Category: Uncategorized

UPDATE: Naturally, there are some problematic things— a lot of my images from the old site are behaving strangely, so the older posts might not look real great. I’m probably going to be forced to […]

UPDATE: Toning this down a bit— mainly removing a very unkind assessment of the American electorate— and moving on. My current state of mind is that I’m not going to worry about all the horrible […]

So long to the saxophonist David Sanborn. He was one of the great lovers of all kinds of music— you can watch his show Night Music on YouTube, it was on in 1988-90, and he brought on […]

Let’s gooo, this is now a full-time Billy Higgins site. Here he is playing a New Orleans/Poinciana/Vernel Fournier kind of groove, on the Duke Ellington tune The Mystery Song, on Steve Lacy’s record Evidence: Swing […]

NOTE: I’m going to keep this pinned to the top of the blog for a little while. Scroll down for new stuff.  You know what, I don’t think I get as many students via this […]

CYMBALISTIC: Making videos of the new cymbals— I think you guys are going to flip for them. There are the three new Extra Special Janavars, one with a heavy patina; 18/20/22″ Special Janavars with a […]

If any of you are in… whatever you call that part of Washington state— the I-5 corridor between Olympia and Longview… there’s going to be a drummer swap meet/gathering tomorrow, Sunday, July 17th, at Alexander […]

Here’s a Reed system for double bass drums, made up by a student of mine, with a few tweaks by me. Apply it to the rhythms in Syncopation, pp. 34-37.   The first examples will be […]

 Shoutout to Eduard in Odessa, and all of our other readers in Ukraine— stay safe. 

Some street-beat style 7 stroke roll related things that came up spontaneously when I was practicing today. This had a little bit of a funky Maracatu-type street beat feel the way I was playing it— […]