Quincy Jones passed away early this morning. I’m not equipped to write anything meaningful about him, so here are some links: notices from the Associated Press, and from Variety. “I’ve never been bored or lonely in […]
Year: 2024
Fills in a 3/8 framework – 01
UPDATE: I added a couple of 2/4 options for running the fills by themselves, and also changed the practice phrases— the jazz phrases need a dedicated treatment beyond the scope of this post, so I took […]
History of cymbal manufacturing
An interesting article by Fritz Steger, author of A History Of Drums Made In Germany, written in German: Welches Becken passt zu meiner Musik und Spielweise? In English that’s “Which cymbal suits my music and playing style?”— […]
Latest practice loop archive
Here we are, the latest archive of all my sampled practice loops, mostly categorized by style, mostly with tempos. I also have folders with all the loops I use the most, and with the ones […]
Two measure Reed phrases – 01
Another cut and paste item— a specialty of mine— extracting some two measure phrases from the full page exercises in the book Syncopation. In lessons I have to hunt around for phrases I want, and […]
Bill Stewart
I’ve been listening to a lot of John Scofield this week, and realized I basically never talk about Bill Stewart here. It’s weird, he’s on anyone’s short list of top living jazz drummers, particularly of those […]
Best books: The Drummer’s/Musician’s Lifeline
Looking at two little books co-authored by Peter Erskine and Dave Black— The Drummer’s Lifeline, and The Musician’s Lifeline, subtitled, respectively, as Quick Fixes, Hacks, And Tips Of The Trade, and Advice For All Musicians, […]
First inversion paradiddles around the drums
Updating a very crummy looking page I wrote in 2012— some calisthenic patterns moving the highly hip and useful RLLR-LRRL paradiddle inversion around the drums. Drill them blazing fast, and also for control and accuracy […]
Simple four limb unison warmups
Here’s a set of simple four limb warm ups, that are heavy on the unisons… an underrated practice item. Take your pick, run p. 38 of Syncopation with 4-5 of these, at a reasonably bright […]
Meter-within-meter phrases
A page of meter-within-meter phrases— three beat rhythms played over four measures of 4/4: You’ll want to be very familiar and comfortable with this kind of rhythm— it happens a lot in jazz, and if […]
Stick Control with a backbeat
Another little oddball Stick Control related item, for drum set: some Stone-type sticking patterns with accented unisons added, on beats 2-4, and on beat 3. Introducing the idea— if you like it, you could obviously […]
CYMBALISTIC: new cymbals in!
CYMBALISTIC: A fresh round of cymbals is in— it’s been a rather slow year, so I haven’t been getting a ton of new stock. You should be using these things. Cymbals. Made by Cymbal & Gong. […]