Tag: music Page 1 of 3

What it is: swing rhythm

Swing interpretation is something we use a lot here, and I’ve mostly assumed people know what it is— you probably wouldn’t be reading all of this high-flying jazz…

Alan Dawson’s “Ruff Bossa”

We’re laying it on pretty thick with the Reed interpretations right now, but I just went over this with a student, so I need to put up one…

Rudimental Reed: ruffs

Today’s Rudimental Reed entry is pretty straightforward— just make a ruff out of any note that doesn’t have an (untied) 8th note before it.  That’s an awkward way…

Expanding on The Kenny Note

What we have here are some very basic comping ideas based on the so-called (by me only, I’m sure) “Kenny” note— a snare drum punctuation on the &…

Hemiola basics

The hemiola— also called the 3:2 polyrhythm– is a basic polyrhythm using layered even two and three note rhythms. What I’ve done here is outline some ways of…

How much to practice something

1. Get wood chisel. 2. Remove everything that doesn’t look like Billy the Kid deftly gunning down Bat Masterson before the throng of stunned onlookers, a yapping yellow…

Six stroke rolls around the drums

I’m just cranking them out today. I’ve been using the last paradiddles around the drums thing so much I decided to write up something similar using another familiar…

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…

First-inversion paradiddles around the drums

This came up in my own practice today, and I went ahead and wrote it up. I’ve been doing a fair amount of this kind of thing lately-…

Bass drum variations for bossa nova

Bossa nova can be a very static style for novices- I’ve noticed in teaching that they have a hard time getting away from the standard, repetitive pattern. And,…