Was working with a student on a couple of recent things: this sort of approach, using these pages as a rhythm library, playing along with the loop sampled from Tunji, by John Coltrane. These are […]
Category: solo materials
Alternating triplets, off the 1
Dealing with a lot of small items lately. We know all the big stuff, now we’re getting into how to practice it in a musically natural way, how to fit it naturally into a continuity. […]
Paradiddles with Bellson
Throwing a bone to fans of Louis Bellson’s Modern Reading Text in 4/4 here, with an easy paradiddle system. Most of these things happen naturally out of my teaching, or my playing; here I just […]
Switching leads
Quickly sketching an idea to be developed at the drums here. We do a lot with right hand lead type stickings here— the right hand playing a mixed rhythm, accented, with the left hand filling […]
Reed interpretation: paradiddle inversion in triplet 16ths
I’m hitting the practice pad a good amount lately, so we’ll be seeing more of these. Here we’re filling in triplet 16ths, in our favored paradiddle sticking, RLLR-LRRL. Or use whatever inferior sticking substitute you […]
Connecting RH lead triplets and 16ths – UPDATED
UPDATE: I added an intermediate step that will help illustrate what’s going on here. Some helper exercises for my right hand lead 16th note method. The stickings for that are irregular, unless you’re relating them […]
Reed tweak: paradiddle inversions – Jack’s option
This is a sticking variation on the 16th note RLLR-LRRL paradiddle inversion system, that was improvised by mistake by one of my students, age 15. We have a different relationship to mistakes on this instrument. […]
Embellishing the Reed linear system
I call it the Reed linear system, it’s a thing I started doing on my own years ago, using Reed— the book Syncopation. I imagine others do it, because it’s kind of obvious. I never […]
Reed interpretation: RH lead 16ths – swing
A little item I’ve been working with, adapting our familar right hand lead Reed system for 16th notes, giving the rhythms in the book a dotted-8th/16th swing interpretation— as we do with this paradiddle inversion […]
Combining Reed solo systems
Lots of stuff combining Reed systems lately. Here we’re combining some solo systems with similar movements— they’ll have a timing change, and a minor sticking change, the broad movements are the same. They can be […]
Pattern barf: what to do with a paradiddle
This is what I do in the mornings: I have my coffee, put on some music, and see people are talking about on line, related to the drums. And then I get irritated, varyingly, and […]
Reed tweak: paradiddle inversion to toms
Another pretty substantial tweak to one of my other Reed systems— converting a very ordinary system, accented triplets, to paradiddle inversions— RLLR-LRRL. Actually there’s very little to it, I just think it’s worth spending some […]