Continuation of this item, in which I transcribe exercises by Ted Reed into 16th notes. Here I’ve done the famous page 37 exercise. I won’t be doing any other pages because that would be obsessive […]
Category: Reed interpretations
Syncopation rhythms in 16th notes
This is a library item— you can print it and keep it with your copy of Progressive Steps to Syncopation. I’ve transcribed the one-line syncopation exercises from Reed into 2/4, doubling the rhythmic values. Just […]
Todd’s methods: Gospel 6
Get me. Here’s a practice method for people who have bought my new print book Syncopation in 3/4. It’s closely related to my standard Reed 2/2 funk method, except here we’ll be doing a slow […]
NOW AVAILABLE: 2018 Book of the Blog / Syncopation in 3/4
The 2018 CRUISE SHIP DRUMMER! Book of the Blog is now available to order. It includes all of the downloadable exercises and trancriptions posted on the site in 2018, as well as some grooves o’ […]
Harmonic coordination whatsis – 02
There’s an easier way to play my patented new harmonic coordination whatsis™ technique— I thought about it for five minutes longer and thought of a better way to practice it. This is a way of […]
Harmonic coordination whatsis
Hey, we’re kicking around a lot of half-baked stuff on the blog these days, but I… look… if you want to see someone disappearing down the practice materials rabbit hole, visit my friend the saxophonist Dave […]
Syncopation p. 37: rub-a-dub method, mach 1
Now this is the level of drum geekery I aspire to, with the defiantly gibberish post title, and everything. I was writing out a very laborious explanation of the next steps in my evolving quasi-Mel Lewis […]
Developing a method for rub-a-dub
I’ve been working up a practice method for learning what Mel Lewis called rub-a-dub— I hate to use his term, because I only just saw it explained for the first time in Chris Smith’s video. I don’t […]
Figure Control: 4/4 – Nexus riff
Let’s do one of these for the rhythm in the Nexus practice loop. You’ll recall, with this Funk Control / Figure Control series what I do is take a single performance rhythm and put a […]
Todd’s funk drill – another tweak
Another small tweak to my Reed-based funk drill, improvised by a very talented 6th grade student of mine. It’s very obvious, and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. Maybe I did, […]
Funk drill tweak
This is a minor tweak to my standard funk drill using Ted Reed’s Syncopation. It was played by mistake by one of my students (6th grader), but it sounded good so I decided to keep […]
Maximizing syncopation rhythms
This is something I was doing with a Skype student recently. We’re working on jazz solo vocabulary, currently getting fluent with common jazz rhythms using basic drum set orchestrations— developing a basic Billy Higgins/Frankie Dunlop-like […]