Fundraiser time

UPDATE: Bumping this to the top of the blog, scroll down for new posts. You may have noticed I've added a Patreon account, for those who prefer to support the site that way.

Well, we've had a few relatively-minor*-but-noticeable financial setbacks lately, so if you want to help out the site with your hard-earned money, now's a good time to do it. 

You may have noticed that the site is totally unmonetized**. Any money I make from it is from people getting lessons, buying cymbals, or buying books, or making donations.

* - Most immediately, my car bit the big one, must be junked. 

** - OK, there are a few Amazon ads lurking in some of the posts, from a failed foray into getting some money from them. When I have time I'll be removing them all. 

So here are some things you can do to pitch in and help me out:

Make a recurring donation
10-20 of you signing up for a recurring monthly $5-15 donation would make a big difference in the site's financial outlook. Yes, that's the financial scale we're on, here. Larger donations from individuals of greater means will not be refused. Pop a Krugerrand in the mail. 

Hit the PayPal link in the sidebar for that. Once the thing is set up you don't even notice it, but it ends up being a big help to the site. 

Get lessons
I know everyone reading this isn't 100% up to speed on everything I talk about on the site, so stop being uncertain about it and treat yourself to 1-3-? months of lessons.

Everything I write is about making expert drumming as easy as possible, but it requires a little bit of indoctrination into the broad methods. Lessons are not about new information, they're about instant feedback and instant answers to all of your questions— not just answers to the question, but answers to how important is the question itself. Not knowing the actual (un-)importance of each thing in the information tsunami is the main thing hindering many students now.  

I'm happy to teach all levels of students— I especially encourage anyone feeling major frustrations with drumming to get in touch. 

Hit the Email Todd link in the sidebar. Rates are $60/hour, $35/half hour. 

Get Cymbal & Gong cymbals
I'm not kidding around, and I'm not hustling you to buy these things just because I have them to sell. Cymbal & Gong really are some of the best things being made right now for a traditional Turkish sound— the 50s-60s sound. And all of the cymbals I sell I personally select, both for sound and for playability— they all need to ride and crash well, with a good stick sound. I give notes on each cymbal, and try to give an accurate description of each cymbal's individual sound and playing experience. 

These are cymbals you buy once, and then use for the rest of your career.

I need to post videos for at least half a dozen outstanding new Holy Grail series cymbals— in the mean time you can see what I have in stock at Cymbalistic.com. You can see videos of all current and past stock on my YouTube channel. 

Reach me by the Email Todd link in the sidebar on this site, or via the contact info on Cymbalistic. 

Buy my books
Save yourself the hassle and printer ink from printing out my stuff, and buy my Books of the Blog*. I confess I have not posted the 2020 book yet— it was one of those years. Anyone regularly following the site will want my Syncopation in 3/4. There's also my Samba/Bossa Nova style guide, and my book of grooves. Hit the appropriate book covers in the sidebar, or hit the link above and just get the whole catalog. 

* - Note that on the book retail site there are a couple of non-drumming books by someone else named Todd Bishop— I didn't write those. 

Thanks everyone, it's a pleasure serving you. 

Site news: videos, cymbals

SITE NEWS:

One thing: We're doing videos. I'm gearing up for that right now. That's what all of that camera jazz was about. I'm going to have to figure out a way to do it in keeping with this site's “thing.” I like very few drumming videos I see online— there's a lot of bad information, pointless gabbing, and time-wasting happening there. I'm not going to do “lessons” where I show people who can't read music how to do things by rote, and I'm not going to slime-blast you with site branding BS. We'll probably start with some videos of me playing site materials, and demonstrating things there's no easy way to write about, and see what develops.

Photo courtesy Revival Drum Shop

The other thing: I'm talking to Cymbal & Gong about selling cymbals through the site. We're not sure what that will look like yet; ideally I'd like to hand select cymbals and make videos of them for you to buy, most likely on a limited time basis. Or I could take requests to hand select cymbals. I'd like to make a personalized thing out of it, but we'll see what we can come up with.

If you don't know about this brand yet: they make traditional hand-hammered, K-type cymbals, and old-school A-types. They're designed and beautifully finished by a guy in Portland, and crafted by a group of artist cymbal smiths in Turkey. I think they're some of the best things available. You've seen me rave about my 17" Holy Grail crash— how special does a 17" crash have to be to drive somebody like me out of my mind over it? Everyone else I know who has gotten to play them— expert players who have played a lot of cymbals and are picky about their instrument— has loved them. I've got a full set of them and I basically never leave the house with anything else now. No reason to.

Please comment or email if that's something you would seriously be interested in— like, if you can conceive of actually buying a cymbal off the site on my recommendation, if you heard something you liked. Prices are competitive with other hand made Turkish cymbals.