A page of meter-within-meter phrases— three beat rhythms played over four measures of 4/4: You’ll want to be very familiar and comfortable with this kind of rhythm— it happens a lot in jazz, and if […]
Category: reading
Reading a lead sheet
Some notes on a chart I had to play yesterday, on a festival gig with a pianist I’ve worked with quite a bit, Jasnam Daya Singh. He’s Brazilian, and quite a heavy composer. For a […]
Playing Bellson
Here’s a video I made yesterday— there was a slight online mishegoss over me not liking the Reading Text In 4/4, by Louis Bellson, and it was requested that prove myself by playing one of […]
16th note reading boot camp
Plotting out an intensive couple of lessons with a younger student, who has been doing extremely well with his playing the past year, but who is deficient reading 16th note rhythms. It’s not unexpected that […]
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 […]
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 […]
What it is: reading music
The world is teeming with resources. I was just involved in an extended, very contentious online discussion on the topic of reading music— Is it good to be able to read? Is it better to learn, […]
Mozambique inversions
Library item that occurred to me while writing that last post. That Mozambique bell rhythm seems significant beyond just using it to play a Latin beat, hence this page, running it through its inversions. Half […]
Philly Joe set ups
Here’s a tune involving a lot of isolated kicks on the & of 2, where we get to hear a lot of different ways Philly Joe Jones sets them up— Blue Roz the Milt Jackson […]
Rhythm cycles
Here’s a page to print out and staplegun to the wall by your drums: a summary of some major practice rhythms, and their inversions. Sometimes you don’t need a readable page, you just need a […]
Basic 8th note rhythms with variations – two bar phrases
Item for one of my students. I generally have people learn their rock beats through Syncopation— once they can do a few basic beats reading them in the conventional way, we go over to my […]
Kicks and setups with Reed – 01
We covered this cursorily back in 2011, let’s talk about it again, with some more detail. “Kicks and setups” is big band drummer speak for one of the major jobs of a jazz drummer, or any […]