Another one of my hack and slash jobs. This is something I improvised in a lesson— a student is working on some of the Pages o’ Coordination in 5/4, based on an Elvin Jones groove, […]
Very occasional quote of the day: productivity
If people saw the way I lived, they’d realize that I spend a huge amount of time just relaxing and goofing off, watching baseball on television, going to movies, taking walks, playing jazz, and practicing […]
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 […]
How to stop – 01
Kind of a mundane item here— a multi-parter, believe it or not— mainly for teachers, about handling ordinary materials in a more real-life musical way, including how to stop in the conversation. Younger students and […]
Very occasional quote of the day: Grady Tate on reading
“I never dealt with drum music as such, because ninety-five percent of it had nothing to do with what’s happening in the band. So many people have destroyed their careers by reading exactly what’s written […]
Open handed redux
This but just me looking like an A-hole This is a long one. This is what happens every time the subject of “open handed” drumming is raised online— a kind of church revival of drumming […]
Syncopation Ex. 1 – modified for speed
Another one of my cut and paste jobs, this time inflicted on Syncopation Exercise 1, from Reed. P. 37 or 38, depending on the edition. I’ve modified it so there are no more than two […]
Andy Newmark’s set up
Pilfered from a Modern Drummer interview in 1984, here is Andy Newmark talking about his drumming set up. He’s a session drummer, and was real active in the 70s and 80s especially. I excerpted some […]
YouTube solo analyzed
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 […]