You’ve probably noticed by now that I do a lot with Ted Reed’s Syncopation? Here are two more methods which I have developed (along with my Rock beats with Syncopation piece) to introduce my intermediate […]
Category: syncopation
Basic big band set-ups
Another in the recent series of easy stuff, here is a page of basic set-ups for ensemble kicks on the & of 4. You can apply these to my earlier piece, Kicks and Set-ups Using […]
Todd’s Methods, pt. 3: Rock beats with Syncopation
Most drum books present their stuff fully written out verbatim for the drum set, which is fine for learning patterns, but not for thinking like a musician. This is something I made up to introduce […]
Todd’s Methods, Pt. 2: triplet partials in Syncopation
The second in a series of quick, sketchily-outlined demonstrations of my practice methods. Here I give a couple of my variations on common ways of using Ted Reed’s Syncopation. If you’ve worked with that book […]
Todd’s Methods, Pt. 1: daku-daku-paradiddle
New series: quick and dirty presentation of some of my practice methods. The idea is to write them up fast and on one page, so explanations may not be as thorough as everyone would like. […]
16th note fills using Syncopation – Part 1
This is the first part of a method for working on 16th note fills, which I developed for my intermediate students. It requires some selective reading, but in a constructive way- the same type of […]
Best books: Like Syncopation
For many years Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer (better known as just “Syncopation”) by Ted Reed was virtually the only drum book I used. As I alluded to in the Joe Cusatis […]
Kicks and set-ups using Syncopation
Here’s a little method I devised for working on basic big band-style kicks and set-ups, using Ted Reed’s Syncopation. Like many of the ways of working with Reed, it involves some selective reading/interpretation, but in […]
Drum! Magazine piece – Inside “Cissy Strut”
This is an educational piece of mine, entitled Inside “Cissy Strut” And Beyond, which ran in the Nov. 2010 issue of Drum! magazine. After reviewing New Orleans drummer Stanton Moore’s book Groove Alchemy for Oregon […]