Kicking off 2023 with a library item— file this with the pages of tresillo/cinquillo inversions, and this page. The Charleston rhythm is a form of the tresillo rhythm that found its way into mainstream American popular […]
Category: syncopation
Marking up Reed for chart reading practice
Continuing the kicks/set-ups Reed tweak— in aid of that kind of practicing, let’s mark up the full-page exercises in Syncopation some more. You may not want to look at these changes all the time, so […]
Reed tweaks: kicks and setups with RH lead triplets
An online student in Europe is working on his reading with me, in preparation for an audition, and we’re talking about kicks and set ups. There’s a minor tweak to a common Reed solo/fill method— […]
Syncopation exercise: downbeats and &s
A full page syncopation exercise with the notes spaced a quarter note a greater. Some practice systems only work well, or work well at faster tempos, when there are certain limitations in the reading material, […]
Afro 6 in 4
Purely exploring an idea that occurred to me during a lesson— this has nothing to do with anything. Except I’m writing a new book about developing the Afro 6 groove, so I’m thinking about the […]
16th note exercise for brushes – solo
Continuing this thing— playing the the 16th note pages from Reed with brushes, with accents and bass drum additions hastily scribbled in while practicing. Here’s the 20 bar solo on p. 23. > = accent / […]
16th note exercise for brushes
Another cut and paste item. I don’t practice brushes nearly enough, so yesterday I was hitting that a little bit. Poking around for things I needed to work on, I settled on these pages from […]
Reed tweaks: 16ths doubled
This is a small change to a very basic Reed method, that makes it a lot more interesting, to me. I don’t seek these things out, they just happen while I’m practicing. I play with […]
Subtractive method: an alternative approach
I just saw this from brother writer Jon McCaslin, over at the excellent and much hipper-named Four On The Floor blog: a Syncopated Stick Control method, which he’s using to bring some rhythm interest to practicing Stone. […]
This week’s drill
Some things I’ve been playing through this week— promoting some previous posts, and rounding up some very useful practice systems. Basically I’ll just play down p. 38 (formerly and famously p. 37) from Syncopation the […]
Reed tweak: more paradiddle fill-ins
Adding to a similar thing we did early this year, here are some more possibilities for filling in an ordinary right hand lead Reed method— that’s the one where you play the book rhythm on […]
Reed interpretations: triplet feel R&B
This is a triplet-feel R&B groove practice method we did in a lesson with a student recently. It has a snare drum backbeat on 2 and 4, quarter notes on the cymbal, and some triplet […]