Here’s a page of drum orchestrations and fills based on a rhythmic figure from the tune Rover, on my album Travelogue, along with a practice loop sampled from it. The fills/orchestrations start very simply, building […]
Year: 2018
A great drummer
Clarence Penn These days I’m pretty insensitive to amazing drumming performances. I’ve seen a lot of people do a lot of amazing things, and I’m tired of it— I’ve actually never been into pure chops […]
Hemiola basics – UPDATED
On the sage advice of a fifth grade student, I’ve revised this old page introducing the 3:2 polyrhythm, or hemiola. I’ve added a few variations and inversions, added stickings and syllables for counting… and deleted […]
The way I used to do things
I’ve been listening to some old rehearsal cassettes and demos and whatnot, and my God, I used to be an animal. This is an unreleased track, a cover of an Albert Ayler tune, from my […]
More paradiddle combinations in 3
More Stick Control-style paradiddle combinations in 3. I find these really useful: Once again here are the basic ways to do these on the drum set— the only way I do these. I basically never sit […]
The chart reading pyramid
METAPHOR— DO NOT TAKE LITERALLY I’ve gotten quite good at reading charts. By which I mean I’ve gotten quite good at ignoring charts. As a rule I avoid reading as much as possible— I’ve gotten […]
Daily best music in the world: Roy Haynes Hip Ensemble
Hip Ensemble is Roy Haynes’s fusion band that was around for a couple of years around 1970. Or is it just the title of the one record under Roy’s name? I don’t know, man. Anyone […]
Paradiddle stick control patterns in 3
I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m using a lot of Stick Control-type stuff in practicing lately. Sometimes you just want things written as a sticking. Here I’ve written out some paradiddle variations in […]
Hours
The true struggle comes in the practice room, facing those drums everyday for 10 hours. — Famoudou Don Moye When I was in college I decided that, at some point in their career, everyone who […]
Stick Control – CSD! version
UPDATE: Download link working. You’d think I’d have that part of it down. Everybody and his literal dog practices the first page of the book Stick Control, as do I— at least I teach it, […]
Page o’ coordination: Jabo shuffle
If you watched that video of Jabo Starks playing with John Scofield et al, you’ll notice that he does some hip stuff on the bell of the cymbal behind the trombone during the bridge between […]
The 1
And some more listening for the passing of Jabo Starks: