I’m pretty sure I’ve posted this somewhere on the site, but maybe I didn’t share it as a finished drill. This is a reasonably easy thing for getting your reading, bass drum chops, effective use […]
Year: 2017
Very occasional quote of the day: the abilities you have at the moment
Hey, that looks like I can do it. WHY NOT TRY IT? From The Art Spirit, by Robert Henri: An art student must be a master from the beginning; that is, he must be master […]
Groove o’ the day: Go Ahead John
Getting loose definitionally with our groove o’ the day here— this one is all variations, really, and no foundational groove. This is Jack Dejohnette playing the beginning of Go Ahead, John, from Miles Davis’s album […]
Hackwork
Apropos of no particular part of this post, these are remarkably similar to many drum teachers I’ve encountered. A short beef about the nature of teaching. Maybe I should’ve included this in my recent post, […]
Practice loop in 5/4: Everything’s All Right
I’ve had a busy week here, ending with going to Seattle for the weekend to play in/hang out at the Ballard Jazz Festival, so let’s ease back in to blogging with a practice loop— a […]
Finally getting a handle on this Dahlgren & Fine business
No getting around it, this sucks. But… It’s funny how it can take years to figure out fairly simple things. 4-Way Coordination by Dahlgren and Fine has always been a problematic book for me, but […]
Key players: Elvin Jones
This is the first in a series of thumbnail introductions to some important players. Like everything on the blog, this is my personal perspective— there’s no pretense that these are complete historical sketches, or a […]
EZ Zigaboo method
Should have included this when I first made this up way back when, but… here’s an EZ entry into my quite challenging and extensive Zigaboo Modeliste/Cissy Strut-style practice method. It’s a way of playing funk […]
Tony clichés
This is an interesting recording, with a strange performance by a great drummer, Marvin ‘Smitty’ Smith— it consists almost entirely of Tony Williams clichés. When I heard this in a record store I realized I […]
Page o’ coordination: Latin in 3 – 04
Here’s a fairly easy page of exercises in 3/4 Latin. The bell/cymbal pattern is similar to the regular Afro 6/8 rhythm, but simplified— you sometimes hear American drummers playing this rhythm in the 50s and […]
Chaffee linear phrase as 32nd notes
This is a thing I was working on with a student— this particular Chaffee-style linear phrase (5/3/5/3) happens to work really well as a fill— it sounds impressive, and it’s really easy to play. In […]
Chaffee linear phrases: adding 2s
This is a baby-step entry into adding a two-note pattern (RB) to Gary Chaffee’s linear system, which is based on 3-to-8 note patterns— dig into Patterns, vol. 3 for Chaffee’s full explanation of that, or […]