A little drum break and Latin groove from Art Blakey, on Safari, by Horace Silver, originally on Horace Silver Trio, vol. 1, on Blue Note. Originally a 78 release, actually— the recording is less than […]
Author: Todd Bishop
I'm a drummer, drum teacher, Origin recording artist, and visual artist living in Portland, Oregon.
Matt’s double bass drill – 01
One of my students is a Metal drummer, which is kind of unusual for me. Part of our lesson time is workshopping methods for improving his double bass drum technique. I’ve had him do a […]
Groove o’ the day: Jack Dejohnette – 47th Groove
This is from kind of a dark horse album, Irresistible Forces, by Jack Dejohnette’s Special Edition— under which name he released several records between 1980-94, with different lineups. I listened to the next record a […]
NEW BOOK: Rants – vol. 1
All right, here we go, my new book is DONE: Rants – vol. 1. Drummers, drum media, and the internetby Todd Bishop. 290 pages. Get it: on CYMBALISTIC | on LULU All right, here we […]
Subtractive method: EZ bossa system
A simple thing that works shockingly well for creating a functional bossa groove that breathes. You’ll recall that this “subtractive method” is a way of revoicing the rhythms in Syncopation, based on how they line […]
Page o’ coordination: Afro 6 with RH move – 01
Two of these in a row. I’m too occupied with finishing this new book— Rants, vol. 1— now at the critical “done, and it all looks wrong” stage of editing. So I need a few […]
Page o’ coordination: Afro 6 – new LH basics
Basic left hand variations with a basic form of the an Afro 6/8 groove, with the “short” bell rhythm. Finally updating a page I did way back in 2012, that I still use all the […]
Comping: triplets to 16ths – 01
A little companion to that butchery of the Chapin book I committed the other day. Here we’re starting with a single ordinary triplet pattern, and then showing some ways of converting it to straight 8ths […]
Transcription: Art Blakey – Boomerang
A left handed drum solo by Art Blakey, on Boomerang, from Blue Mitchell’s album Out Of The Blue. The solo is 32 bars long, with a stop on bar 32 for the horn pick ups […]
Chapin cut and paste – triplets to 16ths
I am a writing machine right now, people. Having redone my Cymbalistic site, and moved this site over to WordPress, I am now editing a new book, which I stand a chance of actually finishing […]
Page o’ coordination: Afro 6 – BD variations
OK, first new content post on the new platform. WordPress handles images a little differently, and it’s messing with my usual post design, so I’ll be fiddling with that a bit. I’ve been working with […]
Welcome to the new site
UPDATE: Naturally, there are some problematic things— a lot of my images from the old site are behaving strangely, so the older posts might not look real great. I’m probably going to be forced to […]