In case you were playing through part 1 and wondering what the big deal is, here’s the actual thing. It looks complicated because there’s a lot of ink on the page, but each step of […]
Category: downloads
More Reggae lead-ins
Here’s a nice companion for my transcription of Sly Dunbar intros from his recordings with Serge Gainsbourg. These are some drum lead-ins from a weird little record by a 70’s London group called Creation Rebel, […]
Todd’s methods: triplet funk with Reed
I guess it’s going to be nothing but Todd’s-this/Todd’s-that this week. Fine. This is preparation for an old thing of mine I was just working through with a returning student, and I realized I had […]
Todd’s waltz
Or, the presumptuously-named Todd’s waltz, as I call it. I’m not attempting to claim the radical innovation of adding a hihat on the & of 3, it’s just how I often play a waltz, and […]
Four in three in four in 4/4
This an item inspired by Elvin Jones’ rolling triplet thing, written by my friend Stephen Pancerev- we just spent an afternoon rifling through his notebooks of original exercises, cryptic scribblings, etc, and this is the […]
Six stroke rolls around the drums
I’m just cranking them out today. I’ve been using the last paradiddles around the drums thing so much I decided to write up something similar using another familiar solo pattern, the six stroke roll (as […]
Groove o’ the day: Freddie Waits
This is a hip stick-and-brush thing Freddie Waits plays on the intro to If You Go Away, from Ray Bryant’s 1967 album Slow Freight. The regular note heads on the snare drum line are played […]
Kernels of Cascara
My students have been doing so well with my “kernels” concept that I’ve decided to write up a real challenge for them: cascara with the clave in the left foot. It was the hip thing […]
MD column: hi-hat technique
OK, I’m not meaning to turn this into a fair-use abusing, exclusively old Modern Drummer stuff blog, but a longer post is taking its sweet time getting finished, and this is just what I happen […]
First-inversion paradiddles around the drums
2024 UPDATE: Wow, this page looks like crap. See my new bigger and better page of this. This came up in my own practice today— straight conditioning movements around the drums, using the very traditional […]
Stick Control implied rhythms
I hope you dig all of this Stick Control stuff; I just happen to be working with this book a lot right now. One of my reservations I’ve always had about it- about the way […]
Grooves o’ the day: found items
[UPDATE: Link fixed!] I found these inside an old copy of Mel Bay’s Stage Band Drummers’ Guide I just purchased on Ebay: two pages of beats cut out of 1984 issues of Modern Drummer. I […]