Posting is going to be a little spotty for the next few days; I’m recording my new album at the beginning of next week, and until then I’ll be preoccupied with stuff related to that. […]
Category: Afro 6
Groove(s) o’ the day: On the streets of Aba, Nigeria
I loved this video so much I wanted to lay on you a transcription of the whole thing, but we’re going to have to settle for just getting the basic groove. I hit a wall […]
C.K. Ladzekpo’s basic polyrhythms
From the This portion of the recent This/not this: polyrhythm post, I’ve written out C.K. Ladzekpo’s list of basic polyrhythms every Ewe learns while growing up, along with our now familiar 6/8 bell pattern: You […]
Todd’s African triplet lick
I call this an African idea, but really it’s just a thing that keeps happening when I solo with an Afro 6 feel; it’s African by vibe. And it’s not really a “lick”, it’s more […]
Page o’ coordination: bass drum variation in 6/8
Are you getting to the point that you can work these up in a few days, and then retire them, yet? We’ve done a big pile of these POCs, but they cover a fairly narrow […]
Afro 6/8 exercise: getting the 3/4 pull
More on this. All I can say is, my readers should be absolutely killing it with their Afro 6/8 in the next 6-12 months. This is a basic counting and coordination exercise I’ve been using with […]
Page o’ coordination: 6/8 Rumba clave in the left hand
Like I said: a lotta 6/8. That feel has always been one of the stronger elements of my playing, but I thought I’d see what happens if I do a whole lot of more work […]
Afro 6/8 with a backbeat
In my day we didn’t have fancy drum blogs giving us near-daily pages of nicely formatted, well-thought-out drum exercises free of charge. Our teachers just scribbled something in the margin of our tattered copy of […]
Kerrigan syncopation exercise in 6/8
I guess there’s no getting around it: we’re all about the 6/8 these days— there’s a whole bunch more of this on deck. This is a Chuck Kerrigan syncopation exercise, from his very useful Syncopated […]