This is in development, it’s not necessarily a finished “lesson.” We’ve done a lot making simple rock beats into fill phrases, here we’re doing that with a more complex beat— looking at some possible ways […]
Category: rock
Rock beats in 5 with Reed
Surprised I haven’t written this before. Expanding on a rock beat method I use with all of my students, to make grooves in 5/4— from the book, you simply read one measure of rhythm, plus […]
Stick Control for fills
I get pretty individualized finding the best way for my students to work on something. People come to me with a lot of different levels of background, and playing goals, so I can’t just give […]
Rock beats with fill phrases
Using this framework a lot with my students in recent months, marking up Funky Primer with a Sharpie, putting accents over the bass drum notes to indicate a crash, marking over the remaining notes with […]
Fills in a 4/8 framework – 01
Continuing the concept of that last thing, Fills in a 3/8 framework. Here we’ve got four 8ths of space to deal with, a cymbal accent, and three 8ths of fill. I’m very pleased with how […]
Transcription: Flight For Freedom – 01
OK, first complete transcription using Musescore, doing basically everything I need it to do for this site. Same recording I’ve been working with, Flight For Freedom by Oliver Nelson, from his record Skull Session, with […]
EZ 8th note groove with Stick Control
A simple 8th note groove sequence using the book Stick Control, played on the drum set. Use Stick Control pp. 5-7, or my page of sticking patterns, which I think is in a better order. […]
Jazz loop, rock loop
Two practice loops I’ve been enjoying, one jazz, one rock. The first is sampled from Everydays, a Stephen Stills song, played by Kenny Burrell on the album Blues – The Common Ground. Tempo is 124: […]
Rock with Stick Control!
A little thing I improvised while warming up for a rehearsal. All my rock stuff is oriented around getting off the hihat, getting both hands moving around the drums. A lot of students get locked […]
How to stop – 01
Kind of a mundane item here— a multi-parter, believe it or not— mainly for teachers, about handling ordinary materials in a more real-life musical way, including how to stop in the conversation. Younger students and […]
EZ fast rock – 02
The first EZ fast rock page was a hit with my students, so here’s another like it, more in a fill/variation direction. Combining patterns to make two-measure phrases, most of these will be the second […]