Elaborating on a question I answered on a forum— someone was asking about the playing in the video below. Here is a little bit of analysis of it, and some suggestions about how you should […]
Transcription: Charli Persip blues
Charli Persip playing a medium blues with Oliver Nelson: J&B, from Nelson’s 1961 record Main Stem. Persip is really enjoyable to listen to, and has a little bit of Roy Haynes’s edgy, modern thing happening. […]
Pulse memory
From one of the better YouTube channels, for bassists, here’s a video on the subject of time, in which the guy works through practicing with a slow click— which I highly recommend, practicing with the […]
Messing with the EAD 10
I got a Yamaha EAD 10 recently— a popular interface/recording device for making drum cover videos. It’s suddenly clear why there has been such a proliferation of those videos— there’s infrastructure for it now. You […]
Transcription: Billy Higgins – Blackjack
Billy Higgins playing on a funky vamp with some kicks in it, on Blackjack, from Donald Byrd’s album of the same name. It sticks with the rhythm figure all the way through, and Higgins plays […]
EZ fast rock – 02
The first EZ fast rock page was a hit with my students, so here’s another like it, more in a fill/variation direction. Combining patterns to make two-measure phrases, most of these will be the second […]
All American Drummer Solo No. 128
Here’s a raggedy little video I made of Solo No. 128 from Wilcoxon’s All American Drummer— in response to an online question. Never played it before, I worked it up in about 15 minutes. Tempo […]
One note / two notes
A little rhythm project, building rhythms based on sequences of one and two notes, spaced in a natural way for one hand— bell rhythms, essentially. It’s a good approach for teaching people who are new […]
Daily best music in the world: Tootie with McCoy
Here’s a nice performance on brushes by Tootie Heath, on Five Spot After Dark, from McCoy Tyner’s album Today And Tomorrow. I don’t know how it passed under my radar that he died just last […]
Concert piano clickbait
Here’s an interesting YouTube account, giving concert piano the full clickbait treatment. It’s kind of fascinating, applying all the usual BS traffic-baiting moves to this area of music, that is nothing if not highly serious— […]
RIP David Sanborn
So long to the saxophonist David Sanborn. He was one of the great lovers of all kinds of music— you can watch his show Night Music on YouTube, it was on in 1988-90, and he brought on […]