Groove o' the day: Zigaboo Modeliste - People Say

Today's groove o' the day is Zigaboo Modeliste's part from People Say, by The Meters:

The 16ths are half-swung in the New Orleans style ("in between the cracks", as Stanton Moore calls it). Listen to the recording for variations in the bass drum part- often he'll add it on the "&-a" of 1 of the first measure. The variations in the hihat part are basically optional- it would sound just as good with 8th notes all the way through.

YouTube audio after the break:

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 of a figurer-outer- a method to help the uninitiated to figure out time signatures. But since neither term existed until I made them up two minutes ago, I think I'm going to go with the one that looks better in the headline. The extra r in figurer is just a bridge too far for unfamiliar, made-up terms.

So. If we can proceed unhindered by the grammarians in my head, this is something that comes up often on the Drummerworld.com discussion forum- there are a lot of self-taught drummers there seeking help with basic musicianship. I've tried to make this as easy as possible for people with minimal musical knowledge, but I still am always surprised at the variety of misconceptions out there, and I can't anticipate them all. Most of the people who actually need something like this should contact a teacher- this topic can be put to rest in a single 30 minute lesson. Most likely this piece will be most helpful to inexperienced teachers who haven't settled on a way to communicate this to students yet, or for me when I need to deal with this question over the Internet again and again. So here we go:

1.   Focus your attention on a piece of music. Start with something easy. Turn on AM radio or buy some records if you listen to nothing but prog. Relax. Open your collar. Top hat and cane put away neatly. Remove spats and cravat.

2. Tap your foot in an even tempo along with the music, wherever it feels comfortable to you. It will likely be anywhere between the speed of a slow-yet-consistent saunter (or pimp roll, if you prefer) up to a brisk jog. We'll call that the beat. If you find it difficult or impossible to tap your foot evenly to a piece, set it aside and choose a different one.

3. Count the following out loud along with your foot tapping, and see which fits with the music: 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3, or 1-2. Count them over and over, so for example, when you're doing the last one, you would be saying "1-2-1-2-1-2-1-2-etc". (Yes, that is bleeding obvious, but again, you'd be surprised at what is not obvious to a lot of people.)

Drum! Magazine piece - Inside "Cissy Strut"

This is an educational piece of mine, entitled Inside "Cissy Strut" And Beyond, which ran in the Nov. 2010 issue of Drum! magazine. After reviewing New Orleans drummer Stanton Moore's book Groove Alchemy for Oregon Music News, I devised a method for developing something Moore revealed about Meters drummer Zigaboo Modeliste's way of playing the famous tune Cissy Strut. The groove featured a two-handed, broken-up approach to the hi-hat which anticipated the linear fusion thing more fully explored later in the 70's and 80's.

The method is fully explained in the piece. You'll need your copy of Syncopation to cover it thoroughly- it's recommended that you apply it to the quarters and 8ths pages ("lesson 4" in the new edition), the 8th note rest pages, and the syncopation sets, before eventually moving on to the long syncopation exercises.