This has been a lurking annoyance for me for a long time: students don’t know how to read basic rhythms in 6/8… any of the */8 meters. It looks weird and is often explained poorly, […]
Category: EZ methods
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. […]
Double time rock beats
Easy page of double time rock beats. We’re playing a little bit of a mind game here to get people to play these beats fast enough, since a lot of students get married to one […]
Maximizing syncopation rhythms
This is something I was doing with a Skype student recently. We’re working on jazz solo vocabulary, currently getting fluent with common jazz rhythms using basic drum set orchestrations— developing a basic Billy Higgins/Frankie Dunlop-like […]
List of basic orchestrations of a syncopated rhythm
This is just a one-page summary of elementary drum set orchestrations of a syncopated rhythm, written Ted Reed-style. I’m teaching my simple solo method to a couple of students, so a printed list of the […]
A simple solo method
Here’s a simple, non-technical solo method I was just working on with a student… …a SKYPE student… did you know I teach lessons via Skype? I do. Anything you ever have questions about on the […]
Basic short roll studies with continuous motion
UPDATE: Download link is working! I’ve got to stop putting “EZ” on every single normal-difficulty thing I post. This is an easy page of roll studies I wrote to prepare a couple of younger students to […]
More practice phrases for EZ fills
Here are some more practice phrases to use with my page of EZ one-beat fills with tom moves, in a fast 4/4, and a slower tempo with the fill in 32nd notes. On the original page, the […]
EZ rock drill: cut time / fast 4
This is a fast tempo rock exercise I’ve been using with a couple of students; it combines my EZ rock beat method, and my cut time rock method. It’s very basic, but it will help […]
EZ triplet bass drum / cymbal drill
Do you think most of what you play in real life is hip, complicated, multi-layered, polyrhythmic, hybrid-rudimental madness? Sir, it is not. Most of what you play is normal, obvious, easy stuff. You want to […]
EZ uptempo jazz method – 02
It’s not so much a method as it is “some things to try”, using pp. 10-11 (“Lesson 4”) in Ted Reed’s Syncopation. Last time we looked at ways of making a broken time feel using […]
EZ uptempo jazz method – 01
There is at least one other EZ uptempo jazz method— oh look, here’s another one— but this one is first in a series of similar things I’m writing now. If you learn to be creative […]