Groove o' the day: Gainsbourg

I love 70's studio drumming. I was just re-listening to some old Serge Gainsbourg stuff- I made a record of his music in 2009 and did a couple of  little Europe tours with it- and this groove jumped out at me. We played this on the tour in 2010, but I guess I never listened to the groove that closely, even though I transcribed arranged the tune for the band. The drummer is an English session player named Dougie Wright

The hihat part is played with both hands, natural sticking, I guess (RH on the 8th notes, LH on the e's and a's); it's a little bit reminiscent of Cissy Strut, which uses the hihat the same way. The rhythm of the accents makes a little partido alto rhythm- I don't know if that's intentional; I suspect not. I think it's just a universal rhythm. The bass drum notes in parenthesis are optional.

Get Par Hasard et Pas Rasé

YouTube clip after the break:

Now available: Book of the Blog 2011 - Vol. 1: Transcriptions

UPDATE: I'm keeping this at the top of the blog this week- scroll down for new stuff.

OK, it took me longer than I had hoped to wrap this up, but it's  finally ready to order, professionally printed and bound from Lulu.com. This very fat first volume of stuff from 2011 includes all of my original transcriptions posted during our first year as a dedicated drumming blog. Volume 2 will contain the technical pieces- now that I've done one of these, it will hopefully be much faster coming together.

Included are transcriptions of the playing of Elvin Jones, Jack Dejohnette, Vinnie Colaiuta (epic!), Zigaboo Modeliste, Tony Williams, James Gadson, Philly Joe Jones, Frankie Dunlop, Ringo Starr, Paul Motian, Max Roach, and a whole lot more.

They're bargain-priced at $14.95 for 139 fully-packed pages, so, ah, "order your copy today!"

Very occasional quote of the day: on forethought

"[T]his shit is an accident."
- Paul Motian

DBMITW: The Beta Band

Let's feature somebody with an actual video for once:



A few more after the break:

You knew this was coming...

Here's the latest stupidly-named iteration of my basic paradiddle exercise, this time using 16th note 7s, septuplets, or whatever you want to call them. As always, play through the entire page, then play combinations of exercises in 1, 2, or 4 measure repetitions. The sequence I use for combinations is 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, etc... 2-3, 2-4, 2-5, etc... 3-4, 3-5, 3-6, etc... and so on.

Get the pdf.

A growing community

Following up this post by Mark Feldman, I thought it would be good to direct your attention to my drumming blogroll, in case you somehow are not a regular follower of them already. There are other blogs than the ones I've mentioned, mainly dealing with gear, amazingness, or heavy metal, or just telling what the blogger is up to, but I'm interested in ones that deal with actually learning to play the drums and being a musician. I also haven't mentioned a few good ones that are either defunct, or extremely occasional posters.

If you write or know of a drumming blog not mentioned here, please let us know about it in the comments.

Four on the Floor - Along with Trap'd, Jon McCaslin of Calgary has the most active and prominent drumming blog. Excellent text and YouTube clips, occasional technical pieces. Most recent post: The Calgary Scene - Michelle Grégoire

Trap'd - By Ted Warren in Ontario. As I've already mentioned, I love his online teaching style. Most recent post: A little jam

Tim's Parlour - The one that inspired me to make this an actual drumming blog. Very sporadic posting, and not easy to navigate (get thee on Blogger/Wordpress!), but great content. Most recent post: Idea #11 ("This is a simple idea for working on hand co-ordination and involves playing different figures in each hand over a basic foot pattern.")

Bang! the Drum School - Mark Feldman in Brooklyn, NY has a great blog on his teaching studio site. Lots of downloadable content, just like here, for every level of player. Most recent post (after the one that inspired this one): Samba Independence Part 2

The Melodic Drummer - Andrew Hare in DC just started this blog a few weeks ago, and already has a ton of outstanding content. Most recent post: The Caravan Warmup: Moving moeller strokes between drums

Rudimental Hands - A really good blog for keeping track of what's current in the marching percussion world. Most recent post: Wednesday: Basic Strokes

David Aldridge's Drumming Blog - Primarily text, and a sporadic poster, a little esoteric, always interesting. Most recent post: Bio Robotic Drumming... Really

Jazz Schmazz - This is an honorable mention- it's primarily a jazz recordings blog, but he does have at least a couple of excellent Max Roach and Pete LarRoca transcriptions posted.

Old & New Dreams - 1980 lecture/demonstration

From Warren Senders at Running Gamak, here is audio and a transcript of a clinic given at Harvard by Old and New Dreams (Don Cherry, Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden and Ed Blackwell) during their 1980 tour. They speak in depth about Ornette Coleman's "harmolidic" method, and about making music in general.




A fun aside: it was during this tour that, in one of the more inspired programming moves ever, my brother's fusion group, Glider (or was it Glyder? Including Portland bassist Kevin Deitz and LA guitarist Richard Smith), opened for OAND at Perry's in Eugene. I think that was set up by Portland bassist Andre St. James. I had just started taking drum lessons a few months before this, and was learning the nature of  life as a drummer by shlepping my snare drum the mile and a half to school 3 times a week. 

Questions and answers about Ed Blackwell, who was getting dialysis treatment and was not present:

Dewey Redman: ...if the drummer, who is the lifeblood of the group, is not here…it would give it a different inflection with the drummer, because he is the lifeblood, sets up the rhythm, counter-rhythm, etcetera.

[...]

Audience Member: Question for Charlie: Eddie Blackwell is not here, and you are the rhythm section for the time being. What’s that like?

Charlie Haden: Hard!

My audio archive!

My audio archive is now up and running. Download tracks from my CDs (including a couple of yet-unreleased projects) and mp3s of my performances. Enjoy!

Oh, and be sure to visit Origin Records online for more great jazz.

Boomish!

Here's a cool band that I foungd through MySpace. They're on the Ocean's 12 soundtrack and some other hip things.

Check them out.