Cleaning out my mom’s house I found a box of all the siblings’ music materials that she saved, including a bunch of my archive items, that are pretty interesting. The thing below was written and […]
Author: Todd Bishop
Tyranny of the barline or something else
Headline: TED Video Irritating Alt headline: Media Company Declares Own Take On 15th Century Graphic Concept Groundbreaking Alt alt headline: tEd Dopes Find Music Unintuitive Getting back to my usual form: complaining about a […]
Funk samba: moving the 1
I was doing this with some students, using a similar groove to Omar Hakim’s Predator groove— vastly simplified. There are a couple of pages of “funk samba” grooves in Roy Burns / Joey Farris’s underrated book […]
Transcription: Mel Lewis comping
On Chess Mates, from a 1985 Joe Lovano record, Tone Shapes & Colors— a live recording with Mel Lewis on drums, and Kenny Werner on piano. A lot of what I’d call “non-independent” drumming here, […]
Some short tempered performance notes
Following are some comments I wrote after hearing some younger drummers— in a jazz setting, players far enough along with their playing to let their ambitions get the better of them, musically. I got a […]
Harmonic coordination summary
I never did a really good summary for my harmonic coordination system (which I’ve variously called Harmonic Coordination Whatsis or Harmonic Coordination Improved, etc), let’s do that now. I use it a lot in teaching, with […]
Very occasional quote of the day: cultivate
“You got to cultivate that rhythm, man.” – Miles Davis, interview by Don diMichael, 1969 [h/t to thenuge @ DFO]
Latest views and practices on time
Rounding up my current views and practices on the subject rhythm and time, in teaching and practicing: knowing rhythm, holding a tempo in playing. This is mostly about beginner to intermediate level students. A lot […]
Groove o’ the day: Billy Cobham – White Rabbit
Here’s Flamenco beat played by Billy Cobham on a cover of the Jefferson Airplane song White Rabbit, from George Benson’s album of the same name. I’ve been listening to it on my drives to Eugene […]
Reed interpretation: short rolls
An easy thing to do with Syncopation, adding short rolls. This will be a no-brainer any time you want to work on your rolls without a lot of extraneous stuff, using familiar materials. I wrote […]
Reading round up
I’ve been using my pages of syncopation rhythms a lot in teaching lately— similar to what’s in Ted Reed, but written for a specific purpose, either for a specific drum set application, or to do […]
Family matters
The following may not be of a lot interest to everyone, but that’s what www.blogspot.com is all about. So stand by, we’ll get back to drum stuff soon enough. I’ve been dealing with some family […]