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Category: patterns

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Extending a pattern – RLB
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Extending a pattern – RLB

  • August 9, 2025
  • 0

An item I was working on with a student— playing a simple pattern, and growing it by doubling some notes, or repeating two notes. We’ve seen most of the patterns before, this is just an […]

  • Billy Cobham
  • downloads
  • Milt Jackson
  • patterns
  • transcription

Transcription: Billy Cobham – For Someone I Love

  • September 6, 2024
  • 0

Here’s that Billy Cobham transcription— just of a busy portion of Freddie Hubbard’s solo on For Someone I Love, on Milt Jackson’s record Sunflower. I’m learning a lot about Musescore doing something this damn complicated.  […]

  • Billy Cobham
  • paradiddles
  • patterns
  • solo materials
  • transcriptions

Billy, switch to decaf babe

  • September 5, 2024
  • 0

Getting cocky about my Musescore skills now, working on a Billy Cobham transcription, from Milt Jackson’s album Sunflower. On the tune For Someone I Love, he does sort of an insane thing that almost crashes […]

  • 12/8
  • downloads
  • fills
  • jazz
  • patterns
  • slow tempos
  • triplets

Embellished filler with RH lead triplets – 01

  • March 30, 2024
  • 0

I’m pretty sure I’ve written something like this before, but navigating my voluminous archives is no easier for me than it is for you. This is a sketch of some ideas in an upcoming[??? -tb] […]

  • patterns
  • practice pad
  • snare drum
  • Stick Control
  • stickings
  • Stone

Stick Control with short bell logic

  • February 10, 2022
  • 0

Another one of my little photoshop gags— I edited a jpeg of the first page of exercises in Stick Control to follow the logic of the Afro “short bell” pattern*, which has beats 1 and 4 […]

  • fives
  • jazz
  • patterns
  • Todd's 11-note pattern
  • Todd's patterns

Todd’s five-note pattern

  • January 30, 2022
  • 0

Here’s a five note pattern that I play all the time, without ever knowing what I’m doing with it. I’ve written about a couple of these accidental items before— an 11 note pattern and my grocery […]

  • downloads
  • exercises
  • linear
  • paradiddles
  • patterns
  • solo materials

Paradiddle inversion with bass drum substitutions

  • October 1, 2021
  • 0

Something I was playing around with yesterday, substituting bass drum for some notes of the extremely useful RLLR-LRRL paradiddle inversion. These are good for playing fast.  The last three patterns don’t follow the exact sticking […]

  • downloads
  • ECM
  • exercises
  • EZ ECM
  • Jack Dejohnette
  • non-independent drumming
  • patterns

Dejohnette patterns

  • August 3, 2021
  • 0

UPDATE: Oops, there’s a duplicate pattern in there— I think pattern 9 happens three times. And I got sloppy with my beaming standard. Oh well, it happens when you’re rushing to post stuff.    Some […]

  • downloads
  • exercises
  • odd meters
  • patterns
  • stickings

Another set of patterns for improvisation

  • November 13, 2020
  • 0

File this in the same category as the recent “extended shuffle” stickings page— it’s a unified set of patterns based on a simple idea, organized to make them easy to improvise with. They’re not new […]

  • cut time funk
  • downloads
  • exercises
  • EZ methods
  • funk
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  • Stick Control
  • Stone
  • Stone on drumset
  • Todd's Methods

Stick Control patterns for a certain type of funk

  • November 4, 2020
  • 2

 A thing we do here is to rewrite/re-organize existing materials to make them better for practicing certain things. I hate hunting around the page while I practice, flipping pages, dodging things that are no good […]

  • 12/8
  • 3/8
  • 6/8
  • downloads
  • exercises
  • patterns
  • Stick Control
  • stickings
  • Stone on drumset
  • triplets

Three voice / three note patterns

  • May 13, 2020
  • 0

The sort of thing you write when you’re under quarantine— a library item strictly for maniacs, in the same ballpark of extremity/uselessness as Gary Chaffee’s jazz patterns, from Patterns vol. 3. In fact that’s exactly […]

  • downloads
  • exercises
  • fills
  • hemiola
  • hemiola funk series
  • linear
  • patterns
  • solo materials

RLB intro page

  • January 6, 2020
  • 1

This is based on a page I wrote in 2012— I was using that with a younger student, and marked it up so heavily that it was unreadable. So here’s a clean version of what we […]

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About the author:

Todd Bishop is a drummer, drum teacher, Origin recording artist, blogger(hey?), visual artist, and cymbal dealer living in Portland, Oregon.

Get lessons with Todd, in-person in Portland, or via Zoom/Facetime/MS Teams worldwide.

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Also visit my site CYMBALISTIC to get some great cymbals made in Turkey, by Cymbal & Gong. They're some of the finest cymbals in the world for anyone seeking a traditional 50s/60s jazz sound. I play them, players love them. Be sure to check out our own speciality model, the Extra Special Janavar.

You can also purchase my books, including Syncopation in 3/4, 100 Grooves, Samba & Bossa Nova Field Manual, and the Books of the Blog from 2011-2018, as well as some CSD! merchandise.

NEWS: On November 6-9 we will be bringing cymbals to Berlin and Dresden, Germany. Get on the mailing list @ Cymbalistic for locations and updates.

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