If you’ve been using the pages o’ coordination we’ve been doing around here, you’re going to like what Sam Nadel has been posting recently— a whole bunch of stuff on playing in 5/4. He doesn’t […]
Category: odd meters
Groove o’ the day: Blues in Elf
Here’s something from what I’m hoping will be the second volume of books of 100 Grooves, this time dealing with odd meters— we’ll see if I can track down enough interesting things to merit a […]
Phrases for Chaffee linear patterns: 5/4
Here are some practice phrases for the Gary Chaffee linear patterns, this time in 5/4, in 8th notes, triplets, and 16th notes. I can’t promise I’ve covered every possible combination, but, my God, if you […]
Transcription: Ralph Humphrey — Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow
Here’s a nice introduction to rock in drumming in 7: Ralph Humphrey’s part from Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow, from Apostrophe by Frank Zappa. I go way back with this song, to 1974 when I […]
Odd meter samba?
This line from Peter Erskine’s The Drum Perspective is pretty much an instant classic: I’ve felt strongly, for a long time now, that instead of seducing and encouraging the younger and learning drummer to practice, […]
5/4 jazz ostinato with snare drum — 01
Another in the Dahlgren & Fine-esque, post Elvin’s Afro-Waltz series of stuff, here with a slightly more normal jazz ostinato. I keep writing these because I like practicing them, and learning them gets a lot […]
Groove o’ the day: Whipping Post
Extraordinarily busy this week, but there’s always time for a groove o’ the day, so here’s Whipping Post, by the Allman Brothers. Butch Trucks and Jaimoe Johnson are on drums, apparently playing basically in unison. […]
Now you’re talking
Here’s what I like to see— London drummer/blogger Sam Yadel has adapted Alan Dawson’s “Rudimental Ritual” into 5/4: I’m not much of a RR guy— it was just never a part of the drumming culture […]
Cracking 5/4: feet ostinatos
In adapting the blog post Cracking 5/4: the basics for the upcoming 2012 Book of the Blog, I noticed an an ugly gap in my materials— for that portion I suggested you get your patterns […]
Elvin-like 5/4
Here’s another in this fairly massive Elvin series, which I wrote to develop this unusual cymbal pattern in 5/4, with the 8th notes on beats 3 and 5. The first measure is the cymbal-and-feet ostinato, […]
Transcription: Tony Williams — Hat And Beard
We do all the hits here— this is another very famous piece of drumming, by Tony Williams, on Eric Dolphy’s Out To Lunch. The tune is the very unusual Hat And Beard, which is in […]
Dahlgren & Fine in 5/4
This is a way of playing 4-Way Coordination, by Marvin Dahlgren & Elliot Fine, which I’ve been using while playing along with Jan Garbarek’s Dansere, and Gary Burton’s Mevlevia— most of 4WC is just too […]