I’m working on putting last year’s transcriptions into book form today- which, thanks to the miracle of online publishing, should be available for you to purchase shortly. So you’ll just have to enjoy these two […]
Category: drums
Paradiddle-diddle method for uptempo jazz
This is something I developed for both for getting some relief while playing fast tempos, and for doing a modern feel without getting your cymbal pattern lost in the weeds. The seed of the idea […]
Todd’s paradiddle-diddle interpretation
This is the first practice method for the pages of syncopation exercises I posted the other day. Today I’ll give it to you just for the hands only, then later I’ll show you how I […]
Dave Tough’s Advanced Paradiddle Exercises
Here’s an out-of-print classic, scanned and made available for download thanks to Denver drummer Todd Reid. God knows if it will ever be made commercially available again, or if anyone even owns the copyright, so […]
Syncopation exercises with dotted quarter notes
This is one of many pages of original Syncopation variants I’ve written up, in this case restricted to combinations of dotted quarter notes, quarter notes, and single 8th notes. I’ve devised a few interpretive methods […]
Groove o’ the day: Billy Cobham in 17/16
I present this just as a curiosity, because I’ve never encountered this meter anywhere before (maybe in a percussion ensemble piece?). But you can see how we usually deal with the odd #/16 meters; often […]
Batucada on the drum set
We haven’t done anything new with samba in awhile, because I’m still digesting all of the stuff we’ve done previously. But here’s something new that came up yesterday, using open and muffled tones on the […]
Transcription: three Philly Joe intros
Must do shorter, faster posts. That last one took way too many hours. Here: Get the pdf Get Dance of the Infidels | get Hank by Hank Mobley Get I’ll Never Smile Again | get […]
On “feathering” the bass drum
what is this The word refers to playing quarter notes lightly on the bass drum as part of your jazz time feel. They used to call this playing the bass drum— I never heard the […]
Brushes… fast… hoo…
As I finish up the thing I’m working on, do yourself a favor and visit The Melodic Drummer for an excellent post on playing brushes at really, really fast tempos. You can also brush up […]
Transcription: one hour with Live Evil
This morning I sat down with one of my favorite pieces of music- Sivad, from Miles Davis’ Live Evil, with Jack Dejohnette on drums- to see what I could do with it in a reasonable […]
Dahlgren & Fine and me
4-Way Coordination by Dahlgren & Fine is a major piece of drumming literature that I’ve always had a lot of problems using. There’s been a lot of discussion about it on the Drummerworld forum lately, […]