Since I’m often told that the Internet, with its abundance of free materials, is rendering teachers obsolete, I thought I’d put that to the test, searching YouTube for beginning rock drumming “lessons”, and not stopping […]
On Jack
There’s a great piece on Jack Dejohnette, by someone who plays with him, over at George Colligan’s Jazz Truth blog— go read. Here’s a bonus DBMITW:
Transcription: Tony Williams — Hat And Beard
We do all the hits here— this is another very famous piece of drumming, by Tony Williams, on Eric Dolphy’s Out To Lunch. The tune is the very unusual Hat And Beard, which is in […]
Dahlgren & Fine in 5/4
This is a way of playing 4-Way Coordination, by Marvin Dahlgren & Elliot Fine, which I’ve been using while playing along with Jan Garbarek’s Dansere, and Gary Burton’s Mevlevia— most of 4WC is just too […]
The melodic drummer
Short and boring, but a melody. Not to be confused with the excellent blog of the same name. I’ve gotten involved into some fairly contentious discussion of the role of melody in drumming recently, so […]
Survival chops: right hand lead
This is the second in an extremely short series covering the bare essentials of what you need for “drumistic” fill, variation, and solo material across a variety of styles— you can read the intro to […]
VOQOTD: the Blakey hang
“I used to play every night. It didn’t matter how much money I was making, I just had to play every night. When we’d get through playing at night, it was daybreak: 6:00. Then we’d […]
8th notes around the drums — one hand
Here’s a conditioning page of 8ths notes played around the drums, with one hand. It’s easy enough that most drummers should be able to learn it well enough to play the page straight down in […]
Googled: “Elvin Jones triplets”
What the heck, we haven’t done a “round up” style post in awhile. Here’s a quick survey of Internet lore, briefly reviewing some of the information returned when you google “Elvin Jones triplets”: First, the […]
DBMITW: Tanzania and Kenya witchcraft & ritual music
These are from a Nonesuch compilation, Tanzania and Kenya Witchcraft & Ritual Music, that has made a big impression on me since the 90’s. This first clip features a comical-sounding instrument, the “bungo” horn. To […]