1986 Jeff Porcaro clinic

I haven't had time to watch this yet, but it's guaranteed to be good:



[h/t to Bo Eder at Drummerworld]

Transcription: Jeff Porcaro — Southbound

This is a song from my childhood which I only ever new from one line, which my college-age friend Tom, from the Big Brother/Big Sister program, used to sing at odd times:

Southbound / unfold your wings and fly / how would you like to be / swingin' in the branches of a coconut tree 

This was about 1976. Searching the lyric on the Google machine, it turns out the song was Southbound, by Three Dog Night, the ultimate early 70s band. It was an exuberant time— the word “party” was first used as a verb, and the phrase “party time” was coined and liberally splashed around like so much then-popular Jōvan Musk. A lot of people wore beards and/or mustaches, and body hair was in. Macramé was at its zenith. Hippies were current. People said man a lot, and WOOOed a lot— here: the ultimate 70s woo. That's the crux of 1971-75.

Whatever. That was the vibe of the period to my 5-9 year old self...

THE TUNE, anyhow, from the band's last album on the cusp of the Disco era, is a solid mid-70s studio funk number. The drummers credited for the album are Jeff Porcaro, Ed Greene, and Mickey McNeel. I can't find info for who plays on what, but in my ignorance of Greene's and McNeel's playing, I'm guessing it's Porcaro.

As you can guess from looking at it, the hihat part is played with both hands alternating, and the snare drum played with the right hand. The right hand is generally emphasized in the hihat rhythm— he especially seems to lean on the 3. He'll often play the bass drum and snare drum in unison: he usually hits the 4 with both drums, as well as the stops, and big ensemble hits. The entire song is played on a closed hihat, and the crash cymbal is used sparingly— often hits are played on a closed hihat.

This would be a good transcription to actually play, to learn how to play funk effectively. If you're going to do that, don't get hung up on very minor variations in the time feel— you'll have to judge what is musically significant and what you can ignore.

Get the pdf

Our song starts at 22:39:

Best books: Studio Funk Drumming by Roy Burns and Joey Farris

Lately I've become very anti-hip and anti-novelty with my practice materials, and the 40-page Studio Funk Drumming by Burns and Farris has that in spades. Written in 1981, and revised in 1994, this book focuses on functional grooves in the style of the 70's and 80's, before the ghost note explosion that followed the massive sampling/rip-off of Clyde Stubblefield, and before David Garibaldi's busier style became dominant (particularly among students and hobbyists). Think instead Jim Keltner or Rick Marotta. Jeff Porcaro. Doing last weekend's Roberto Silva transcription also reminded me of this book.

The first twelve pages of "commercial funk" exercises are dedicated to a system of backbeat grooves, laying common hi-hat variations (with optional openings) over 36 different bass drum parts, with nothing but 2 and 4 on the snare drum. Mastering this section up to a professional standard, in the range of tempos given, is a nice achievable goal, and will certainly give you a lot of space to think about one of the two or three most important things about your playing: the quality of your backbeats. Once learned, I've found it useful for preparing to record, or for fixing tempos that aren't quite comfortable for me. I play the entire thing without stopping, at the tempo in question, four measures of each groove. Things begin to sit nicely after doing that once or twice.

There are good short sections of shuffle and "studio triplet" feels, which don't cover a massive number of grooves, but do give a good foundation for those styles.

There are several pages that are basically obsolete, which I do not use; like the two pages of "funk sambas". The two pages of "fusion funk" introduce but do not develop a variety of more classically "fusiony" ideas, and can be safely ignored. The New Orleans and Reggae sections are usable, with caution- you want to supplement them with a lot of listening. Which is actually true of any book.

The sub-title "a professional workbook" is apt. This book keeps you very focused on time feels you want to have mastered to a very high level of proficiency, and which you can and will actually use in the field. As a funk drummer, your art is in how well you do these sorts of foundational grooves.