Han Bennink practice tips

Not a lot of action on the other drumming blogs these days, but Ted Warren of Trap'd has this amazing thing for us, courtesy of Jon McCaslin of Four On The Floor, courtesy of some guy who saw Han Bennink do a workshop, and wrote it down. I figure the more people reblog this kind of thing, the more it becomes a set part of the literature of drumming.

These are Bennink's suggestions for practicing the drums:

“Play as fast as you can for 5 minutes without repeating yourself.

Same thing goes for slow, loud, soft and any combination of them.

Play one piece of your drumkit for 5 minutes and try to keep it interesting, do this untill you have played all pieces.

Repeat the same beat for 5 minutes and try to keep it interesting.

Play a crescendo lasting 5 minutes ending as loud as possible.

Play solid time for 5 minutes, check with metrone before and after, repeat untill your time is really solid.

Play completely free for 5 minutes, no time is allowed.

When you think you have become good at these exercises extend them by 5 minutes each. etc. These exercises should last you a lifetime.”

Sunny Murray, the bebop tradition, and Milford Graves

“Take it easy, now... there's no work in this shit, they're gonna jump on your ass...” 
— Sunny Murray to a young, interested, Hans Bennink


 Here's an interview by Dan Warburton, with one of the original free jazz drummers, Sunny Murray. It's most interesting to me as a piece of archeology into the attitudes of these players, who seemed at the time to be making such a large break with previous music, and who are often regarded as not maintaining, shall we say, traditional technical standards. But Murray clearly feels himself to be part of the same tradition as some more mainstream players (even if McCall and Blackwell were thought of as avant-garde at the time) and having less connection to another great early free player, Milford Graves, who he felt was coming from someplace else:

[...] I like Milford a lot, but basically I have the attitude of a bebop drummer regarding what I feel about music and other drummers. Milford didn't come from bebop at all. I love Roy Brooks, and Louis Hayes with those beautiful mahogany-looking hands, Eddie Blackwell that could just swing your head off, Steve McCall was the best surprise with the left hand I ever heard, Dennis Charles he'd just chug-a-lug you for ever. [...] You know, it's traditional for a drummer to be opinionated about other drummers, because there are some basics and roots in jazz drumming and there's a whole generation today that hasn't had to deal with those rules or laws, aesthetically or spiritually, or go through the kinds of pressures I had to go through, Louis Hayes, Dennis Charles, Eddie Blackwell, Steve McCall had to go through... It wasn't something unpleasant, it was an education.

More after the break: