Lost Ed Blackwell

Jon McCaslin @ Four On The Floor has posted some obscure (I've never seen them,anyway) Ed Blackwell videos— that's all you should need to know to get over there and checkum out.

Linear phrases in 5/4, mixed rhythm — 02

UPDATE: pdf download link fixed!

Another batch of Chaffee linear patterns, in a different mixed rhythm than before, in 5/4. There will be four pages of this one; two of the basic phrases, two of the inversions.

At one point my attitude was “Why should I practice in 5/4, which I rarely have to play, when I haven't yet mastered 4/4, which I have to play all the time?” As I've been doing a whole lot of practicing in 5 in recent years, I'm realizing that it's definitely not a zero-sum thing; my practicing in 5 does help my playing in 4. Mainly, it forces you to concentrate, and breaks up patterns of being too squarely “in 4”, or of habitually falling into an Elvin-style running dotted quarter note cross rhythm— a few of you know what I'm talking about here. The point is, if you're able to play pretty well, and mindlessly, in 4, you won't be detracting by spending a lot of time in 5.

This ends up being a lot of patterns to cover, so I keep it simple. I start each pattern with the right hand and alternate, moving the hands around the drums. You could swing the 8th notes, if you want.

Get the pdf

Basic cut time funk beats

Today we have a page of basic funk grooves in 2/2— cut time, half-time feel, whatever you want to call it. I haven't given a cymbal part, because we'll be doing some different things with it, using Syncopation.

For now, play them with any cymbal pattern of your choice. You'll probably want to start with quarter notes, 8th notes, half notes, and 2 and 4. Once you have the basic groove, continue playing it while omitting the circled bass drum note. Then improvise your own grooves. You could also combine first and second measures from different exercises, but that will eat up a lot of practice time, and I think it's unnecessary.

Get the pdf

Donald Fagen on Whiplash

I'm kind of done with this movie, but I'll keep sharing choice quotes about it when they come up. Here's Donald Fagen:

“Last night some of the guys in the band were talking about that movie, Whiplash. After watching this cloddish potboiler about an aspiring drummer's experience in jazz school, the jazz players I know either go berserk with indignation and/or howl with derisive laughter. Many jazzers, including pianist Ethan Iverson and Richard Brody of the New Yorker, have written about this ignorant and mendacious film, so I won't belabor the point.

Suffice to say that Whiplash has nothing to do with actual jazz unless you consider it to be a species of martial arts, as Buddy Rich often did. It makes Paris Blues with Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier look like a golden edifice of verisimilitude. I'm not saying Whiplash shouldn't be seen in theaters, though. It should, at midnight, along with Plan 9 from Outer Space and, especially, Glen or Glenda.”

(h/t to OpenTune @ DW)

Stan Freberg 1926-2015

A few clips by comedian, satirist, and ad man Stan Freberg, who died yesterday. His heyday was before my time, but we had several of his albums in my dad's record collection, and I memorized all of these when I was a kid. I think my favorite is his Elvis parody:



Several more after the break:

A waste of time

Here's a good video in case you ever wonder “Am I wasting my time geeking out on this drumming nonsense? Does anyone really care if I get such-and-such particular little drum thing together?” The answer is: yes, you are, and no, they don't. But everybody who's any good at anything wastes vast quantities of time on things no one is really going to ever fully appreciate. It's just what you do. For example:





You'll also enjoy the movie Comedian, which follows Seinfeld through the process of developing a new stand-up act, after some years away from that medium. It's really about the professional ethic of comedians, which is not that different from that of musicians. The full movie is after the break:

Snare drum workout in 4/4

Working out of Buster Bailey's snare drum book Wrist Twisters— one of the great books of technical snare drum studies, by the way— I came across a simple pattern I liked, and I wrote up some embellishments on it. The first pattern is the original, and the others are my variations:

Play each exercise many times as written, and with the stickings reversed. You can try to be strict about the written accents, or you may find yourself also accenting the added flams— it doesn't matter. It is nice having the control to not accent all the flams. I would also work the first exercise alone strictly for speed.

Get the pdf

Brewing

You're not fooling anyone, photographer— you sprayed
the glass with water for that refreshing, weekends-
were-made-for-Michelob, oh-I-just-pulled-this-full-
pint-out-of-the-ice-chest effect... we're getting off topic.

OK, I'm on such a cold streak blog content-wise right now, I'd better write about any damn thing I can, and get things moving again. What the hell, we used to write about other things.

Here: Recently I've taken up the hobby of home-brewing beer. Influenced by a friend who is a brewer, I bought a little beginner's homebrew kit, and, since the beginning of the year, have made up several batches— a brown ale, a British pale ale, a Scottish ale, a dry Irish stout. Beer geeks tend to obsess over technical minutiae, which makes it an intimidating thing to take up at first, but the process can actually be quite straightforward, and forgiving, and requiring minimal equipment. And I'm finding that it actually adds a lot of quality of life.

Here are the parameters of what I have to work with. When it comes to beer, I have a number of very minor-but-annoying, competing, neuroses:

1) I do like beer. 

2) I like being well-stocked for the foreseeable future... with anything. I don't want to worry about running out of stuff. Whenever I've played RPG-type computer games, I end up hoarding potions, “health”, bullets, whatever... that's the kind of person I am.  

3) I'm a cheap bastard. I don't want to be spending a few bucks for daily beverages, and I don't like thinking about what something costs while I'm drinking it. Thrift is a pleasure-enhancer.  

4) I don't want to have to decide if today is a special enough occasion to drink one of the few, good, relatively expensive (like, $3-4) beers in my fridge. 

5) I don't like having to conserve my beverage while I eat. 16 oz. is good, an imperial pint is better. With a normal 12 ouncer, I'm always running out by the end of a meal. 

6) I don't like getting intoxicated, or even, really, what most people would consider “buzzed.” Don't really need it. I'm usually set for alcohol consumption after half a beer. 

I can satisfy each of those quibbles by home-brewing a lot of low-to-moderate alcohol British isles-type “session” beers, which are inexpensive to make, and can be consumed in reasonable quantity without getting smashed. And which are not particularly cheap or massively available commercially in the US. So I get to have a perfect 16-20 oz. serving of an inexpensive (about $.75-1.00/pint), delicious, special beer every day, without turning into a drunk, and with no danger of running out.

If you do decide to take up this hobby, for $90 you can get a beginner brewing kit from Northern Brewing, which includes the basic gear you need, plus a recipe ingredient kit, and instructional DVD. That plus a good-sized stainless steel or enameled brew kettle will get you started— I found one at a hardware store for $15. The nice thing about NB's kits is that they have really good documentation, written to be understood by jerks like me who have no idea of what they're doing. They say that if you can follow the directions on a box of macaroni and cheese, you can brew beer, and they're basically right. You'll also want to pick up a copy of Charlie Papazian's Complete Joy Of Home Brewing, which is the bible of this sort of thing.

Joey Baron

Just listening to a little Joey Baron this morning— be sure to listen to the interview at the end.



Roulette TV: JOEY BARON from Roulette Intermedium on Vimeo.