Continuing the concept of that last thing, Fills in a 3/8 framework. Here we’ve got four 8ths of space to deal with, a cymbal accent, and three 8ths of fill. I’m very pleased with how […]
Category: funk
Squarepusher beat
This came out of a mistake by a student, when we were working on some basic ghost note materials. Some things considered to be “advanced” come up naturally in the form of mistakes and general […]
Funk warmups – cymbal on offbeats
A page of groove fragments, really, for one of my students— to help get oriented working out of New Breed. We were having some difficulties with this particular cymbal rhythm. You could play this […]
Chaffee linear phrases – beginning with LH double
Getting back into Gary Chaffee’s linear materials a little bit— originally outlined in the Time Functioning volume of his Patterns series of books. Since first working on this system as a student, it has been a […]
Reed tweak: RH lead with single cym / flam
Yet another right hand lead Reed tweak— YART, or YARHLRT, for short. It’s a little convoluted, but works out a slightly different thing from the other systems/tweaks we’ve done, and I think it’s worthwhile. The […]
Transcription: Chester Thompson – Gibraltar
Here’s Chester Thompson playing on the tune Gibraltar, an extended groove number on the Weather Report album Black Market. The first thing I ever transcribed was Chester Thompson playing with Genesis, and I associate him […]
HOT TOPIC: beat displacement
Make them all go SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: I’m about to finish my out of town project that has been consuming a lot of my time, so hopefully we’ll resume regular posting soon. …aaaand I just got a […]
Reed tweak: linear fill in another setting
A similar item to another recent thing, with a Reed system I use pretty often, but don’t talk about much— with the hands plaing the book rhythm, and the bass drum filling in the spaces. […]
Daily best music in the world: four by Steve Gadd
Taking a moment to dispel a totally absurd impression of Steve Gadd that has somehow formed in recent years: that he is some kind of conservative “groove” player, which… …no. He’s extremely influential on the […]
Ndugu Leon Chancler with George Duke
Here’s a cool video of Ndugu Leon Chancler in the studio with George Duke, playing Dukey Stick, which ended up on his record Don’t Let Go. They start playing after about 1:45. The way Ndugu […]
Very occasional quote of the day: feel gotten with respect
From Vernon Reid’s Twitter feed: Funk ain’t easy. Many ASSUME that it is. Swing is complex, but it doesn’t grant carte blanche over other styles. Every idiom has its nuances that demand respect & attention […]