CYMBALISTIC: I’ve just been informed that Cymbal & Gong has just received a big shipment of over 100 new cymbals, including 18, 20, and 22″ Turks, and a lot of other good stuff. This is […]
Author: Todd Bishop
Basic 8th note rhythms with variations – two bar phrases
Item for one of my students. I generally have people learn their rock beats through Syncopation— once they can do a few basic beats reading them in the conventional way, we go over to my […]
JD Beck
Someone shared the following video, and was commenting on the technique of JD Beck, a hot new drumming sensation who I kind of like. How can you not? He’s cute and charismatic, and has an […]
A basic waltz vocabulary – 01
I was working with a student on a jazz waltz, played at a brighter tempo than he was real comfortable with, so we needed to come up with some easy things to add to his […]
Batucada styles
Just did a gig playing all samba and bossa nova, so I’ve got Brazilian music on the brain. Here’s an old record offering a little round up of styles in Brazilian percussion: Batucada, by Paulinho […]
Tri pa let
Related to my late forays into different systems of counting: in an online conversation, someone asked about counting 16th notes within an 8th note triplet, specifically a triplet-rate hemiola: Generally, people count 8th note triplets: […]
Subtractive method: one practice approach
A lot of commitments right now, and posting will continue to be light through next weekend. Congratulations to Justin in Omaha for getting the 22″ Extra Special Janavar “Emilia”— there is now one of those […]
Surveying styles of drum notation
I was recently critiqued on my notation style, by someone who knows their stuff— who also knows their stuff— and I got paranoid that I was writing in a stupid way, so I went to […]
Daily best music in the world: Moon Germs
I have some commitments out of town right the next couple of weeks, and will be posting very lightly, so here’s a record I listen to a lot in college, that I need to get […]
Listening to Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane
Some notes on the record Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane. I’ve been listening to Monk’s Carnegie Hall record a lot this week, let’s get into this one. I never owned it, and haven’t listened to […]
RIP Teresa Nervosa
Photo from King Coffey’s twitter feed: “Teresa Taylor, seen here in attack mode. My favorite drummer of all time. My mentor, my friend, my sister from another mister.” Butthole Surfers drummer Theresa Taylor, aka Teresa Nervosa […]