It says “workout”, like it’s some kind of technical challenge, but it’s really a page of exercises for opening up some musical possibilities with your bass drum when playing sambas and bossa novas. A lot […]
Year: 2016
Three Camps in 5s
Another variation on the very famous old rudimental piece Three Camps, this time based on five-note groupings. We’re in 10/8, counted in 2— 5+5/8: All forms of this piece are excellent for working on endurance […]
Transcription: Gerry Brown / School Days
Here’s a funk/fusion classic: School Days, by Stanley Clarke, with Gerry Brown on the drums. Along with Weather Report’s Teen Town, and Donna Lee, this was one of the most-learned fusion things by electric bassists […]
Daily best music in the world: OH S___
In writing about playing the drums, you tend to focus on what is definable. You write the things you can say for sure, and you don’t write about things you can’t. That can give people […]
Basic funk ideas in 6/8: four iterations – 01
I’m not happy with this title for this series, but I’m going to hang with it as long as we’re posting on the blog. It’s rapidly evolving into a Stick Control-like system for funk drumming […]
Orchestrating and embellishing backbeats
What do we do with this? Someone bored with playing backbeats all night asked this question on the Drummerworld forum: “What do you do to spice up the 2 & 4?” My answer is: I […]
EZ Tony Williams-like method: another setting
Here’s something that was leading me into a very modern, hiccupy, vaguely Chris Dave-like jazz concept. I was practicing along with the Coltrane recording of Big Nick, a medium-slow swing tune, and found myself doing […]
Support
The most irritating stock photo I could find to accompany this post. By the way, I want to give a shout out to some people who have donated to the blog since August— Peter, Benoit, and […]
Very occasional quote of the day: it’s an instrument
“You don’t beat the drums— you play them.” – Kenny Clarke Thanks to Scott K. Fish for the quote— be sure to follow his excellent blog Life Behind The Cymbals.
Basic funk ideas: four iterations – 03
Another page of this modern funk method— we’re going to need a better name for this thing, as we’re getting well beyond basic. This is turning into quite an epic. Normally, working on fairly demanding […]