I’m very big on drills with the hands in unison these days. It strengthens the left hand, and is excellent training for playing singles solidly, in time, without rushing. This is a very basic rock drill […]
Making sense of the Chaffee jazz materials
Patterns, vol. 3 by Gary Chaffee Let’s talk about a big scary hard thing: the jazz section of volume 3 of Gary Chaffee’s Patterns series— the Time Functioning book. It’s in a similar category with […]
Groove o’ the day: Airto – Street Vendors D’Jmbo
A baiao-type drum set groove from Airto— actually I don’t know what to call this. I’m not hearing obvious markers of a particular style. Maybe Airto’s just playing. Someone who really knows their berimbau rhythms […]
Rhythms for Reed samba method
A special selection of syncopation rhythms for use with this multi-post samba method in progress (the main post is still to come), but obviously you can do other things with it. It would be good for […]
Very occasional quote of the day: Fast City
Omar Hakim speaks to Modern Drummer when he was with Weather Report in the mid 80s: RT : How did you learn to play bop so fast? OH : I don’t know. With much difficulty. […]
Reed samba method – basic exercise
This is the first in a multi-post series outlining some ways of using Progressive Steps to Syncopation to do a samba. I usually use actual Brazilian rhythms for that, but many of the rhythms in […]
Transcription: Kenny Clarke fours – 02
Put this in your binder with Kenny Clarke’s fours from Love Me Or Leave Me that I posted a few years ago. Here he’s trading fours on Two Not One from the album Lee Konitz with Warne Marsh. […]
Amazingness in cymbals
Making videos of some new cymbals for sale today, so it’s a good time post this thing that has been sitting in my drafts folder for some months: In selling these fantastic Cymbal & Gong […]
Hemiola funk – doubles – beginner sheet
Getting into doubles with my hemiola funk series— two notes in a row at 16th note speed on the same drum/cymbal. Using the same format as the last beginner sheet, which I’ve found to be […]
Practice loops: two McCoy loops
A couple of practice loops sampled from McCoy Tyner. The first is from Reaching Fourth; it’s the vamp from Old Devil Moon, and at 142 bpm it’s a nice medium tempo, good for working on […]