In the mail I just received a new book by Joel Rothman: Drumming Outside The Box – for Rock & Jazz. It’s basically a library of patterns focused around creating an unbroken rhythm on the […]
Year: 2018
Funk drill tweak
This is a minor tweak to my standard funk drill using Ted Reed’s Syncopation. It was played by mistake by one of my students (6th grader), but it sounded good so I decided to keep […]
Photographers are _kin’ crazy
YAAAAH! YAAAAAAH! I needed to photograph some of my artwork (I’m a painter, too), and was looking at my old digital camera rig— a Nikon D40 digital SLR, which was a popular entry-level camera in […]
Groove o’ the day: evolution of Songo – 01
First of a mini-series of Afro-Cuban grooves o’ the day, transcribed from the history of Songo video below. Grooves are by Changuito, the percussionist who created the Songo drumming style playing with the Cuban band […]
Practice loop in 3/4: All Blues
Another practice loop in 3, to go with all of the recent jazz waltz stuff, sampled from the very famous tune All Blues, from the very famous album Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. The […]
Page o’ coordination: jazz waltz with feet in unison – syncopated
I realized while running through these other recent jazz waltz POCs with the syncopated polyrhythmic thing in the feet, these things are kind of hard, actually! So I wrote up this page, that’s a little […]
Product review: Backbeater app
A rare product review here; this organization contacted me and asked me to try out and review their upcoming release, so here we go: Backbeater is a product in development, with a Kickstarter launch coming […]
Jazz at Lincoln Center looking for a drummer
This is entertaining: Wynton Marsalis’s Jazz at Lincoln Center has posted an ad seeking a new drummer. It’s mostly realistic, though very high, standards for a jazz drummer working a top-level gig. Maybe it’s 15% […]
Bass drum rhythms for Latin
These bass drum rhythms are lifted from a page of Songo independence exercises I posted a few years ago. I thought it would be good to have them presented by themselves, apart from all the […]
EZ RH/RF lick in 16th notes
More easy rock stuff, this time developing a basic RH/RF pattern in 16th notes, adding various left hand parts, and moves between drums and cymbals: Play all of the exercises many times, then improvise combinations. […]
Page o’ coordination: Afro 6/4 – triplets
Here we have our standard Afro-Cuban bell pattern extended a couple of beats to put it in 6. This page will work well with that Jimmy Garrison loop from the other day. Pairs well with […]
Practice rhythms: partido alto logic
This is a collection of two measure practice phrases based on the concept of the partido alto rhythm, which typically has 3 or 4 quarter notes alternating with 3 or 4 upbeats. I’ve expanded on […]