I wasn’t planning on making this part of this series, but it happened to come up. I was prepping for a recording session today which will involve a couple of tunes in 7/4, and I […]
Category: odd meters
Groove o’ the day: Billy Cobham in 7/8
Today we have another odd-meter Billy Cobham groove from the track “b. Spectrum” from his 1973 album Spectrum: He plays the unaccented notes stronger than is customary today, and puts a light accent on the […]
Cracking 5/4: the basics
It took me a long time to come around to accepting the type of method we’re going to use here; for years the Syncopation-based interpretive method– in which you think more like a horn player, […]
Cracking 5/4: the library
Essential. Again following my normal process of doing the easy stuff first, here is the library of practice materials I’ve used for finally getting my act together in 5/4. Normally you would put this at […]
Cracking 5/4: listening
Here’s the first in a series on playing in 5/4. Since everything in music follows from listening (and this is the easiest type of post for me to write), we’ll start with some recorded examples: […]
More Stick Control in 5/4
Another nice addition to your 5/4 practice library: Andrew Hare @ The Melodic Drummer has taken my Stick Control in 5/4 thing a step further, applying an Alan Dawson interpretation to it, filling in the […]
Elvin’s Afro-Waltz: in 5/4, part 2
Man, I’ve been writing way too many words recently. Let’s get back to the drums. I’m still spending most of my time with page one of this series, but here’s another variation on the Elvin […]
Elvin’s afro-waltz: in 5/4
I’ve been working with Elvin’s waltz daily since I first posted about it, and have been getting great results- and not just with playing this particular type of feel. So let’s keep developing it. It […]
5s around the drums
I’ve enjoying practicing my previous around-the-drums things so much, I thought I’d run it through a few iterations- similar to my multi-page paradiddle exercise– and see what we get. Today it’s 16th note 5s, using […]
Transcription: Jon Christensen – Dansere
This goes out to my old friend Tim Willcox, who turned me on to this record- Jan Garbarek’s Dansere, with Jon Christensen on drums. Christensen is pretty important to the current thing going on in […]
Groove(s) o’ the day: Jocko Homo
Another curiosity for the groove o’ the day, and the first drum beat I ever learned: Jocko Homo by Devo. Drums by… I forget if it was Bob 1 or Bob 2 [UPDATE: Oh, it […]
Todd’s Methods: Stick Control in 5
So much for writing nothing. I’ve been doing a lot of practicing in 5/4 lately- I’ve always quite sucked at it, frankly- and finally getting it together for real has been a curious process. Very […]