Here's a page for my students, working through the basics of a half time funk shuffle groove. It gets mentioned a lot more online than it comes up in real life, but it's a thing.
There are a number of ways to write it; I've put it in 6/8 and 12/8. In real life I might expect it to come up most often as a sixtuplet feel in 4/4.
Pay careful attention to the dynamics on the snare drum; play the accent strongly and ghost the other notes. I also accent the downbeats of the cymbal rhythm, you can do that if you choose.
CYMBALISTIC: Hey, I'm back home and recovering from a very successful Germany excursion, and about to resume regular posting!
I'm never sure how things are going to go, but I ended up selling almost all of the 14 cymbals I took— I left two behind (which are available to purchase in Germany) and brought home a little 14" China. As always it was a good scene hanging out with a bunch of great drummers. A high point was the drummer who bought two 22s and promptly moved to sell his workhorse Agop and an expensive boutique cymbal he just bought.
And, as it has been going recently, there was the most buzz about the Extra Special Janavars, and Special Janavars*.
* - Special Janavars just have a heavy patina; Extra Special Janavars have K-type lathing and hammering, and a heavy patina, often three rivets.
Here's a little video I got mainly from the Berlin meet— the main event of the tour, there was nothing to show from Frankfurt, a few of us just gathered in my funky hotel room like we were trading Cold War secrets...
If you visit my cymbal site Cymbalistic, you'll see the pickings are rather slim— I'll be getting more cymbals this week.
If you're in Germany and want to get one of the cymbals I left behind— a 20" A-type Holy Grail and a 17" Special Janavar— contact me and I can let you know how to play them and purchase them. I also left a hard cymbal case, if anyone needs one. Everyone was acting like I will be coming back in April '24, so if you want to participate then, let me know!
THANK YOU to Michael, Jakob, Guido, Hasan, Bernd, Conrad, Achim, Felix, Heinrich, and anyone I'm momentarily forgetting in my haze of jetlag!
And actually, a doubleextra special thanks to Michael and Jakob, for putting me up, and driving me around, and putting the word out, and generally making this whole thing possible!
CYMBALISTIC: OK everyone, I'm heading to Germany today, with a case of wonderful Cymbal & Gong cymbals for your approval, enjoyment, and merriment.
The deets:
I will show cymbals in Frankfurt on Wednesday, Berlin on Friday, Munich* on Sunday. You'll need to contact me for exactly where and when.
* - See details below!
The best ways to reach me, Todd Bishop, in Germany are: SMS: +1 503 380 9259 Email: todd6ishop[at]gmail.com
Cymbals I will bring:
• 20 and 22" Extra Special Janavars - which people have been loving! • 17 and 22" Special Janavars - which people also love. • 16, 19, 20, and 22" Holy Grails - Cymbal & Gong's flagship line, people love them! • 14 and 16" Wide Chinas - fun little Chinese cymbals people will definitely love.
Go to Cymbalistic to hear them! The ones that say GET IT IN GERMANY are the ones I'm bringing. All cymbals are the same price in $/€, no extra fees.
For Berlin meet you can also reach Michael Griener: Phone: 0163/5913357
Appointment only! A few people are coming to play cymbals at my hotel, and anyone who wants can join me at the wirsthaus for food and drinks. Text me at +1 503 380 9259 to let me know you're coming.
=== BERLIN === Friday, Oct. 13th – noon-4pm At Michael Griener's studio space, right next to the southern subway exit Bernauer Str. (U8). Contact me or Michael for the location.
I will be in Berlin, staying in Moabit, from the 12th-14th, if you want to play the cymbals another time.
Text me @ +1 503 380 9259 or Michael at 0163/5913357 to meet.
=== MUNICH ===
IMPORTANT: If you're in Munich and want a cymbal, you need to pre-purchase it, and I will meet you to give it to you. Go to Cymbalistic and see what cymbals I will bring to Germany, reserve the one you want, and contact me for payment info. Otherwise, all cymbals will remain in Berlin, or in the hands of other drummers! Sunday, Oct. 15th – afternoon-evening 1. HAUPTBAHNHOF - I can meet you at the train station in the afternoon to hand you your pre-purchased cymbal.
2. UNTERFAHRT - Einsteinstraße 42, 81675 / unterfahrt.de - I'm going to the jam session-- No guarantee, but I might have a couple of cymbals. Either way, come hang out! Session begins at 20:30.
That's it, gang— visit me on Facebook for photos from the road. I will resume normal blogging on or after the 19th.
CYMBALISTIC: OK, I got a couple more cymbals before heading to Germany tomorrow. Demonstrating some 22" Holy Grails for our man in Berlin, Michael Griener. And my new little 14" China is in there, too. All made by Cymbal & Gong. Michael plays a lot of fast tempos.
The one on the far right later in the video we've seen before, and is called “Ibrahim.” The middle cymbal is going to be called “Abdullah”, which is fortuitous as it happens to be Abdullah Ibrahim's birthday today, and the two cymbals are the exact same weight. The cymbal on the left will be called “Brian”, after a friend who gave me a similar cymbal years ago.
Here are those first two cymbals— and some other ones— before they got their patinas. The middle cymbal above is played at 0:53 in the video below. The cymbal on the left above I think is played at 4:29 below:
On Abdullah the patina is quite light, and it changed the sound only slightly— I assume it did, I can't actually tell. On Brian, it changed the sound substantially; the plain cymbal would have been very difficult for me to use— in the past somebody would probably have put some tape on it. The patina has a similar effect, but in a much nicer, more natural way, not just deadening the cymbal, but bringing out a different aspect of the cymbal's character.
Obviously I'm posting really lightly lately, getting ready to head to Germany next week, so: here are some recordings Elvin Jones plays on, with his drums isolated. Enjoy!
Here's Passion Dance, from McCoy Tyner's album The Real McCoy:
CYMBALISTIC: I've posted the videos for the last four Cymbal & Gong cymbals I got for my upcoming mini-tour... next week I'm bringing a case of cymbals to Germany for people to play and purchase. If you're anywhere near Frankfurt or Berlin you should come hang out. If you're in or new Munich, I can meet you there to deliver a cymbal you pre-order. Email me (see sidebar) for details.
I can only bring about eleven cymbals, so let me know if you want me to bring a particular cymbal!
And: a lot of my current cymbals will be sold on this trip, so if you're somewhere else and want one, order now!
The new cymbals are: • 22" Holy Grail Jazz Ride “Ibrahim” - Tony-like 22! Or compare with Joe Chambers's cymbal on the late 60s Bobby Hutcherson albums. • 20" Holy Grail Ride “Carter” - Slightly heavier A-type Holy Grail. • 16" Holy Grail Thin Crash “King” - Nice solid 16 that will hold down the left side spot well. • 14" Wide China “Chi” - Funky little Ed Blackwell cymbal. The Cymbal & Gong Chinas are great
Go to Cymbalistic to check out the others, and to hear what else I have in stock. Contact me and stay tuned to this site and Cymbalistic for tour updates.
Here is Philly Joe Jones trading eights and fours with Bill Evans on Minority, from one of my favorite records, Everybody Digs Bill Evans. It's a good tune to learn.
I've written just the drum breaks. Transcription begins at 2:51. The tempo is quarter note = 247.
No tom toms at all here, just snare drum, bass drum, a cymbal, and hihats. A lot of stick shots. There are a few passages of straight 8th notes— at this tempo the 8ths don't swing a whole lot anyway. Note the rhythm in bars 3 and 5. Bar 5 is the “intended” rhythm, in bar 3 he spreads it out a little bit, so the notes are evenly spaced— I've notated it pretty accurately.
It's basically non-technical— you could do a rudimental sticking on the triplets— and much of it is linear, between the snare drum and bass drum. The rhythms could have been pulled from the book Syncopation, and give a clue for how to look at the phrases in that book— a subject for another time.
The melodic idea for each break is pretty clear— listen for that, and how he repeats it and changes it, and listen for what sounds like the ending— the last bar, or two bars. The structure is logical, but the structure didn't come first, it's the natural result of thinking musically when you're improvising, and of doing your job, where you set people up to come back in out of your solo.
It is said that, on the drum set, there are snare drummers and cymbal players— I would also say there are bass drummers and hihat players. I've always been a hihat player— meaning, I'll often keep a steady rhythm with my left foot, and do most of my playing with the other limbs. “Bass drummers” will be more likely to do that with the bass drum, especially when soloing, and have most of their activity with the hands. For example:
That happens in a lot of 60s and post-60s rock drumming: on In A Gadda Da Vita; and Ginger Baker did it, Keith Moon did it, Neil Peart did it on his first big famous solo on Working Man. As prevalent as it was, I've never heard John Bonham do it, which made him seem much more modern than the rest of them. I can't really recall Ringo Starr doing it either, though I wouldn't be surprised if he did.
I never regarded four on the floor as as a real sophisticated way to play, but I do it at times, with some major points of reference for using it— apart from the obvious swing, shuffle, or disco groove:
The English Beat was big when I was in high school, and I spent the next few years listening to them a lot, and learning Everett Morton's ska beat:
In the interview said some things about the bass drum I never forgot, even as I wasn't using that drum as my main driver:
“See, the most important thing is that foot- the master drum. It's the control drum. It's the center. It's the heartbeat, the relaxed pulse, the more musical tonal center as opposed to the more direct speaking tone- that's what settles the music.
In any ethnic group that employs the drum, you're going to find the large drums, like this Trinidadian drum I have- the long drum; the deep drum. That bottom is where music comes from in most folk cultures. In drums themselves, there have always been master drums- especially in African tribal drumming where there's always that pulse, that center to any social or spiritual event. You can take out the speaking rhythms or the communication on top- that which is portraying the event itself; the master drummer can keep everything going. The pulse, the intention, is still there on the bottom, so you can play the same pulse and change the rhythms on top of it. You can do the same thing on the drumset, when you start with that pulse from the heart- BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. Now everything on top is good; those rhythms are the enhancers- what we emotionally want to say. But if the heartbeat isn't there, things are unstable.”
For a good 10-12 years I was really into Ed Blackwell's drumming, and he would use the bass drum this way in his grooves. On Chairman Mao (by Old And New Dreams) in particular, he brings in the four on the floor in a powerful way after ~ 1:15— I think about that exact thing all the time:
A more random item, in the 90s I got to catch the Delta Blues guitarist T Model Ford playing in Portland, and his drummer had a really strong bass drum groove:
In rock and country acts I've been involved with lately, I'll sometimes play the bass drum under tom fills, to give them some more weight. I noticed John Guerin doing that on some of his recordings I've transcribed, and of course Keith Moon did it, and it's very effective.
“Feathering” four on the floor on the bass drum is a big part of the online discussion of jazz drumming, with people trying to learn a vestigial way of playing the bass drum without doing the first stages of it, where you play a ton of gigs playing it for effect. For example, Philly Joe Jones, working hard as an R&B drummer early in his career, was definitely playing the bass drum to be heard then. As did all the drummers whose careers bridged the swing and bebop eras— Kenny Clarke for example. Then they used it more subtly as they were doing bop. That's a natural, logical progression.
This ended up being more about my personal stuff than I intended, but there is a larger point here about how we're supposed to notice things— like, notice what you notice; every little particular momentary thing that strikes your ear becomes part of your musical personality. People look for generic rules about what you're supposed to do in a “style” of music, but it's the particulars that matter.
Minor little item, that can be done by itself as an elementary thing, or that can be used along with Syncopation. I wrote it to work through some fill alternatives within a right hand lead Reed system.
Each numbered line has the same basic idea filling the space between dotted quarter notes, and half notes.
Stickings are whatever you want— alternating, natural, RH does cym/LH does snare, mixed diddles, whatever. For people doing the page as a standalone thing, it would be a worthwhile exercise to make the cymbal hits alternate— using whatever sticking you must to make it come out that way.
