This is something I developed for both for getting some relief while playing fast tempos, and for doing a modern feel without getting your cymbal pattern lost in the weeds. The seed of the idea […]
Category: jazz
Dave Tough’s Advanced Paradiddle Exercises
Here’s an out-of-print classic, scanned and made available for download thanks to Denver drummer Todd Reid. God knows if it will ever be made commercially available again, or if anyone even owns the copyright, so […]
Syncopation exercises with dotted quarter notes
This is one of many pages of original Syncopation variants I’ve written up, in this case restricted to combinations of dotted quarter notes, quarter notes, and single 8th notes. I’ve devised a few interpretive methods […]
Groove o’ the day: Billy Cobham in 17/16
I present this just as a curiosity, because I’ve never encountered this meter anywhere before (maybe in a percussion ensemble piece?). But you can see how we usually deal with the odd #/16 meters; often […]
On “feathering” the bass drum
what is this The word refers to playing quarter notes lightly on the bass drum as part of your jazz time feel. They used to call this playing the bass drum— I never heard the […]
Brushes… fast… hoo…
As I finish up the thing I’m working on, do yourself a favor and visit The Melodic Drummer for an excellent post on playing brushes at really, really fast tempos. You can also brush up […]
Transcription: one hour with Live Evil
This morning I sat down with one of my favorite pieces of music- Sivad, from Miles Davis’ Live Evil, with Jack Dejohnette on drums- to see what I could do with it in a reasonable […]
Dahlgren & Fine and me
4-Way Coordination by Dahlgren & Fine is a major piece of drumming literature that I’ve always had a lot of problems using. There’s been a lot of discussion about it on the Drummerworld forum lately, […]
Jazz Truth interview: Jack Dejohnette
This is unusual: an interview conducted by a non-drummer geekishly opening with a discussion of bass drum technique. Here’s George Colligan of the Jazz Truth blog speaking to Jack Dejohnette. As usual, I’ve edited out […]
DBMITW: Gil Evans – Naña
Gil Evans again. It’s always Gil Evans. Usually I do these Daily-Best-Music-In-The-World-ses when I’m pressed for time, but this is such an insane rendition of one of my favorite Brazilian tunes it merited actually taking […]