Rounding up my current views and practices on the subject rhythm and time, in teaching and practicing: knowing rhythm, holding a tempo in playing. This is mostly about beginner to intermediate level students. A lot […]
Groove o’ the day: Billy Cobham – White Rabbit
Here’s Flamenco beat played by Billy Cobham on a cover of the Jefferson Airplane song White Rabbit, from George Benson’s album of the same name. I’ve been listening to it on my drives to Eugene […]
Reed interpretation: short rolls
An easy thing to do with Syncopation, adding short rolls. This will be a no-brainer any time you want to work on your rolls without a lot of extraneous stuff, using familiar materials. I wrote […]
Reading round up
I’ve been using my pages of syncopation rhythms a lot in teaching lately— similar to what’s in Ted Reed, but written for a specific purpose, either for a specific drum set application, or to do […]
Family matters
The following may not be of a lot interest to everyone, but that’s what www.blogspot.com is all about. So stand by, we’ll get back to drum stuff soon enough. I’ve been dealing with some family […]
Marvin Dahlgren video channel
Everybody’s going to want to check this out: Marv’s Legacy, a new(ish?) YouTube video channel with Marvin Dahlgren talking about practicing his books— Four Way Coordination, Accent On Accents, Drum Set Control, etc. I’ve only […]
Chaffee linear system: alternative 4s/6s
Something I’ve been playing with— as you know, Gary Chaffee’s linear system is based on 3-8 note patterns, starting with the right hand, alternating sticking, ending with one or two bass drum notes. I don’t […]
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 […]
Quintuplet jazz? – 02 – bass drum added
Continuing that suspect page of jazz rhythms in quintuplets, here are some more practice patterns with bass drum added: See that post view from the outside of a swing feel for some explanation of this […]
Transcription: Elvin Jones – Foolin’ Myself – 04
UPDATE: Boy I suck. This is of course the third solo chorus, and the fourth total entry in this series. I’ll fix that… sometime. Continuing that Elvin Jones transcription from late last year— Elvin Jones playing […]
Charleston inversions
Kicking off 2023 with a library item— file this with the pages of tresillo/cinquillo inversions, and this page. The Charleston rhythm is a form of the tresillo rhythm that found its way into mainstream American popular […]
Practice loop: medium bossa
Probably my only post this week— we’re having a wild end of 2022 around here, with my family experiencing an ongoing medical emergency, and I’m having to travel to Eugene a lot. So here’s a […]