“Your job is to make everyone in that band feel like playing. It’s a very idealistic way of looking at it, but you have got to. Because that’s your outlet.” — Ed Soph, interview with […]
Author: Todd Bishop
Make your own practice loops
I have a saying: Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day; teach a man to fish, and you shift the burden away from yourself and wash your hands of all responsibility when he […]
Practice loop: Black Sabbath – The Wizard
I’ve been making and using a lot of sampled loops lately— it’s a fun way to practice. And this is a fun one: the main riff from The Wizard, from Black Sabbath’s first record. It’s […]
Enough with the prodigies.
Impressive technical abilities for a child, still a hack painting. The universal plaintive cry is “If they’re that good now, imagine how good they’ll be in ten years!” Well, maybe. There’s a great article on kids and […]
Daily best music in the world: crash course in rock & roll
Here’s a playlist I put together for one of my new students, a 5th grader who is talented and motivated, but hasn’t heard a lot of music yet. Hopefully this will help get him hooked: Track list […]
2-3-4 Method
With today’s “2-3-4” method, I’m getting into the “give your practice idea a name so people will remember it and treat it like it’s a thing” racket. This is a pretty easy method for use […]
Transcription: Barney Miller Theme
Here are the drum performances on two versions of the very famous theme song from the TV show Barney Miller, which ran from 1974-82. The show was in syndication for many years, so the tune […]
Transcription: Billy Higgins / Tears Inside
Tears Inside, from Pat Metheny’s album Rejoicing, is such a favorite track of mine, I’m surprised we haven’t done anything with it before. I did transcribe the drum intro for the forthcoming[!!!] Book of Intros. So […]
Page o’ coordination: Afro 6 – 6/4 feel
Another Afro 6 POC. It’s a very rich and rewarding style, which is why I do so bloody much stuff with it. I was surprised to see I had never written up this variation before— […]
GOTD & POC: Elvin Jones — That 5/4 Bag
First-ever combined Groove o’ the Day and Page o’ Coordination. We’re completely off the chain. From Elvin Jones’s second album as leader, Dear John C., here is the major groove for That 5/4 Bag, with […]