I was working on this last year, and never posted part 2, because it was an unreadable mass. Still is. But for people who teach and deal with this subject every day, here we go: […]
Year: 2023
CYMBALISTIC: New cymbals are in!
I just picked up a small order of cymbals from Cymbal & Gong, videos for which will be coming at the end of the week. There’s some very interesting stuff— here are my first impressions […]
Cymbal size vibe war!
Photo stolen from the cover of The Cymbal Book by Hugo Pinksterboer, which you should own. At last, the definitive guide to the vibes we all get from the various sizes of cymbals. I don’t know why […]
Reed Linear Quarters – beat 4 displaced
With a student I’ve been working on a Blue Note type groove a la Cantaloupe Island, and the linear quarter notes lesson (pp. 8-9) in Ted Reed’s Progressive Steps to Syncopation* seemed a good place […]
Groove o’ the day: Grady Tate Afro
Grady Tate playing a heavy Afro-Cuban style groove, or Afro 6, as I’ve been calling it, on Grant Green’s The Final Comedown movie soundtrack. The track is Soul Food African Shop, and the transcription is […]
Hey, buy stuff
Two pieces of gear-buying news: GET SNARE DRUMSMy friend and student Bill W. owns a bunch of great snare drums, and is letting some of them go on Reverb. He’s got a 60s Gretsch Progressive […]
Transcription: Tony Williams – Cantaloupe Island
A student was asking about Cantaloupe Island, played by Tony Williams on Herbie Hancock’s Empyrean Isles album, so I went ahead and transcribed the whole thing. Why not. The style may get called as a […]
Wayne’s gone
One of my favorite solos of his:
From the zone: SD chops
Another notebook item from the later 80s, as I get my act together following recent personal developments. Cleaning out my mom’s basement, I found a bunch of my old notebooks and music materials. Basically, I’ve […]
Metric modulation a la Silverman – 01
A student brought in a copy of Chuck Silverman’s Practical Applications: Afro-Caribbean Rhythms for Drum Set, and we worked through a part of it together, dealing with metric modulations— or more accurately superimposed metric modulations […]
Very occasional quote of the day: listening
“Listening is the whole thing. I’ll tell you exactly how I play. My whole approach to playing is reaction. I don’t listen to myself play. I’m not aware of myself because I’m too busy listening […]
Paradiddle-diddle game
Everybody Good Knows The Same Stuff, Part 1000: Another handout from a clinic Russ Tincher at UC Berkeley in 1989— I confirmed that’s where it was from. Here he shows how to interpret triplets with […]