Billy Higgins drum solo in 5, on the tune 5/4 Thing by George Coleman, from the album Eastern Rebellion by Cedar Walton. The transcription begins at 5:44. It’s short, kind of a percussion interlude. A […]
Category: downloads
Three notes, one on cymbals – 01
This little assignment is related to several things we’ve done lately: my harmonic coordination improved method, and my rock drill; playing it in */4 meters with a swing feel gives you something similar to rubadub. […]
Solo transcription: Philly Joe Jones – Sub City
Here’s a drum solo played at a bright tempo with brushes by Philly Joe Jones. The tune is Sub City, by Bud Powell. The form is 32 bars long, and he’s basically playing two choruses, […]
Flam combinations in 6/8
Way too many wordy posts recently, with more coming, so let’s do a simple page of flam exercises in 6/8— in a triplet feel. Like p. 34 in Stick Control, but more robust. Whenever I […]
Building rubadub – 01
For intermediate jazz students, here is a page for learning the basic pattern for Mel Lewis’s rubadub concept (as helpfully explained by Chris Smith), about as thoroughly as possible, while also developing solid execution with […]
RLB intro page
This is based on a page I wrote in 2012— I was using that with a younger student, and marked it up so heavily that it was unreadable. So here’s a clean version of what we […]
Hemiola funk series: SS-BB / BB-SS
Another permutation on this basic hemiola funk format I’ve devised, doubling up on the BS, forwards and backwards… wait. I’m deliberately not really giving you a finished concept here— I just wrote this up to […]
Syncopation exercise in 3/4: quarter / dotted-quarter spacing
Another Ted Reed-style syncopation exercise, designed for a special purpose. This one is in 3/4, with all notes spaced two or three 8th notes apart— quarter notes or dotted quarter notes, or their equivalents with […]
Three Camps – 16th notes, combination stickings
The traditional rudimental piece Three Camps is a good framework for drilling speed and endurance, and to that end I’ve written several paradiddle combination stickings to use with it. I’ve been playing it as 16th […]
Transcription: Ignacio Berroa fills
Another thing I caught on Portland’s great jazz radio station, KMHD: Cleopatra’s Needle, by Steve Turre, with some cool featured drum fills played by Ignacio Berroa. The tune is simply a repeating 8-bar fusion riff […]