More good stuff from Bang! The Drum School- a fun page of Max Roach-inspired fills. I like this kind of thing for just practicing getting around the drums- something I never actually did in isolation, […]
Category: exercises
Kristen’s rock micro-syllabus
Here I’ve written up a thing I’ve been doing verbally with Kristen, one of my 6th grade students, to acquaint with some of the basic moves in rock-style drumming. Our method has been to run […]
Matt’s paradiddle thing
This is a straightforward paradiddle exercise I wrote up for one of my students. It ends up a pretty robust page of stuff when you run it in the sequences. Practice each measure individually, then […]
Todd’s methods: same-handed flam accents
This is something that came organically out of my own playing- it came up again and again in improvising for years before I finally analyzed it. The only place I’ve seen it mentioned since is […]
Todd’s Methods: adding bass and snare to samba cruzado
Well, we’re all samba all the time around here these days, but what the heck- the point of this enterprise is for me to post things I’m interested in, and working on, and right now […]
Caixa blow out: part 1
Here are a couple of pages of caixa (that’s a Brazilian snare drum) patterns which are in common use in Portland, along with some of their variations from other sources. Includes a partial illustration of […]
Todd’s methods: 11-note pattern – part 1
This is part one of something I’ve written up strictly for my own practice, but others may be able to use it as a guide for developing and exploring their own ideas. Or maybe someone […]
16th note fills using Syncopation – part 2
Here’s part 2 of my method for practicing 16th note fills using Syncopation. The goal is to practice reading interpretively, and also to give you a framework for working on the timing of your fills […]
Transcription: Max Roach – Garvey’s Ghost
Here’s my brand new transcription of Max Roach’s drum solo over an Afro-Cuban vamp on Garvey’s Ghost, from Roach’s Percussion Bitter Suite. Includes a sample of the backing vamp, and of the drums on the […]
Todd’s Methods: Samba builder
Here’s a little method I improvised for developing some flexibility with the samba- I put this together pretty quickly away from the drums, so I’m sure I’ll add to it as I work with it […]
Page o’ Gadd
Still slow getting my own stuff completed this week, so instead you’ll have to enjoy this nice page of Steve Gadd motifs from Bang! the Drum School, a Brooklyn teaching studio. They have a blog […]