A little item from an old issue of Percussioner International magazine, which I just found in my mom’s basement— the Steve Smith issue, from November 1987. Here Ralph Humphrey shares some paradiddle-based stick control patterns […]
Category: Ralph Humphrey
Ralph Humphrey in hospice, RIP Ivan Conti
Not great news in music this week. Ralph Humphrey, who had been undergoing cancer treatment, has entered hospice care. He’s one of the first drummers I ever knew the name of, from Frank Zappa’s album […]
Groove o’ the day: Blues in Elf
Here’s something from what I’m hoping will be the second volume of books of 100 Grooves, this time dealing with odd meters— we’ll see if I can track down enough interesting things to merit a […]
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 […]
Cracking 5/4: feet ostinatos
In adapting the blog post Cracking 5/4: the basics for the upcoming 2012 Book of the Blog, I noticed an an ugly gap in my materials— for that portion I suggested you get your patterns […]
Cracking 5/4: the basics
It took me a long time to come around to accepting the type of method we’re going to use here; for years the Syncopation-based interpretive method– in which you think more like a horn player, […]
Best books – Even in the Odds by Ralph Humphrey
The classic text on odd meter playing by Zappa/Don Ellis drummer Ralph Humphrey, this book covers swing, funk, and solo patterns in 5/4, 7/4, 5/8, 7/8, and longer odd time signatures. Each meter gets a […]