Does anybody need a sweet 24″ ride cymbal? I’m checking out four OUTSTANDING Cymbal & Gong jazz cymbals, plus a monster medium ride. I will have these around for a couple of days, then they’ll […]
Year: 2020
Stick control exercises, mixed rhythm in 2/4
A page I’m using with some of my students, to learn to fill, and develop basic facility on the drum set. We’ve been doing a lot with parts of my harmonic coordination method— which is […]
Daily best music in the world: Tony Williams solo
I’m still having a hard time writing anything, so here’s a really great open drum solo played by Tony Williams, in a concert video with Jean Luc Ponty and Stanley Clarke. This is in 1972, […]
Drum heads!
This. Just get this. Did you know that it’s rather hard to write about drum stuff while your country is being dismantled and driven into the ground by a narcissistic criminal psychopath, who is certainly […]
Very occasional quote of the day: Roy on time
“Mingus use to say the damndest thing about me years ago. He’d say, ‘Well, Roy Haynes. You don’t always play the beat, you suggest the beat!’ I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. […]
Reed tweak: adding flams to a basic method
This is a small tweak on a common funk practice method for Ted Reed’s Syncopation, adding flams to the method in which the right hand plays the book rhythm on a cymbal, and the left […]
Todd’s methods: accents to funk
This is an item for teachers, I suppose. It’s good to have more than one way of teaching things. There’s no reason for a student to have to struggle with something just because your preferred […]
Painting is a psychological game
I’m a painter as well as a musician— I work in what’s generally called an abstract expressionist style. I’m not making pictures of things, I’m painting until I have something that looks like a painting. […]
Practice loop: Oregon – Fall
New practice loop, sampled from the tune Fall, by the band Oregon. The bassist here, Glen Moore, is one of my favorite musicians in the world— look into his records with the vocalist Nancy King […]
Transcription: Connie Kay – Cosmic Ray
A melodic drum solo with mallets by Connie Kay, on Cosmic Ray, from the Milt Jackson / Ray Charles album Soul Brothers. Kay is kind of a mysterious player to me, so I’m always on […]
Listening to Ray Bryant
“I used to be a free jazz drummer, now I just want to play tight arrangements.” — me a few years ago That’s not 100% true, but I’ve learned a lot of respect for the […]
Mel Lewis intro – One for Pat
I’m just taunting myself now— I’ve got this book of intros sitting around, almost completed, and I keep finding new things that should probably go in it, but I don’t have the nerve to open […]