Today we have a funk samba groove from Billy Cobham, playing The Dancer on Stanley Clarke’s School Days— one of the biggest fusion albums of the 70s. We’re actually throwing a bone to the open-handed […]
Year: 2017
When they say they have drums
All right dude I told ya we had a sweet drum set for you, here you go They don’t have drums. You’re going to get burned. Always. Pardon me— I just had a couple of […]
Groove o’ the day: Betty Davis – Shut Off The Light
Fairly funky thing here… fairly compared to nuclear war, maybe… the opening groove from Shut Off The Light from Betty Davis’s Nasty Gal album. Drums are variously credited as being Nicky Neal, Semmie Neal Jr., […]
EZ “harmonic” independence
Fairly EZ. EZ compared to the thing it’s based on. This is something that came out of practicing the harmonic independence section of 4-Way Coordination by Dahlgren & Fine. Looking at that book makes you […]
FIGURE CONTROL: 6/4 – Free Design riff
Stretching the concept of my Funk Control series a little bit. Here we’re just doing some basic orchestrations with a rhythmic figure, the vamp in 6/4 from Stereolab’s The Free Design, which I posted before […]
Todd’s funk shuffle drill
This is a loose collection of stuff with which you can drill a rather busy, modern funk shuffle feel or triplet funk feel, a la Lopsy Lu or The Brecker Brothers’ Inside Out: OK, those […]
The hard way
Lately I’ve been noticing a lot of talk about doing things the hardest way possible— among drumming students there’s a great fear of “crutches” and “cheating.” The path of least resistance offends people’s protestant work […]
Displacing a groove – 16th notes – 02
Part 2 of the previous displacement thing. This is the kind of thing that’s so obvious I don’t like to put it on the site, but it’s an intermediate step to the next thing, and […]
Drum lessons with Todd Bishop IN SEATTLE
Actually this is about the neighborhood where I’ll be teaching. UPDATE: Bumping this to the top again. Get in touch if you have any interest. Announcement for my Seattle followers: I may soon begin teaching […]
Practice loop in 6/4: The Free Design
A fun practice loop, in a fast 6/4, sampled from The Free Design, by Stereolab. Tempo is about quarter note = 217 BPM. The rhythm for the bass vamp: Have fun. This loops seamlessly, if […]