Along the lines of that jazz drill from a few weeks back, here’s a rock/funk drill I’m playing— or universal backbeat-music drill. My wife, Casey Scott, is a songwriter, and is getting ready to record […]
Category: Todd’s Methods
Todd’s jazz drill
A summary of something I’ve been doing lately. I hadn’t practiced for about a week, so to get my act together, I drilled some standard jazz methods using that recent page of practice rhythms. I […]
Linear Reed tweak
This is a sticking system for a Reed linear solo/fill method, which I improvised while practicing. In the past, I mostly improvised the stickings, which is not a bad way to practice, but it’s limiting, […]
8/8 rock method
An easy little two-part system for rock and funk drumming. It’s a way of livening up a rock groove without breaking away and doing an actual fill— using an 8th note texture, played between the […]
Subtractive patterns for jazz snare and bass
Continuing to develop this subtractive method, here are some good patterns for snare drum and bass drum in a jazz feel. I’m digging the system. It allows me to put whatever part I want consistently […]
EZ Reed method – Jack’s way – 02
Continuing a very easy system I’m using with a younger student— I feel kind of cheated that I wasn’t taught this myself, and that I haven’t been teaching it all these years. This is as […]
World’s shortest jazz solo exercise
A quick little item— I know I’ve posted it before in other forms, maybe this time will be the best. For jazz students, this may be the most useful thing on the site for soloing […]
Back to Dahlgren & Fine
Basic unit of Dahlgren & Fine UPDATE: I’ve been hitting this all week, covering most of the pages in question every day, tempo around quarter note = 126. It’s very interesting— all kinds of unrelated […]
Subtractive method: batucada
This developing subtractive method is becoming really interesting. It makes it much easier to write and communicate more complex orchestrations than in the past— which is not an end in itself, it just makes it […]
Subtractive patterns for jazz hihat
What this new subtractive method is good for: making it easy to create and communicate rather specific, specialized orchestration/voicing systems on the drum set. Like, for the hihat in jazz— I have never cared for […]