What does it do? Right up front: in playing the drums, the left foot is basically subservient. A lot of people vaguely suspect they’re not doing enough with it. Some go on to become fixated […]
Category: hihat
Unpacking a groove: Predator
I’m getting into some finer points of playing the hihat two handed with a younger student, and was tempted to show him a groove I transcribed a long time ago: Predator, played by Omar Hakim […]
Transcription: Elvin plays in 2
A little transcription of Elvin Jones playing in 2, on the hihat, on the head of Foolin’ Myself from the Lee Konitz album Motion. In case you’re short of comping ideas, or phrasing ideas when […]
Subtractive patterns for jazz hihat
What this new subtractive method is good for: making it easy to create and communicate rather specific, specialized orchestration/voicing systems on the drum set. Like, for the hihat in jazz— I have never cared for […]
The three bloggers: the left foot, the hihat
New series: Fellow drumming bloggers Jon McCaslin (Four On The Floor), Ted Warren (Trap’d), and I are colluding on a series of posts, in which each of us independently write about the same topic. Whatever drumming-related […]
Groove o’ the day: Neftali Santiago — Too Late
Because I don’t think your funk is 70s is enough, here’s some more Mandrill, with one of the greatest-named drummers ever, Neftali Santiago. And just a great drummer, period. This is Too Late, from the […]
Page o’ coordination: hihat splash in 5/4
Here’s the disconcerting third dropped shoe in this recent spate of hihat splash pages o’…, now in 5/4, and I… Wow, I think that may be the ugliest, most incomprehensible sentence I’ve ever written. I’m […]
Page o’ coordination: hihat splash in 3/4 — 02
Hey, I kind of like these things— we’ll see several more pages o’… with hihat splashes, in the near future. This format has become one of the major things we do here, as I’ve had […]
Page o’ coordination: hihat splash
Here’s a relatively easy jazz waltz page o’ coordination, with a minor twist— we’ll be incorporating an open sound on the hihat, played with the foot. This is a jazz feel, so swing the 8th […]
A few new vintage Paistes
I guess the 80’s is vintage now. In the past few years I’ve been rebuilding my cymbal collection, after ruthlessly disposing of a lot of things during a lean patch, and have largely been focusing […]
Playing in 2
I got a nice note from Ben at the excellent Melbourne Drumming Online blog (adding him to the blogroll- be sure to pay him a visit), requesting that I write something about playing in 2- […]
On “open-handed” drumming
Fine, now spend another hundred years learning to do it almost as well with your left hand. This is a discussion I have to re-litigate on the internet every six months or so: the “open […]