Dotted Rhythm Coordination

This sheet can be used at any tempo, really, but what I had in mind when I came up with it was the "Uptempo Studies" from John Riley's Beyond Bop Drumming.  Whereas the examples in BBD are all on the beat and designed to clean up unisons, I thought it would be nice to augment that with syncopated rhythms often heard by drummers like Philly Joe, and Jimmy Cobb.

What makes this awkward for some is not necessarily the tempo.  It's the fact that the coordination changes when we reach a certain tempo.  The same way a roll has a "check pattern" or "skeleton", so does our ride cymbal pattern.  When we play a double stroke roll, for example, we hear 32nd notes, but our arms move at the rate of 16th notes.  So, on the ride cymbal at slow and medium tempos our arm is playing on all four beats while our hand and/or fingers control the skip note.  Using the first example on the sheet, that makes the coordination like this:

But when we get to faster tempos we tend to throw the stick on beats 2 and 4, and get the skip note on beats 1 and 3 with rebound and fingers.  That changes the coordination to this:

Not necessarily harder, just different.

So, if you're finding this exercise difficult, try reading it as written while just playing the ride cymbal on beats 2 and 4 along with the hi-hat.  Then add the other notes as you feel comfortable.  Drop me an e-mail if you'd like a PDF.

Afro-Cuban basics

Here's another back to basics sheet; a survival kit for playing Afro-Cuban music, or generic "Latin Jazz".  

It's a simple modular approach with three patterns for the right hand, three for the left hand, and three for the right foot.  If you can play each of these patterns with each of the others you'll be able to get through a lot of material on your average gig.

This is also a nice way to construct a simple arrangement.  When it comes time to head to a different part of a tune just change one element.  I feel that less experienced players often try to do too much.  The groove is the most important thing here, so keep it simple.  For example, let's say you're playing cascara together with clave, and the first bombo pattern.  When that next section comes up try keeping your right hand and right foot the same, but switching to one of the conga grooves with the left hand.  Often times one change like that does more than we realize and can really lift the tune without have to do much else.

Syncopation in 3/4

Here's a sheet to go with the 3/4 ride and hi-hat patterns from the other day.  Really it's just the phrases from "Syncopation Set 2" in Ted Reed's Syncopation with beats hacked off of it.

Try each of these with different ride and hi-hat combinations from the last sheet.  If you want to go deeper, Todd Bishop at Cruise Ship Drummer! has an entire book dedicated to Syncopation in 3/4.

Basic 3/4 ride and hi-hat combinations

I try not to post too much stuff here on the blog that is already widely available in a million other places, but I recently put this sheet together for a student and figured there was no harm in sharing it with all of you as well.  If nothing else maybe it will serve as a reminder to occasionally revisit the "basics".

I generally try to play through anything I give my students to make sure that A) the sheet is right, and B) I'm not asking them to do anything I haven't shed myself.  And funnily enough, while not difficult, this sheet showed me that there are certain ride and hi-hat combinations that just never made their way into my day-to-day playing.  It's not that I couldn't play them, but they just didn't feel as natural, especially when getting the left hand involved.  So it's been fun putting on Max Roach's Jazz in 3/4 Time and take these for a spin.

The Brush Book Joe Morello Never Wrote

We can complain about algorithms all we want, but they often find interesting things for us.  Because of the videos in the last post about Mel Brown playing through Brush Artistry YouTube recommended to me a series of videos by Jon Hazilla, who I'm not familiar with, but apparently teaches at Berklee.

Jon studied with Joe Morello, and later developed his own approach to Master Studies using brushes to develop facility with lateral strokes.

I've been revisiting Master Studies lately myself (with sticks, that is), so I think I'll be giving this a try soon.

Mel Brown demonstrating Philly Joe's "Brush Artistry"

In a recent excursion down the YouTube rabbit hole I came across a YouTube playlist of Portland drumming legend Mel Brown demonstrating each of the patterns in Philly Joe's venerable book Brush Artistry.  These are short, sweet, and to the point if you have any doubts about how the material in the book should be executed.

As the book is many years out of print, I can't see how there'd be much harm in sharing the fact that a scanned copy of it can be found here.  We certainly wouldn't want it to be lost to time.

Coincidentally, Mel was recently interviewed by Christian McBride on NPR's Jazz Night in America.  Check it out below to find out more about Mel and hear him play with his organ group.

Carmen Intorre solo transcription

I first heard Carmen Intorre play in 2012 at Ronnie Scott's with Pat Martino.  The whole band were crushing that evening.  I had long been wanting to do an organ trio record myself, and that show put the spark under my ass to finally do it.  I was so inspired by it that I even called Pat Bianchi to do the record, which you can check out in the menu on the right.

Anyway, with the recent passing Pat Martino I've been revisiting a bunch of his records, and in listening to his final record, "Formidable", got to thinking again about that evening at Ronnie's and the great teamwork of Bianchi and Intorre.

I was reminded of this video I saw back in 2014 when looking for a studio to do my record.  It's a promo video for guitarist Alessandro Florio, and features a very nicely constructed solo by Carmen.  I was always struck by how relaxed Carmen was and how naturally he made his way around the kit and flowed from one idea to the other.

Rafael Barata samba practice loop

It's been a little awhile since I've done one of these practice loops, but this one has really been coming in handy lately for both teaching and my own practice.

This comes from the opening track of Rosa Passos' 2011 album É Luxo Só named after the Ary Baroso tune of the same name that is very much a Brazilian standard.  The whole album is an absolute clinic of samba and bossa nova drumming.

The loop below is simply Barata playing surdo and a telecoteco pattern on tamborim, leaving lots of room for you to try things out with it.

And, as there is no harmony or melody on this loop, you are free to practice on both sides of the rhythm, feeling it like this:

...or like this: