in the world: Milton
Listening to Milton Nascimento’s Clube Da Esquina 2 while working on the 2015 Book of the Blog, which should be finished today. We slowed up with the downloadable materials towards the end of the year, […]
Paul Bley 1932-2016
We’ve lost quite a few great people this week: the singer Natalie Cole, cinematographers Vilmos Zsigmond and Haskell Wexler, Harlem Globetrotter Meadowlark Lemon, and now pianist Paul Bley— word is, he passed away while listening […]
What to do in college
Wow, a whole month without any posts. Let’s eaaase back into blogging after having returned from Europe with a wicked case of the flu: here’s Advice To A College Music Student, by Michael D’Angelo. Here are […]