I’ve been interested in modulating rhythms lately, so here’s a little snare drum etude derived from my previous etude in 5/8. It’s actually the same piece— I’ve just changed the meter to 2/4, and changed […]
Year: 2016
Cut time funk method: two-measure grooves
I’ve been working quite a bit with this cut time funk method from last year— part of what I’ve been doing instead of writing more blog posts. I’m not just writing junk to burn up […]
Daily best music in the world: end of the 80s with Bill Frisell
Another of my all time favorite records, Is That You? by Bill Frisell, with Joey Baron on drums. It’s lightly flawed with an in-your-face overprocessed drum sound, produced by Wayne Horvitz, but whatever. It’s not […]
Roy Haynes on rudiments
He talks about a lot of things, but his comments on rudiments (after 2:30) are interesting: I don’t know if I would take that completely at face value— in answering the question he seems to […]
Snare drum etude in 5/8
This week I’ve been working out of Odd Meter Calisthenics, a very good book by Mitchell Peters, which covers a lot of stuff in */8 meters. Which led me to write out a little study […]
Very occasional quote of the day: practicing eight hours a day
“Do it ’til you get to a certain point technically where you don’t do it.” — Jack Dejohnette, unpublished interview with Scott K. Fish
Transcription: Jeff Porcaro — Southbound
This is a song from my childhood which I only ever new from one line, which my college-age friend Tom, from the Big Brother/Big Sister program, used to sing at odd times: Southbound / unfold […]
Transcription: Zigaboo Modeliste — The Mob
Here’s the rest of that thing we were looking at the other day: Zigaboo Modeliste’s playing on The Mob, from the Meters album Look-ka Py Py. On the first and last A sections, he improvises […]
Two-beat rock fills
Here’s a page of basic two-beat rhythms for use as rock/funk fills, which I wrote for my intermediate students. You can and should play these on any one drum, or move them around the drums. […]
Grooves o’ the day: all the grooves from Look-ka Py Py
Let’s do a whole record for the groove of the day— and a very famous one at that: Look-Ka Py Py, by The Meters. The drummer is Zigaboo Modeliste, the New Orleans funk legend. We’ve […]
Two new linear drumming books by Joel Rothman
Received a few new books in the mail from author/publisher Joel Rothman, two of which I’ll review today: Drummin’ In The Rhythm Of Rock with Linear Patterns, and Linear Jazz Drumming. Rothman has been an extremely […]
David Garibaldi’s funk tips
Great piece from Rhythm Magazine with some comments on funk drumming from Tower of Power drummer David Garibaldi. I’ve pulled my choice favorite comments, but there’s a lot more, so go read the whole piece. What […]