This has turned into an elegant little exercise. Paradiddle-diddles have long been bailout pattern of choice for fast tempos— the thing you play to rest your hand a little bit, and break things up. Bob […]
Category: fast tempos
Very occasional quote of the day: Max fast – 02
SF: Some of the tempos that you play are lightning fast. MR: That’s done through combinations though! No one limb is overworking. There’s a way that it works itself out so that all the weight […]
Other things besides speed
A lot of us have very limited imaginations about how to get better playing the drums— basically, do it faster and that’s it. There are other things— sound, dynamics, touch, a number of musical considerations. […]
Daily best music in the world: Louis Hayes with Cannonball
Here’s an item from jazz writer Mark Stryker, which caught Peter Erksine’s attention on Twitter. Cannonball Adderley playing a fast tempo with Louis Hayes on drums, on an Adderley record I’ve never owned, Nippon Soul. […]
Two handed brush variations for fast tempos
UPDATE: I added some video of me practicing this. I’ve been practicing my fast tempos lately, both with sticks and brushes. I’m talking about jazz, tempos above ~290 bpm. I haven’t had to do a […]
Know your tempos: Workin’ / Steamin’ / Cookin’ / Relaxin’
You can buy them all in one collection now. Hey, we haven’t done one of these in a while. All the tempos from four very famous Miles Davis records, with his very famous quintet from the […]
Reed tweak: yet another uptempo method
Minor tweak to an ordinary right hand lead Reed system, making an approach to playing jazz at fast tempos. I’ve probably written something like this before, I can’t be bothered to check. This way has […]
Transcription: Billy Higgins trading
Some uptempo trading 8s and 4s on Moose the Mooche, from an old favorite album, Wish by Joshua Redman, with Pat Metheny and Charlie Haden, and Billy Higgins on drums. I used to play along […]
EZ Fast Rock Lesson
This page functions both as a page of easy stuff for beginners, and as basic vocabulary for fast-tempo rock drumming. There are a lot of patterns, deliberately. This’ll be many students’ first shot at processing […]
Uptempo drill a la Riley
Major rehash alert: an uptempo jazz drill I was playing yesterday, using what John Riley once called “my C major scale”: an SSBB pattern in 8th notes, with notes omitted. The page below is very […]
Transcription: Ndugu Leon Chancler – Man in the Green Shirt
Quick little transcription that includes one of the great opening drum fills ever— Ndugu Leon Chancler playing Man in the Green Shirt, from Weather Report’s album Tale Spinnin’. I’ve just written out the opening, some […]
Plain talk about fast tempos
“Billy, can we talk?” Henry Fonda time. I see we need to have this talk again. Everybody wants to talk about ride cymbal technique for blazing tempos. A little perspective on the subject: About 15 […]