Another nice addition to your 5/4 practice library: Andrew Hare @ The Melodic Drummer has taken my Stick Control in 5/4 thing a step further, applying an Alan Dawson interpretation to it, filling in the […]
Category: downloads
Three Camps: all inversions in one
I was trying to work this up on the fly at the drum set, and it wasn’t happening, and I needed to write it out– so here we are. This is a slightly more practical […]
Hemiola basics
UPDATE: I have since written an updated version of this page. The hemiola— also called the 3:2 polyrhythm– is a basic polyrhythm using layered even two and three note rhythms. What I’ve done here is […]
Elvin’s Afro-Waltz: in 5/4, part 2
Man, I’ve been writing way too many words recently. Let’s get back to the drums. I’m still spending most of my time with page one of this series, but here’s another variation on the Elvin […]
Elvin’s afro-waltz: in 5/4
I’ve been working with Elvin’s waltz daily since I first posted about it, and have been getting great results- and not just with playing this particular type of feel. So let’s keep developing it. It […]
Inversions of Three Camps
So I have basically a one-track mind. Maybe a two-track mind. Three closely-related tracks. Right now it’s all the Elvin waltz and Three Camps. What we have here is a little thing I improvised while […]
Transcription: Elvin Jones – Out of this World
Here’s another example of Elvin Jones’ “afro-waltz”– as I keep calling it- from the intro of the tune Out of this World, from the John Coltrane album Coltrane: The dotted-8th/16th rhythm you see a couple […]
Developing Elvin’s Afro-Waltz, part 2
I’ve been doing a lot of this sort of thing in my own practicing lately- practicing snare drum variations vs. a cymbal/hihat/bass drum ostinato, via Dahlgren & Fine, and my own materials. Ralph Humphrey’s Even […]
5s around the drums
I’ve enjoying practicing my previous around-the-drums things so much, I thought I’d run it through a few iterations- similar to my multi-page paradiddle exercise– and see what we get. Today it’s 16th note 5s, using […]
Transcription: Paul Motian – Israel
UPDATE: Download link working now. Here are a couple of famous drum breaks by Paul Motian, from Israel, a 12 bar tune on Bill Evans’ Explorations; Motian and Evans trade choruses before the head out. […]
Basic beats
Here’s a rare bone for my younger/beginning-er readers. What we have here is a collection of basic “rock” beats- really they’re good for many/most varieties of popular music using the drum set. The names I’ve […]
Developing Elvin’s Afro-Waltz
Here’s a little something for developing the left hand using the feet-and-cymbal part from Elvin Jones’ groove on John Coltrane’s Your Lady. I always did that type of thing by just going for the sound […]