Here’s some nice Christmas morning listening, which I’ve certainly shared before— Before We Were Born, by Bill Frisell. This was my first exposure to Joey Baron’s drumming, around 1990-91. I used to play these gigs […]
More on New Breed
Since that last piece about the book The New Breed, by Gary Chester, I’ve been working with that book fairly seriously— I can already play the drums, it won’t kill me to spend some time […]
Hemiola inverted and combined
An easy page of rhythm exploration here, inverting a polyrhythm, combining inversions, and then inverting that. I’ve been encouraged to write these things after noticing that, starting with a simple 3:2 polyrhythm (or hemiola), running […]
CYMBALISTIC: December special
CYMBALISTIC: More news, a new batch of Cymbal & Gong cymbals is coming next week. And, I will be offering a rare SPECIAL for the remainder of the month of December: Free shipping on US […]
Daily best music in the world: Freddie Hubbard
I’m hard at work writing this new book that you will want to BUY BUY BUY, so enjoy this Freddie Hubbard record Keep Your Soul Together, with Ralph Penland on drums. I’ve been playing this […]
Chop busters: flammed 16ths
Another small item, while I power through writing my new book: a page of 16th notes with flams, designed to be rather technically challenging, in the manner of Ron Fink’s book Chop Busters: Alternating sticking […]
Looking at The New Breed
Let’s talk about the book with the funny looking Ludwig drums with the Silver Dot heads on the cover— and all the ugly Paiste ColorSound cymbals, and Simmons SDS-5 hexagonal drum pads. Yes, I’m talking […]
Very occasional quote of the day: you call it swing
“You call it swing, but what I’m saying is it’s a rhythmic sophistication that causes a euphoric reaction, and on a folk level that reaction can go anywhere from sensual feelings, to partying, to dancing, […]
Wrong stickings game
I’m hard at work on a new book right now, and the only way I’ll finish it is if I write the whole thing at once, so here is an absolute throwaway item to keep […]
Practice loop: slow shuffle
Here’s a loop that be real useful to a lot of people, sampled from Soulful Brothers, from Kenny Burrell’s record Blues – The Common Ground. The drummer is Grady Tate, and he’s playing a shuffle […]