Launching to the outer limits of what you can reasonably do with Syncopation, verging on losing the melody rhythm as a point of reference. Or not, see what you make of it. Using one of […]
Category: Todd’s Methods
Reed tweak: RH lead with single cym / flam
Yet another right hand lead Reed tweak— YART, or YARHLRT, for short. It’s a little convoluted, but works out a slightly different thing from the other systems/tweaks we’ve done, and I think it’s worthwhile. The […]
Triplet burnout with the jazz waltz telephone page
Here are some things I do over the course of 15-20 minutes playing that jazz waltz telephone page, in addition to just playing repeating measures as written, in 3/4 time: 1. Play each measure in […]
Reed tweak: BRL linear fill
Fun little item here, modifying the straight 8th right hand lead system commonly applied to the book Syncopation. Where there are two or more 8ths of left hand filler, we’ll play 16ths, starting with a […]
Reed tweak: RH lead with LH drags
Reedtweakapalooza continues! I really need to round these up in a book. This is yet another thing to do with the straight 8th right hand lead Reed system. Refreshing your memory on that: reading from […]
Round up of recent Reed tweaks
In the last few months we’ve done a number of tweaks to the basic right hand lead method used with the book Syncopation, and I thought it would be good to summarize them on one […]
Bishopdiddles – 02: double paradiddles to swing 8ths
Listen: do not show these to somebody and call them “BISHOPDIDDLES.” You’re going to get both of us beaten up. One thing I like about this double paradiddle inversion is that it’s possible to accent the […]
A basic waltz vocabulary – 01
I was working with a student on a jazz waltz, played at a brighter tempo than he was real comfortable with, so we needed to come up with some easy things to add to his […]
Subtractive method: one practice approach
A lot of commitments right now, and posting will continue to be light through next weekend. Congratulations to Justin in Omaha for getting the 22″ Extra Special Janavar “Emilia”— there is now one of those […]
Reed tweak: quasi-right hand lead
I really do try to practice when I practice, not just do writing sessions for the blog. But these things just come up. This is yet another small change to the straight-8th right hand lead […]