Scott K. Fish blogs

Something new for you to read while I'm out of town for a few days catching the opening of Family Album, the new rock musical featuring my girlfriend: former Modern Drummer contributer and managing editor Scott K. Fish is now blogging about drumming, with a lot of anecdotes from the golden age of that magazine, when there were a lot more of the old drumming legends around, and being covered by MD. Definitely pay him a visit and check back in frequently.  

Two links

Hit the link for the full-size scans.

Two short items: First, someone is sharing what I consider to be the “real” sheet music for Frank Zappa's Black Page— it's the same copy I learned it from in the '80's, and my brother before me, back in 1979 or so. We got it from Charles Dowd, and I assume it's either the original commercially-available version of the piece, or possibly it's Zappa's own studio chart— I don't know if he had his stuff professionally copied before giving it out to the band. First person who gets a chance ask Bozzio about it, leave it in the comments, please.

Also at the link is a recent video of a Terry Bozzio playing the piece, which will come in handy if you want to actually learn it.

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Second, a new addition to our blogroll— a fan site dedicated to Jim Keltner, including his complete discography, with album personnel and notes, photos, and, most interestingly, scans of a lot of rare print interviews. I'll be linking to a lot more from this site.

Brian Blade transcription

Drummer/blogger Sam Nadel of London has given us a nice, heavy transcription of Brian Blade's solo on Jazz Crimes, along with a whole lot of other good stuff.

Give a listen to the audio after the break, then go download the complete transcription:

Other people write good things

Of excellence.

I haven't been giving my fellow blogs enough love recently, but they've been producing a veritable tidal wave of excellent stuff:

Trap'd has a long post about playing with large ensembles, with an excellent list of the general principles of big band drumming- a must read.

The Drummer's Way has some words of wisdom from Jim Keltner. "How do I exist in a world of Colaiutas?" Companion piece: interview with Andy Newmark, in which he tells about watching Keltner record with John Lennon.

A "double shot" of Swiss triplets from Four on the Floor and Random Randy. Companion piece: my absurd Swiss triplets exercise.

Dave Aldridge writes about Funkadelic's Tiki Fulwood. Companion piece: my transcription of all of the grooves from Maggot Brain.

The Melodic Drummer writes more about playing brushes at fast tempos.

Rudimental Hands titles a post with some useful advice: never practice struggle.

Another new drumming blog

I'm really trying to put a finish on this bloody book of transcriptions this weekend (it's ending up being about 150 pages long), so while I'm fooling around with that, you can go check out (and bookmark, and blogroll) Chicago drummer Jeffrey Lien's new blog, The Drummers Way. So far his stuff is centered around very substantial teaching tips, transcriptions, and studio/pop/rock drumming. Very much looking forward to seeing how the blog develops. Go pay him a visit.

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.