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What Daniel suggests, and I fully endorse, is that you step inside the other artist's skin for a few minutes. He even goes as far as to suggest you imagine yourself as that drummer to help you emulate their style and energy.
Read moreThere are today a lot of companies making drum heads, ranging from the global standards -- Remo, Evans, etc. -- to boutique makers such as Earthtone and Kentville. And of course, every maker offers a variety of styles, sometimes to the point of our total bewilderment.
Read moreThere are many different types of shuffle rhythms available, and each one was 'purpose built' for a particular style of music. Note that your basic shuffle is often written as dotted 8th & 16th notes, but it's rarely played that way. Strict adherence to 1(e&)a 2(e&)a 3(e&)a 4(e&)a tends to sound mechanical or choppy, and just not swinging. Counting 1~uh 2~uh 3~uh 4~uh leaves you free to interpret and fine tune the feel of a shuffle. i
Read moreThe first thing that struck me about Mastering the Snare Drum was the
sheer weight of the thing. In a little over 100 pages, the book covers
just about everything a snare drummer would need.
The same might can be said of drum exercises. They all work because they all get your hands (and feet) moving. But, like diets, not all exercises are equal. Some will transport your playing to the next level, while others won’t have much impact on your actual playing, and some may send you off in the wrong direction.
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I picked up a copy of the Sabian publication “Create: 2017 Cymbals & Sounds”. It’s a 40-page full color magazine provided free by Sabian and distributed through music equipment outlets. It’s really just a catalog of their various products, but it delivers quite a bit more. The book is filled with information about cymbals: how they’re made, how they’re used, how designs came about, what different features mean. There’s lots of cymbal lore and history too. If someone wanted to quickly learn about cymbals, this edition would be a great place to start.
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When we speak of tone, we often use terms like warm, round, dark, and the like. Each tone quality has its place, but the one that many drummers seem to forget about is bright. It's one thing for our drums to sound great when we're seated behind them, but what does it sound like out front?
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Perhaps you're teamed with a bass player who doesn't lay down a solid line. Or maybe someone in the band just doesn't connect. In either case my recommendation is to work with the strongest or the weakest player.
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Everywhere you turn these days, someone is talking about, writing about or demonstrating something they cheerfully call "Moeller". But here's the thing -- there appears to be a lot of different techniques being presented as Moeller. So I decided to see if I could get to the bottom of the apparent confusion, and here's what I found out about our friend "Gus" and his teachings.
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Forget the 'flat foot vs. toe' argument. When it comes to working the bass drum foot pedal, pretty much anything goes. All of the pedal techniques listed below have advantages and limitations. My advice is to try them all, as each one can bring something worthwhile to your bass drum execution. Note that some pedals may not be suitable for certain techniques.
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This brings to mind the adage “You don't stop playing because you get old. You get old because you stop playing”. The same might be said of creativity. Maybe we don't stop being creative because we're not very good at it, we're not very good at it because we stopped being creative.
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Sad Car
When I was a young professional musician, I had a reputation of being extravagant. It's a bit ironic because I'm a total cheap-skate. While I was making a pretty good living from drums, I still had to live frugally. I also had to allocated funds carefully. The main areas of contention were instruments and transportation. You see, I had very expensive drums and a fairly expensive car, whereas many of my peers made do with lesser equipment. There's a simple reason for that: TCB.
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Your job as a drummer is simple: Hit stuff. Usually you'll want/need to hit things in a more-or-less controlled manner. Below are the basic strokes from which all others flow. Note that for each type of stroke, the position of the stick at the end of the stroke is just as important as the start position.
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The band was about to play their final number and the leader was introducing the band members one last time. It was a bit redundant because the line-up was a who's who of Canadian jazz players. Finally the MC announced the drummer, adding that he was the glue that held it all together, and all the band members nodded in agreement......That struck me as a bit odd.
Read moreSociety has rediscovered only in the last few years the importance of mentors. There's always something to be gained from having someone more experienced to look up to. And if that person is hip to the “pay it forward” concept, there will be two of you looking out for your progress and your career. This can be a great morale booster.
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We were sitting around discussing our usual topic: drums. When we got around to the topic of tuning, the more senior drummer among us (defined as someone who'd actually had some real gigs) said: "A drum should go Doom."
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I'd like to dedicate this post to the memory of Jim Blackley, the man who I will always call “teacher”.
I recently spent a lesson with a youngster listening to a Katie Perry tune. This fellow was just beginning to be interested in music, and the tune really spoke to him. I like to work with real world examples, so we listened to the tune and talked about it. I pointed out things the drummer was doing that were things we'd been working on. For his next lesson, I prepared some exercises that he could play along to the tune. We spent maybe 10 minutes on the drums that day, but it was one of the best lessons ever because he got it, and he got it because it meant something to him.
Read moreWell, Phil Collins is back in the news lately. Remember when he was the guy every rock drummer wanted to be? Then he became a front-man, a break-out star, then a pop icon, then the stalwart of the housewives’ hit parade. Even though Phil are I nearly the same age, he was my idol. We all followed his progress from promising young prog-rock drummer with the shy manner and even shyer voice, to the most respected, most wanted, rock/pop drummer ever. I've just finished Phil's autobiography and I heartily recommend it.
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Some of the patterns have been around for a thousand years or more. Most of them are a few hundred years old at least. The drum set itself, barely a hundred years old, came along long after the rudiments were laid down. Well, if the rudiments were never intended for drum set use, does it even make sense to drag them into the drum set arena?Some of the patterns have been around for a thousand years or more. Most of them are a few hundred years old at least. The drum set itself, barely a hundred years old, came along long after the rudiments were laid down. Well, if the rudiments were never intended for drum set use, does it even make sense to drag them into the drum set arena?
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My doctor put me on a new drug that actually made me a bit stoned for the first few days. I was prepared for this and planned my days accordingly. What I didn't realize was how it would affect my playing. Being a little bit high (from whatever cause) can help you get into the music. Best case is to be high on the music alone. Less desirable is to be in enough of a fog to forget to pay attention to, for example, the guitar player trying to catch my eye because he wants to end the tune.
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