Category: Uncategorized

Tons of free drumming materials on my other site!

My other site is a drumming blog called CRUISE SHIP DRUMMER!— playing on a river boat was my main money job for several years, a long time ago….

Drum lessons during COVID – 2023 UPDATE

Starting in early 2020 we moved to an online format for all lessons, and resumed in person lesson in 2022. For in person lessons, we ask that you…

Kernels of Cascara

My students have been doing so well with my “kernels” concept that I’ve decided to write up a real challenge for them: cascara with the clave in the…

Sixtuplet plus release

This is something that came up in my practicing yesterday, and I went ahead and scribbled out a page of it for you. These sound good fast, but…

Playing quieter

Miles is going to have to askyou to CTFO.  In the past I was regarded as kind of a loud player- I forgot how much, until recently before…

Time signature figure-outer

Gah! What?  I’m not sure my title is actually grammatically correct- a time signature “figure-outer” sounds like a job description, when what we are dealing with is more…

Why we transcribe

Yes, I look the samewhen I’m transcribing as Duke did when he was copying parts- immaculately-coifed, reclining in my suit surrounded by reams of parchment. I’m a pretty…

4:3 metric modulation in jazz

Here’s a little thing I put together to develop the 4:3 cross rhythm/metric modulation in jazz. Normally you actually want to explain an advanced concept like this, but…

16th note fills using Syncopation – Part 1

This is the first part of a method for working on 16th note fills, which I developed for my intermediate students. It requires some selective reading, but in…