Actually this is about the neighborhood where I’ll be teaching. UPDATE: Bumping this to the top again. Get in touch if you have any interest. Announcement for my Seattle followers: I may soon begin teaching […]
Year: 2017
Practice loop in 6/4: The Free Design
A fun practice loop, in a fast 6/4, sampled from The Free Design, by Stereolab. Tempo is about quarter note = 217 BPM. The rhythm for the bass vamp: Have fun. This loops seamlessly, if […]
Displacing a groove – 16th notes – 01
This is an easy funk exercise, getting acquainted with rhythmic displacements that happen routinely in funk drumming, while relating them back to a simple groove. When this word displacement comes up, it’s usually suggestive of […]
Groove o’ the day: James Gadson – Shout It Out
Another “enhanced” groove o’ the day (that is not a thing), from a Patrice Rushen record, this time with the great James Gadson on drums. The record and tune is Shout It Out, and it’s […]
Groove o’ the day, ENHANCED: MORE NDUGU
This is how it goes around here, I get into a certain thing and do only that, and the blog content becomes unbalanced. What do I care, I love Ndugu Leon Chancler’s playing. You can […]
Transcription: Ndugu Leon Chancler – Blues For Walls
I say that every time I post something about him: Ndugu Leon Chancler has to be the player I love the most, for the least exposure to his playing— for years I just had the […]
Three Camps – isolated parts and complete piece
UPDATE: Jeez, I’m getting sloppy. Typos in the pdf fixed…. You know, I’ve never settled on a really satisfactory presentation of Three Camps— the very famous, very old rudimental snare drum piece. It’s much simpler […]
Playing funk effectively
Here are a few tips on playing funk and related music, focusing on how to project to the audience and facilitate groove among the musicians while playing live unmiked, at a moderate to moderately strong […]
Left hand lead developer – for soloing
In soloing I tend to lead with the left a lot, and play a lot of normally alternating flam rudiments in only left hand lead form— in the past I’ve shared a couple of different […]
Very occasional quote of the day: Motian on time
“I believe that ‘time’ is always there. I don’t mean a particular pulse, but the time itself. It’s all there somehow like a huge sign that’s up there and it says time. It’s there and […]
More Robert Henri: on technique
SOMEHOW CONNECTED: The way art and music is taught, most artists and musicians really have nothing to say. There are acres of anonymously competent junk like this in the museums in Rome, as there are millions of hours […]
Transcription: Billy Hart – Batuki
UPDATE: Jeez, what a moron. Naturally I spelled the title wrong on the actual page. It’s Batuki, not Batuka. Well, we’ll fix it for the book… Here’s an interesting little bit of playing by Billy […]