Playing a traditional/military-style march is something we have to do occasionally as drummers, so we may as well learn a few different ways of doing it. This is a hip, interesting take on the concept […]
Year: 2018
Bill Stewart on cymbal technique
Here’s a nice video of part of an interview with Bill Stewart, speaking with Quincy Davis of the University of Manitoba, in which he discusses his cymbal technique. It relates to my earlier ranting and […]
NEW E-BOOK: EZ Rock Drumming – A Short Course For The Mastery Of Rock Beats
Hey, we’ve got another new e-book now available on Amazon: EZ ROCK DRUMMING A Short Course For The Mastery Of Rock Beats It’s the definitive explanation of my Syncopation-based rock method, which has been covered […]
EZ triplet bass drum / cymbal drill
Do you think most of what you play in real life is hip, complicated, multi-layered, polyrhythmic, hybrid-rudimental madness? Sir, it is not. Most of what you play is normal, obvious, easy stuff. You want to […]
11 Buddy intros
This is pretty interesting: Buddy Rich playing a drum intro on eleven takes of the same tune: Leap Frog, released on The Complete Charlie Parker on Verve box set. This is an actually an excerpt […]
Two alternative Dahlgren & Fine routines
YAAAH As I’ve mentioned, I’m getting a lot of productive work done with this much-loathed book, 4-Way Coordination, by Marvin Dahlgren & Elliot Fine. Mainly I’m using the worst part, the “harmonic” coordination chapter, for […]
Very occasional quote of the day: Buddy’s time
From the bassist Chuck Bergeron who was in Buddy Rich’s band in the 80s: “One afternoon, after a couple of nights of feeling that he wasn’t happy with where I was placing the beat, I […]
Transcription: Barry Altschul – Jitterbug Waltz
Here’s a drum solo in 3/4 by Barry Altschul, on a modern arrangement of Fats Waller’s Jitterbug Waltz, from Altschul’s album Irina— a pretty obscure (to me) record you can now download off Amazon. The […]
Single stroke 5s – 32nd notes
A set of exercises I improvised on my leg at the start of a rehearsal yesterday— and this would actually be good as part of a warmup. These are 5 stroke rolls in single strokes, in […]
Stairway to Heaven figure
This is something I did for a student who was looking for some help playing Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. On the out chorus— or whatever you want to call it; the song is […]
Page o’ coordination: 2SB-2BS
Another entry using this slightly different conception of my page o’ coordination series— adding various cymbal rhythms to a repeating snare-and-bass coordination pattern. The cymbal rhythms are good for jazz, R&B, Afro-Cuban, or just general […]
Drumming technique
I want to talk about technique: the way it gets talked about it on the internet, vs. my own practices and attitude about it. We’ve had lots of adversarial posts lately— hopefully entertainingly so. A side […]