This one goes out to my man Ed Pierce; I’ve really been getting into the Al Jackson this week. Here’s most of what he plays on Soul Jam, by Booker T. and the MGs, from […]
Category: downloads
Page o’ coordination: Songo — 02
This is the companion to the recent Songo page, which I thought you might want to work on concurrently— it’s the same set of exercises, with the clave rhythm in the left foot: Reread the […]
Page o’ coordination: Songo — 01
Here we’ll develop some bass drum variations for playing Songo, a popular Afro-Cuban/salsa drumset style, in case you’ve never heard of it. The first exercise is the ostinato, played with the hands only— the parts […]
Clave capers
Please don’t ask me about the title of this piece— I just wrote the first two words I thought of. I think there’s a Billy Taylor tune called Cuban Capers I played once… it’s not […]
Page o’ coordination: 5/8 + 5/8 — 01
Another page o’ coordination in 5/4. From the amount of time we spend dealing with playing in 5, you might get the impression that I think it’s pretty damned important. I really don’t, but it […]
Transcription: Dougie Wright — La Décadanse
This makes a nice companion piece to the recent Azymuth thing— they’re both pretty cheezy, with a lot of big tom tom fills. The song is La Décadanse, by Serge Gainsbourg. I can’t find a […]
Todd’s methods: Tiki’s 32nds
This is a little loosy-goosy method I improvised yesterday afternoon while practicing along with Maggot Brain, by Funkadelic. There are several medium-tempo, 16th note-based grooves on the record, and the drummer, Tiki Fulwood, tends to […]
Phrases for Chaffee linear patterns: 5/4
Here are some practice phrases for the Gary Chaffee linear patterns, this time in 5/4, in 8th notes, triplets, and 16th notes. I can’t promise I’ve covered every possible combination, but, my God, if you […]
Bass drum variations for Bossa Nova — adding left hand
This is something I’ve been meaning to do for some time. I like the page of bossa nova bass drum variations I did before, but it’s a little difficult to visualize the left hand part […]
Transcription: Ralph Humphrey — Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow
Here’s a nice introduction to rock in drumming in 7: Ralph Humphrey’s part from Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow, from Apostrophe by Frank Zappa. I go way back with this song, to 1974 when I […]