OK, if you get burned playing a 5/4 because you haven’t practiced enough, don’t come crying to me. I’m doing all I can. This page is based on an ostinato that is sort of a […]
Category: exercises
Page o’ coordination: 5/8 + 5/8 — 02
More fun with 5/4, gateway to all odd meters. I guess. Getting it together does seem to make the others quite a bit easier. This is our second entry using the 5/8+5/8 construction: When getting […]
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 […]
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 […]
Breaking down the Chaffee phrases
Since I have a little breather between finishing my taxes, stopping procrastinating about finishing my charts for Friday, practicing, teaching, and writing up a new Drum! contribution that might actually earn me some money (friendly […]
Phrases for Chaffee linear patterns: triplets in 3/4
Here is one set of practice phrases for the Gary Chaffee linear patterns, in one or two measures of 3/4, with a triplet rhythm. For the sake of brevity, I’ve given only the two measure […]