I was rooting around in my music listening to ride cymbal sounds, and was surprised to find, in pretty short order, a number of things similar to Tony Williams’s famous cymbal— similar to it, or […]
From the zone: Zappa transcription project
Daniel Bédard in Montréal did a really cool project: “I challenged myself in trying to transcribe one FZ song a week for a year. That year came to an end last September and due to […]
The three bloggers: the left foot, the hihat
New series: Fellow drumming bloggers Jon McCaslin (Four On The Floor), Ted Warren (Trap’d), and I are colluding on a series of posts, in which each of us independently write about the same topic. Whatever drumming-related […]
Service announcement
Sorry for the lack of posts– I have a ton of stuff lined up, including a big sale on cymbals, but there’s a massive internet service outage in Portland thanks to an ice storm. And […]
New rudiment: Swisscues
New rudiment time: a flam rudiment combining a Swiss Triplet and a Flamacue. It’s so basic I can’t imagine it doesn’t already exist somewhere, but I’m not digging through the lists of 50,000 hybrid rudiments […]
CYMBALISTIC: Leon Collection specials coming soon!
NEWS: Cymbal & Gong is blowing out a little bit of old stock from their master smith’s personal line of cymbals, the Leon Collection, and so, my humble dealership CYMBALISTIC will soon be offering some big […]
Transcription: Elvin Jones – Chasin’ the Trane – 07
I’m finally half done with this. This project is definitely streamlining my transcription methods. I use the program Transcribe, and loop two measures at a time, usually starting with the playback speed at 75%. Everything […]
Page o’ coordination: grocery store hemiola – 01
So-called because I found myself unconsciously tapping this out in the grocery store parking lot while waiting for them to bring out my groceries. …incidentally, for the sake of limiting your exposure to COVID-19, I […]
Griener on stick selection
Here’s a forum comment by our friend Michael Griener in Berlin, which I wanted to preserve on this site. Michael is an excellent, very active drummer in Germany and throughout Central Europe, in jazz and […]
Velocity stickings for Syncopation, Lesson 10
For a couple of my students I’ve written a set of velocity stickings to use with Lesson 10 (pp. 22-23) in Syncopation. They’re designed to be played fast, hey? These will be a godsend for […]
Transcription: Elvin Jones – Chasin’ the Trane – 06
Part 6 of the Chasin’ the Trane transcription project. Elvin Jones playing on that eternal classic track from John Coltrane Live at the Village Vanguard. My head isn’t fully back into this series, so I […]
Philly Joe kicks and set ups
Companion to the Philly Joe Jones appreciation from the other day— I’ve transcribed some kicks and setups from the tune Soft Winds, from Chet Baker In New York. Jones plays figures all through the head; the time […]