I am interested in helping you keep your practice from becoming impure.– Shunruyu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind At the same time, they praised him when he didn’t deserve it. “I’d have games when I’d […]
Category: combo playing
Essential listening for combo playing
Listening to jazz records for the specific purpose of knowing what you’re doing playing in a combo setting— playing “regular” mainstream jazz. We’ll leave listening related to very modern playing as a separate topic. And […]
Conductor of form
The general topic here is jazz comping— some general concepts thereof, getting into what I think is missing from a lot of students’ playing, even as they do the basic thing pretty well. The following […]
Very occasional quote of the day: listening
“Listening is the whole thing. I’ll tell you exactly how I play. My whole approach to playing is reaction. I don’t listen to myself play. I’m not aware of myself because I’m too busy listening […]
Very occasional quote of the day: space to contribute
“The way guys like Bud Powell shaped their solos, they automatically left spaces for the drummers to contribute. A lot of times today, in student performers, I don’t hear that space being offered, because they’re […]
Playing in 2
I got a nice note from Ben at the excellent Melbourne Drumming Online blog (adding him to the blogroll- be sure to pay him a visit), requesting that I write something about playing in 2- […]
Some of them just can’t count.
There’s a great extended piece over at Four on the Floor on the subject of form in soloing, and how to hip the other musicians to the fact you are adhering to it: Of course […]