Extending this coordination series a little further, way out there into 4/4. What he have here is a little Elvin Jones-like phrase, ending with an accent on the & of 4, with a space at […]
Category: exercises
Bembe Wheel coordination
Here are some generic snare drum and bass drum coordination/performance patterns for use with the bell patterns in the Bembe Wheel. Each one of those patterns deserves at least one individually-tailored “page o’ coordination”, but […]
Page o’ coordination: “Baby” groove
Well, it took long enough, but I finally have a name for the post-Elvin phase of this coordination series. I don’t expect many people will follow me down this particular rabbit hole, but whatever. This […]
Basic 16th note rhythms
Have I ever told you I like using the easy parts of Syncopation? Here’s part 2 of that library piece from the other day, in this case converting the quarter note exercises to 16th notes […]
5/4 jazz ostinato with snare drum — 01
Another in the Dahlgren & Fine-esque, post Elvin’s Afro-Waltz series of stuff, here with a slightly more normal jazz ostinato. I keep writing these because I like practicing them, and learning them gets a lot […]
Basic 8th note rhythms
This is a straight library piece— I’ve just transcribed the quarter note exercises from Reed into 8th notes in cut time, which will be more useful to me than the original. This same basic collection […]
Cracking 5/4: feet ostinatos
In adapting the blog post Cracking 5/4: the basics for the upcoming 2012 Book of the Blog, I noticed an an ugly gap in my materials— for that portion I suggested you get your patterns […]
Elvin-like 5/4
Here’s another in this fairly massive Elvin series, which I wrote to develop this unusual cymbal pattern in 5/4, with the 8th notes on beats 3 and 5. The first measure is the cymbal-and-feet ostinato, […]
Another samba builder
Our previous “samba builder” was very batucada-focused (and probably in need of an update); this has more to do with samba as played on the drums, like in our Milton Banana pieces. The method is straightforward; […]
Dahlgren & Fine in 5/4
This is a way of playing 4-Way Coordination, by Marvin Dahlgren & Elliot Fine, which I’ve been using while playing along with Jan Garbarek’s Dansere, and Gary Burton’s Mevlevia— most of 4WC is just too […]
Survival chops: right hand lead
This is the second in an extremely short series covering the bare essentials of what you need for “drumistic” fill, variation, and solo material across a variety of styles— you can read the intro to […]
8th notes around the drums — one hand
Here’s a conditioning page of 8ths notes played around the drums, with one hand. It’s easy enough that most drummers should be able to learn it well enough to play the page straight down in […]