I like the traditional rudimental snare drum piece Three Camps as a practice format because it’s simple and finite— you can play the piece a few times and be done. You’ve done your work on the […]
Category: downloads
Roy Haynes waltz lesson – practice suggestions
So, I wrote that Roy Haynes waltz lesson in about ten minutes— I just listened to the tune and picked out the most obvious possible ways to cop the basic thing he’s doing there. And […]
World’s shortest Roy Haynes waltz lesson
UPDATE: See the page of practice suggestions for more on this! Someone on the internet asked me to explain what Roy Haynes is doing on the Chick Corea tune Windows, from the album Now He […]
Syncopation in 5/4 – another format
A little throwaway item, as I continue working out the formatting for my upcoming book, Syncopation in 5/4, to be released God knows when. The problem is how to deal with phrasing the measures 2+3 […]
Transcription: Elvin Jones – Survival Blues
Hey, we haven’t done any Elvin Jones in a while. This is the beginning of Survival Blues, from McCoy Tyner’s album Extensions. I started where McCoy begins the vamp, and did as much as I […]
Chapin exercises in 5
This is what you do during quarantine when it’s too hot to practice or doing anything else serious: capture jpegs of a well known drum book, open it up in Paint.net, and cut it up […]
Afro 6 warm up patterns
This is how I operate, after about ten years of writing the really hard stuff, I get around to giving people the easy way in. These are some preparatory exercises for playing an Afro 6 […]
Syncopation rhythms in 5/4
Hey, who wants some practice rhythms in 5/4? Here are several pages of them. I’m working on a new book, Syncopation in 5/4— companion to my other book Syncopation in 3/4. There are some formatting decisions […]
Page o’ coordination: Freddie Waits Afro
UPDATE: A student brought it to my attention that according to Wikipedia, Idris Muhammad is the drummer on this track. Which surprises me, but there you go. A combination groove o’ the day and page […]
Transcription: more Max Roach comping
Posting lots of 50s stuff these days. Here is Max Roach playing on Infinity Promenade, from the Miles Davis Lighthouse All-Stars record, At Last! In 1953 Miles was living with his father in East St. […]