After doing this feature for about five years, I finally get around to doing a basic jazz waltz. Doing easy stuff wasn’t supposed to be its purpose, but it’s a familiar format, and not everyone […]
Category: exercises
Syncopation p. 37: rub-a-dub method, mach 1
Now this is the level of drum geekery I aspire to, with the defiantly gibberish post title, and everything. I was writing out a very laborious explanation of the next steps in my evolving quasi-Mel Lewis […]
Chaffee linear patterns in context – 02
Yes, I’m determined to finally resolve some minor issues I have in practicing Gary Chaffee’s linear thing. Today let’s work through a short phrase that will be useful in jazz settings, starting after the 1, […]
Chaffee linear patterns in context – 01
Gary Chaffee’s linear system— found in book 3 of his Patterns series— is a major entry in the literature of drumming, but it has always felt unfinished to me. There are some extra steps required […]
Chop busters in 5/8 – 01
Hey, two odd meter things in two days. I’ve really turned around my thinking on the value of this subject— it really forces you to have a heightened awareness of rhythm, which is a good […]
Page o’ coordination: RLH in 3
Slightly different format for a Page o’coordination. Usually we have an ostinato with a variable left hand part; here the cymbal part and bass drum part change. This is sort of an appendix to some things […]
Figure Control: 4/4 – Nexus riff
Let’s do one of these for the rhythm in the Nexus practice loop. You’ll recall, with this Funk Control / Figure Control series what I do is take a single performance rhythm and put a […]
Page o’ coordination: cymbal on the &s
Please forgive my lack of posting— I’ve been spending this last week on video and cymbal related stuff. As I mentioned before, soon we’re a) adding video, and b) selling Cymbal & Gong cymbals through […]
Stick control patterns in 9/8
Oh, fine: here are some stick control patterns in 9/8, for practicing with the Bill Frisell loop from the other day: You can scour these posts for ways of applying these patterns to the drum […]
Three Camps syncopated – 01
Yet another variation on the traditional snare drum piece Three Camps, adding a simple syncopation on the third beat of the first, second, and fourth measures of each phrase. It’s kind of hip: Memorize this […]
Page o’ coordination: jazz waltz with feet in unison – syncopated
I realized while running through these other recent jazz waltz POCs with the syncopated polyrhythmic thing in the feet, these things are kind of hard, actually! So I wrote up this page, that’s a little […]
EZ RH/RF lick in 16th notes
More easy rock stuff, this time developing a basic RH/RF pattern in 16th notes, adding various left hand parts, and moves between drums and cymbals: Play all of the exercises many times, then improvise combinations. […]