This from The Telegraph, a couple of years ago: ‘Drummers are natural intellectuals’ Drummers are better known for their beats than their brain power, but research has suggested that they might actually be natural intellectuals. […]
Category: drums
Billie’s Bounce deconstructed
That sounds a little sexier than it actually is- I was working on this tune with a student recently, and we ended up breaking it down phrase by phrase. I’ve written the lesson up for […]
How we used to learn the open roll
I just got a very nice note from Jim Buckley about the following comment of mine from the Drummerworld.com. Jim is a major figure in corps- he marched snare with Ghost in one of the […]
I love German drummers
First, the aptly-named Jaki Liebezeit of Can: Gunter Summer of Dresden, Germany’s answer to Tony Oxley, or maybe Hans Bennink: Paul Lovens doing a fun thing with Eugene Chadbourne: More after the break: More “Baby” […]
Dick Berk interview on the Jake Feinberg Show
Another great interview from the Jake Feinberg show, this time with Dick Berk of the prodigious ride cymbal. Dick was Billie Holliday’s last drummer (after Jo Jones left the group), in a band that also […]
The Hawaii 5-O fill
That’s the term I use for that universal 8th-grade-style fill down the toms effectively applied, ever since it was coined by Ralph Hardimon regarding a concert tom run of mine when I was in Santa […]
Quotable Bob Moses
A few stand-alone quotes from Drum Wisdom by Bob Moses: [T]ake one idea and expand it., instead of playing a lot of ideas. The greatest musicians are those who can take one idea and make […]
Transcription: Tony Williams – Madness – ride cymbal only
Madness is the first track I heard on the first Miles Davis record I actually went and bought- before that I just had the old copy of Kind of Blue from my dad’s record collection. […]
Jon Christiansen @ 4OTF
Go read this post about Jon Christiansen at Four on the Floor– I haven’t even had a chance to read it yet, but it doesn’t matter. One of the great facilitators in drumming, I think […]
Tony Williams clinic
Here’s the full 1’06” of Tony Williams’ performance/clinic at Zildjian Day in 1985. That was my Tony year, I guess- I got to see him give a clinic at PASIC in LA that year, where […]
Drummer/jazz musician interview archive
Here’s something well worth spending a few hours with- the podcast archive of the Jake Feinberg Show. Includes interviews with drummers Mickey Roker, and Ndugu Leon Chancler, as well as LA studio percussionist Emil Richards, […]
Todd’s methods: bongo beat
Here’s an easy system I developed for playing a generic Latin feel very bright tempos: A few notes there weren’t room for on the pdf: – Can be played very fast and very light. – […]