A quick thing for you frustrated Finale users*: Here’s how you write stickings. You probably tried adding them as text, and met with bitter failure, then you tried them as lyrics, met with bitter failure, […]
Category: writing
On Stanley Spector
In the spirit of that recent quasi-paranoid rant, here’s something I wrote some years ago and never posted. Any time I think I’m getting too dogmatic in my writing, I look up the following personality. […]
Writing tips
First get the leaves off your paper and learn how to hold a pen. Start writing at the UPPER LEFT. Come on. “You have to have a command over the English language or you’re just […]
Write your own book
Like this, but words— throw them down. Here Jeff Goins, a writer, gives 10 Ridiculously Simple Tips For Writing A Book. Here are the ones I like most— and these apply to many other things […]
Your bio sucks. My bio sucks.
OBLIGATORY TENUOUSLY-RELATED IMAGE AND CAPTION: Boilerplate should never be anything but a creepy, late-Victorian, steampunkish, fictional robot in your life— it has NO PLACE in your bio! Via Ted Gioia on Twitter, here’s a good piece […]
The map is not the territory…
…and this is not a pipe. Sometimes I worry that with the things we cover here— and the way we cover them— I give the impression that those are the most important things about learning […]
Your own drumming blog: final thoughts
…or on the blog. Thanks Librarian.net and Timothy Vollmer. A few final thoughts on writing your own drumming blog, and things I forget to mention in our previous entries. I know I promised to outline […]
Something stupid
I hope you’re ready for a descent several circles deeper than usual into pure drumming geekdom today, as I’ve been fooling with devising a sticking system for all limbs, and combinations of limbs. I don’t […]
Things I like: drum writing
Here’s a new feature: things I like about things. Today we’ll talk about something I’m seeing a lot of currently: practice materials. 1. Things that fit on a single page. It’s nice aesthetically. Give me […]
Best books: some non-musical selections
Here are several books that have been valuable to me creatively over the years. The Adding Machine by William S. Burroughs Great essays about art, language, and the craft of writing. Along with Exterminator!, […]
Interview: drum author Joel Rothman
[UPDATED 5/16 – Something I had to add to the piece came up in my correspondence with Mr. Rothman. See the new section labeled “PROFIT”] Joel Rothman is one of the more mysterious figures in […]