Page o' coordination: blazing Zorn 7/8

More 7/8, this one specifically for very fast tempos, based on the riff from a tune called Solitaire, from John Zorn's album O'o. It's a short, simple, but very challenging vehicle for a drum solo, and Joey Baron absolutely kills it. I don't know if there's a real good reason to work this up if you're not playing a lot of modern music. I do get asked to play hard stuff, and the idea of having a piece like this put in front of me on a recording date, and me eating it as badly as I do practicing along with the recording, gives me hives. So I want to take a few minutes to learn to cover it.

The measures are phrased 3+2+2— unusual— but the tune is basically played “in 1”— one seven-note-subdivided-beat per measure. The format of the exercises is different than we usually do for the POCs— the left hand column  has the cymbal rhythm, with both feet on the downbeat, and a variety of left hand parts; the right hand column has the same patterns with additional bass drum notes.

Play it down in columns, go left to right down the page, whatever you want. I think if you're not able to whip through this up to speed in less than half an hour, you should probably be working on something else. Don't screw around.

Get the pdf

No YouTube for this one, which is just as well. Buy the track here, or the whole album. I wish I could give a link that forces you to go to your local record store and buy it there, instead of from Amazon. But it's good, buy it.