Something a little different: transcribed piano comping rhythms. Played by Sonny Clark on Funky Hotel Blues, a bonus track on the CD release of Sonny Rollins’s The Sound of Sonny. I’ve written out the first […]
Category: syncopation
EZ bass drum workout and double bass developer
Have I not posted this before? This is a variation on my cut time funk method, strictly designed as a bass drum workout. It also makes an excellent double-bass single strokes developer. This should be […]
Reed method: fast rock – advanced
I hope you— students and teachers— are using my Reed method for playing rock beats. I think it’s one of the better things I’ve come up with— it’s just a more musical way of learning […]
EZ Reed interpretation: another triplet lick
I like these Reed interpretations using the early part of the book. You can just play through fifteen lines of exercises, plus a 16-20 bar exercise, and be done with it. FINITE ASSIGNMENTS, people. Not […]
Basic fluency in 12/8
Right, so it looks like we’ll be doing a lot with this triplet feel this week— mainly getting comfy improvising within this 12/8-style blues, soul or pop groove. Think Lopsy Lu, Higher Ground, Isn’t She […]
Reed interpretation: triplets with breaks
I don’t why it took me over 30 years to figure this out— I’m always looking for ways to simplify things, to make them more playable. This is an alternative to a very common, popular, […]
EZ Reed method with flams and 16th notes
Another “EZ” Reed method for rock/funk fills, similar to our recent triplet method, this time using pp. 24-27 from Syncopation. I won’t break it down completely, but you can figure it out by looking at the […]
A good book you should all chase down
Look for the book withthe really goofy cover. I just want to take a moment again to recommend you all try to find a copy of the book Syncopated Rhythms for the Contemporary Drummer by […]
EZ Reed interpretation: triplet lick
Here’s an easy practice method for use with Ted Reed’s Syncopation, developing a triplet lick. What I like about these things is they’re finite. You do the fifteen lines, plus the long exercise, and you’re […]
EZ Tony Williams-like method
EZ-ish. The concept is extremely simple, anyway. Scarcely worth writing up, but here it is. And when I say Tony Williams-like, I mean “it reminds me of one thing he kind of did on a […]
Why Syncopation is so great
Here’s a question that comes up often, and which I always I feel I have to address every time I have a new student buy Ted Reed’s Progressive Steps To Syncopation: “Whuh— this is just […]
Orchestrations of a figure: Groove Elation
Today we’ll do a little survey of ways of orchestrating on the drums a rhythmic figure— the bass line from the tune Groove Elation, by John Scofield. It’s a bright New Orleans-influenced thing, with a […]