One of the things on my mind a lot lately has been the issue of projection- making your performance be heard clearly by the other musicians and by the audience. While performing and hanging at […]
Category: music
How much to practice something
1. Get wood chisel. 2. Remove everything that doesn’t look like Billy the Kid deftly gunning down Bat Masterson before the throng of stunned onlookers, a yapping yellow hound at his feet. 3. SUCCESS! One […]
Typos in Funky Primer
Time to get out your white-out again. This is something that had been bugging me for many years of working with A Funky Primer, by my old professor, Charles Dowd. Most of the book consists […]
Groove o’ the day: Elvin afro-waltz
I’ve been working on a transcription of Elvin’s playing on John Coltrane’s Your Lady, from Coltrane Live at Birdland, but it’s not going to be ready today. Here’s a little teaser, though- the closest thing […]
DBMITW: Mingus
I am one lazy blogger- but what am I going to write that’s 2% as good watching Eric Dolphy during Johnny Coles’ solo? If that isn’t enough for you for today, go read Andrew Hare’s […]
Todd’s waltz
Or, the presumptuously-named Todd’s waltz, as I call it. I’m not attempting to claim the radical innovation of adding a hihat on the & of 3, it’s just how I often play a waltz, and […]
Four in three in four in 4/4
This an item inspired by Elvin Jones’ rolling triplet thing, written by my friend Stephen Pancerev- we just spent an afternoon rifling through his notebooks of original exercises, cryptic scribblings, etc, and this is the […]
Jazz percussion
This is a concept I’ve been kicking around for years, I think since the term first came up for me in reference to Tony Williams in the history section Jack Dejohnette/Charlie Perry book: Tony didn’t […]
Six stroke rolls around the drums
I’m just cranking them out today. I’ve been using the last paradiddles around the drums thing so much I decided to write up something similar using another familiar solo pattern, the six stroke roll (as […]