The Who - WOODSTOCK 1969 (Full Concert)

 Although I try my best to break up my drumming exercise, opinion, and video posts, it's 2 in a row after last weeks Bill Bruford footage. This is the Who in '69 at their ferocious best. There is some missing video, although all the audio is present. We, unfortunately miss the historic moment when activist Abbie Hoffman interrupts the performance and gets a guitar in the head for his trouble! Moon sounds fantastic, and has me seriously considering a set up with no hi-hat and two bass drums! Enjoy….

Bruford and the Beat

 Here's a great instructional video that Bill Bruford made in 1982. I remember hearing about it when it came out but I don't know if I would have gotten much out of it at the time. Now, however, I am very pleased with the many nuggets of wisdom contained within, as well as the beautiful solo Mr. Bruford plays at the beginning.  Note: the tunes with King Crimson are muted for copyright reasons, but you have all those albums already, right? :) Enjoy! 

P.S. Just a reminder that I am slowly moving all my Trap'd archives ( as well as constantly creating new content.) over to my Patreon page. Only $5 a month! 

My Patreon is Live!

 Hey all,

Eventually I will be moving most of my posts to my Patreon site. It's only $5 a month and I promise you'll get a lot for that! I realize for those of you that prefer this free format it's a bit of a drag but let's face it, we're living in a material word and I'm a material girl/boy/whatever……..

A Philly Joe lick

 This week I was playing around with this idea (and some variations)……

Truth be told, it's only HALF a Philly lick really, It comes from one of his trades on Miles' "Dr. Jackle" from the Milestones album. Here it is at 1:33.

It's a very simple idea, really. Sort of 3/4 of a paradiddle. That very simplicity is why it's so ideal for variations. Here's me doing a few…..

The first one is playing it as a seven beat figure (the lick plus one 8th note triplet rest) over a 3/4 pattern with the feet and I'm warbling Toots Thieleman's "Blusette" so we can really feel the waltz time…

Next up, I'm still playing it as a seven beat idea, but in str. 8ths and dead stroking the first 2 notes as I head around the drums, giving it a nice pitch variation….

Finally, here's the same idea spread out between hi-hat and cross stick, with the hi-hat also being playing in quarter notes with the LF…..

Obviously, I worked on just using the idea in 4 and moving it around the drums and the carline before I did anything else (see notation at top of the post) but I hope I've demonstrated some of the many possibilities contained in this one little idea. Also, learn all the Philly Joe trades from Dr. Jackle! Only good can come from it…….

Put your hands in the air, like you just don't care!

 Independent coordination is a funny beast. One level of challenge is to play 2 or more rhythms simultaneously. Another challenge is to play differing accents or dynamic levels between limbs. The issue I want to deal with in this post is when the hands are moving to different drums or cymbals at contrary rates or distances.

Here's the first example, that I posted awhile back on Instagram. In it I'm dividing the Jazz Ride rhythm with the RH between the hi-hat and ride cymbal (ride cymbal on 2 & 4)  and the LH is filling in the second and third triplet of every beat and moving surfaces every quarter note.

#2- LH Shuffle between Hi-Hat and snare, RH Jazz Quarter note triplets between the toms.

#3 Same as above, except RH moves between bell of cymbal and small tom.

#4 Both hands play consecutive str. 8ths. LH moves between hi-hat to snare drum on 2 & 4, RH plays downbeats on cymbal, upbeats on large tom.

#5 Same but with order of downbeats and upbeats in RH reversed.

#6 Back to shuffle, but it's in the RH between cymbal and snare, and the jazz quarter note triplets between hi-hat and small tom in LH.

#7 A little more challenging. Nanigo bell pattern12/8 beat in RH moving between bell of cymbal and snare,  LH fills in the rest of the rhythm and alternates between cross stick on snare and small tom.

#8 Same as above but both hands basically move randomly. This is a great way to check if a sticking or rhythm is internalized.

#9 Cascara w/RH moving between rim of snare and floor tom, LH filling in on cross stick and moving to small tom on beat 4 of second bar.

#10 Both hands play 12/8 rhythm. LH moves from hi-hat to snare on 2 & 4, RH alternates between ride and small tom.

#11 Similar to above, but RH plays the back beats.

#12 Another shuffle vs jazz quarter note triplet variation…

#13 Back to cascara, and only the RH moves, but I just like the sound of it! :) 

Finally, the last 2 were inspired by an exercise Bellarmine University's Terry O'Mahoney originally wrote for tympani, and involved the hands playing in 2 different time signatures and rates. In both of the videos below, I'm playing dotted quarters with my RH while I play a seven beat on/off pattern with the LH. Add a bossa foot pattern, and it creates a nice challenge and some interesting textures. 

The great thing about moving our hands about is we can breathe new life into anything we play, simply by creating new combinations of tones and thusly, new drum melodies. Have fun! 

Quality!

It seems like a lot of what I see online involves what someone is doing, (e.g. the fastest, the loudest, etc.) rather than the how or why. Cue my good friend and Pianist/Journalist Peter Hum, who alerted me to this wonderful Tommy Flanagan recording Sea Changes, apparently the last one he made. Here's a great tune from it, the wonderful "Eclypso".

Flanagan and bassist Peter Washington play so beautifully on this and Lewis Nash (as always) sounds creative while still swinging and always appropriate. Above is the beat he plays at the beginning of Flanagan's solo.

RH is playing the bell of the cymbal, the snares are off, and the bass drum is pretty quiet relative to everything else. It's not a super hard beat to play, but works great at a lot of tempos, including very bright. Try it with different BD/HH parts and orchestrating the LH around the drums. Voila! Instant new vocabulary for Calypso-style tunes! 

Link Here

Don't let colours get in the way of content!

 This is another one of those "Cautionary Tale/ Don't Be Like I Was" posts. :) 

As most people who have heard me would surmise, I am fascinated with pulling as many colours out of the drum set as possible, and have devoted a fair amount of time to this. That's all well and good, but it's important to know when and where esoteric sounds fit the music. I remember one time a great trumpet player in Regina, Ron Brooks, telling me that I wasn't "minding the store". I'd like to say that I immediately took his comment to heart, and worked on being as solid, as I was being colourful, but I was young and foolish. (As a sidebar, let's all give thanks to the more experienced musicians in smaller communities all over the world that guide, encourage, and tolerate younger players!) It took me a long time to realize what he meant. Listening, as always, is key. Not only listening to great examples, of solid, groovy, and often deceptively simple playing, but also listening to the band that one is playing with. It's always good to ask yourself, "Is the band getting what it needs to do its job?" "Does the beat feel firm, or am I not giving the band confidence in the time?" I'm not suggesting anyone not to try to explore interesting sounds and shapes, but as with all things, balance and taste is the key.

Here's a great example of someone who really explored the drums, but never at the expense of groove and feel. Mr. Blakey! 

NOTE: The last couple of weeks have featured recordings with Wayne Shorter, yet these posts were written long before his passing. It just goes to show what a huge force in music he's been to all of us!