Giving a shout out to, and a few comments about, a new book by Jeff W. Johnson: Note Groupings And Combinations For Drumset. Johnson wrote another good book, The Level System— pretty much the definitive […]
Year: 2023
Warm ups for Alan Dawson’s “Para Bossa” system
Alan Dawson’s Para Bossa system, from John Ramsay’s book, The Drummer’s Complete Vocabulary, is a way of interpreting exercises in Ted Reed’s Syncopation as 16th note paradiddles, and extended paradiddles, with a samba rhythm in […]
Transcription: Peter Erskine – Duo – 04
Here are the next 30 seconds / 32 bars of Duo, played by Peter Erksine and Bob Mintzer, from Mintzer’s record Hymn. The whole track is about three and a half minutes long, so there […]
CYMBALISTIC: Playing some cymbals
CYMBALISTIC: I’ve just been doing a lot of cymbal-related business for people lately, and these are a couple of quick-and-dirty videos I made for that. Playing some different combinations of 20 and 22″ Extra Special Janavars, […]
Transcription: Peter Erskine – Duo – 03
And here’s the next 30 seconds of Duo, played by Peter Erskine and Bob Mintzer, from Mintzer’s record Hymn. This begins at 0:59 in the recordings. The last line is solo drums, next entry they’ll be trading […]
Reed interpretations: tom ruffs
Fun item inspired by watching some Bob Newhart Show reruns— I watched it a lot as a kid, and the drumming on the theme music made an impression well before I started playing. In the […]
On the massive overabundance of things to practice
A nagging question with every single thing I post: Am I putting up too much, am I part of the problem— the problem being: there’s way too much stuff to practice on the drums now, […]
Round up of recent Reed tweaks
In the last few months we’ve done a number of tweaks to the basic right hand lead method used with the book Syncopation, and I thought it would be good to summarize them on one […]
Transcription: Peter Erskine – Duo – 02
Here’s the second 30 seconds of Duo, played by Peter Erkine and Bob Mintzer, on Mintzer’s record Hymn. This track comes in a tight little package, every 30 seconds exactly = two times through the […]
CYMBALISTIC: Seattle meet wrap up!
CYMBALISTIC: We had a fun event at the Seattle Drum School on Monday evening. It was small but mighty, but we’re a small but mighty operation. Response to the cymbals was very enthusiastic, as always. Tim […]
Bishopdiddles – 02: double paradiddles to swing 8ths
Listen: do not show these to somebody and call them “BISHOPDIDDLES.” You’re going to get both of us beaten up. One thing I like about this double paradiddle inversion is that it’s possible to accent the […]
CYMBALISTIC: SEATTLE – TONIGHT
CYMBALISTIC: Bumping this to the top of the site for tonight’s event— if you’re in the vicinity of Seattle, come on down, say hi, play some cymbals! SEATTLE: Monday, August 28th, 7:30pm – Seattle Drum […]