CYMBALISTIC: OK, if you’re located anywhere in the Olympia/Kelso/Aberdeen triangle you’ll want to make it to Chehalis tomorrow for a drum gear swap meet at Alexander Park. Hosted by members of Drumforum.org. Last year about a […]
Groove o’ the day: Mickey Roker funk
Here’s a lot of ink for you, for eight measures. Mickey Roker playing a funk groove with a lot of detail to it, on Goin’ Down South, a Joe Sample tune from Bobby Hutcherson’s record […]
CYMBALISTIC: cymbal day
CYMBALISTIC: I went to Cymbal & Gong HQ yesterday and played a lot of great cymbals. Picking out the “best” ones to sell on my Cymbalistic site is really a game of inches. Someone else […]
Daily best music in the world: Billy Hart
This is an interesting record from 2014, by Bobby Hutcherson, with David Sanborn, Joey DeFrancesco, and Billy Hart on drums. The whole thing is real loose, and basically the opposite of everything happening in music […]
Reed tweak: RH lead with a backbeat
Another real simple tweak to a basic right hand lead method used with Syncopation: adding a half time feel backbeat. We’ve been doing a lot with this lately, and it’s turning into a very robust […]
CYMBALISTIC: Cymbals are in!
CYMBALISTIC: I’ve just been informed that Cymbal & Gong has just received a big shipment of over 100 new cymbals, including 18, 20, and 22″ Turks, and a lot of other good stuff. This is […]
Basic 8th note rhythms with variations – two bar phrases
Item for one of my students. I generally have people learn their rock beats through Syncopation— once they can do a few basic beats reading them in the conventional way, we go over to my […]
JD Beck
Someone shared the following video, and was commenting on the technique of JD Beck, a hot new drumming sensation who I kind of like. How can you not? He’s cute and charismatic, and has an […]
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 […]
Batucada styles
Just did a gig playing all samba and bossa nova, so I’ve got Brazilian music on the brain. Here’s an old record offering a little round up of styles in Brazilian percussion: Batucada, by Paulinho […]