Yet again

As the Mask would say, SOMEBODY STOP ME!!!

Here's another doubles around the toms with melody in the accents. This time the tune is "Things ain't what they used to be."

Found some more!

So after fooling around with the idea from yesterday's post I came up with this. Still playing "Blue Monk" in accents, still playing doubles, but now moving the doubles (1set each) between snare and  3 toms.
The cool thing about this is the sticking resolves every 1 measure while it takes the tonal pattern 2 measures to start again.

Here it is:



It's a challenge to have the melody notes come out clearly enough (I'm speaking to myself as much as anyone else on this) so don't be afraid to take it slow.

Thanks,
T.

More accent control

Hey folks,
Here's a simple (in theory, at least) idea of playing triplets in double strokes while playing the melody to a tune, in this case "Blue Monk".  Here's a vid:



There are lots of ways to apply it around the drum set (RH on h.h., LH on snare, each hand on a different tom, etc.) so I'm going to try working on it this afternoon and I'll post more if there's something  I particularly like.

DO try this at home!

Doing the right thing

Amanda Palmer has now agreed to pay All her musicians.
It is good to see people doing the professional and decent thing.
Go ahead and check out what she is doing.
It is not my cup of tea but maybe you will dig it.

Odds and ends

Hey folks,
A couple of things.
As I'm sure some of you are aware by now, singer Amanda Palmer is trying to enlist musicians to play on her tour without being compensated. George Colligan's Jazz Truth has the lowdown.
If you feel as strongly about this as I do, please sign the petition and let this "artist" know how you feel about musicians being exploited.


Okay, on to happier things.

I just picked up Keith Jarrett's "Sleeper" off of iTunes and that's pretty much all I've been listening to this last week. This recording captures Jarrett's European band in 1979. They sound great! It's wonderful to hear the live version of "Personal Mountains" as well as material more associated with his Standards trio, namely "So Tender", and "Prism".
Jon Christensen sounds great throughout and I think this recording helps cement the idea that in a live setting, Danielsson and Christensen, were a lot groovier and tougher than they were ever given credit for.

Why this long for the recording to be released? Apparently, Jarrett didn't like it. For more on this see Peter Hum's Blog.
This makes me think that artists aren't always the best judge of their own work.
Recordings like this remind us of a time when Jarrett was creating new music, and as much as I love the trio with Peacock and DeJohnette, it's a bit more of a repertory band. ( I realize that's being a bit unfair. Jarrett's still improvising and I've never accused say, Red Garland of that even though he mainly played standards throughout his career. Jarrett has set the bar for himself very high indeed, because of his past work.)
Anyway, regardless of my gushing, go pick it up. You won't regret it!

Gonz at the Jazz Room

Here's some audio from my recent gig at The Jazz Room with Jerry Bergonzi, Jim Vivian, and Brian Dickinson. Hope you enjoy it.

Dynamics

Here's a fairly simple exercise to increase your dynamic range, and have you read dynamics more consistently, even when sight reading.


In this exercise, just play any beat you're comfortable enough with to be able to play without thinking about it. Then, read the dynamics and bar structure of each of the examples. In a nutshell, we're only reading the information on the outside of the measure. This will help you get used to reading dynamics the first time you play a piece. When you play dynamically, it sounds like music, rather than just reading notes!


Thanks and Ta!