4/23 update: It’s gone. You can try reaching Mr. Mintz through his website, to purchase a copy of the book, if he’s selling it, and/or send him some money for the illegal download. Now available […]
Author: Todd Bishop
Practice loop in 7/4: Freddie Hubbard / Heidi-B
While I finish up my taxes, here’s the practice loop I was playing with when I was doing that Reed in 7 thing: Heidi-B, from Freddie Hubbard’s album Sweet Return. Tempo is quarter note = […]
Page of polyrhythms – updated
Updating my old badly formatted page of polyrhythms from 2013, adding some things, and hopefully making it easier for more people to read and use. I’ve written them in the easiest possible form, expressed as […]
Best books: The Art of Modern Jazz Drumming – Dejohnette / Perry
“As our mental image becomes more precise, we are better able to select muscle movements which will achieve our goals quickly, efficiently, and accurately.” I’m surprised I haven’t written much about this book already— The […]
Reed in 7/4
Another one of my little photoshop* pranks of an existing drum book— here putting some rhythms from Progressive Steps to Syncopation into 7/4 time. It’s fun. * – Actually I do it using Paint.NET. I […]
Cymbals are in!
SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: I’ll be posting lightly for the better part of this week, A) because I’m doing my taxes, B) because a huge new shipment of cymbals just came in, and I’ll be making videos […]
Very occasional quote of the day: practicing in time
“Through the years I had always practiced from slow to fast, but then I found out that that’s the worst possible thing any drummer can do for his time. If you practice like that, you […]
Groove o’ the day: Jack Dejohnette – Polar AC
Jack Dejohnette playing a straight 8th groove on Freddie Hubbard’s Polar AC. This gets called an ECM feel today, but maybe we should start calling it a CTI feel. Change it up, direct people to […]
Very occasional quote of the day: Blackwell and Ornette
“When we were awake, we were always playing. If we were not playing, Ornette would be sitting down writing a tune, or we’d be discussing music, or listening to music—different tunes. But that was it. […]
Singles speed builder
This is a page for developing fast singles, for my students— maybe you can use it too. Like anything else, your results may vary teaching it to yourself. You can contact me for lessons on […]
More on that Latin system
Breaking down part of that short Latin method from the other day. I like it. It’s easy, and gets us into some pretty fundamental things about rhythm, drumming, using the drum set. This is a […]
Cymbal sounds: Special Janavars
Talking about the Special Janavar cymbals I mentioned in my last cymbal post— it’s a new series I’m selling through my Cymbalistic site, and I’m really excited about them. I want one of these for […]