Here’s my instructional video on how to play Chris Layton’s energetic groove on Stevie Ray’s Testify. It’s a brilliant groove to learn and to play and gives us a chance to focus on doing the dynamic strokes (Full, Down, Tap and Up strokes) on the snare. Here’s a PDF with a breakdown of the individual beats as explained in the video.
Here’s my take on how to play the famous Purdie Shuffle as played by Bernard Purdie himself on Home at Last and Babylon Sisters by Steely Dan and by Jeff Porcaro on Toto’s Rosanna. This is an introductory video made in response to a request by a YouTube viewer. I cover how to develop the hand pattern with the hihat shuffle and the snare ghost notes, adding the backbeat and then some bass drum variations.
Here’s an addendum to the recent video about offbeat 8th note grooves. Let’s add some 16ths on the snare and bass. Once you’ve got the hang of all that, try combining snare and bass 16ths. You can have hours of fun with this. The objective is to internalise these patterns and then learn to mix them up. Don’t forget you can vary the snare and bass 8ths too as demonstrated in the previous video. Maybe you can do that in… Read More »Offbeat 8th Note Groove Snare & Bass 16ths
Once you’ve got the hang of a reasonable amount of standard 8th note rock vocabulary, it can be fun and useful to learn a whole load of variations for the hahat/ride pattern to allow you to spice up your grooves. One very common and popular option is to play offbeat (or upbeat) 8ths on the hihat or ride which means we’re playing just the &’s. It takes a bit of thought to get the hang of the coordination but if… Read More »Offbeat 8th Note Grooves
My latest YouTube video is released. It’s a brief and, hopefully, concise introduction to the Texas Shuffle or two-handed shuffle or whatever it’s supposed to be called. Go listen to Chris Layton playing on Pride & Joy to see what I’m talking about. Then watch my video and learn this kickarse groove!
My colleague Rodrigo and I have posted our latest Cooking With Rodrigo & Joe video on the YouTubes. In this episode we talk about Rage Against The Machine’s Bullet In The Head, a heavy and funky number that we both love.
Sarah Thawer is a great drummer I’ve never heard of. Here she gives a brilliant lesson on translating some Indian grooves to the drum kit. Fantastic, I’m looking forward to learning some of this.
Here’s my latest video. It’s an introduction to playing the train beat. Making videos is quite challenging and I intend to keep them coming as much as a way to learn the skill as to offer my take on whatever areas of drumming I think I can do justice to. Hope you enjoy this. Check out the post I did that has a bunch of exercises to expand and embellish your vocabulary with the train beat – http://joethedrummer.com/the-train-beat-sheet-1/
I’ve been listening to Steely Dan’s Album Can’t Buy A Thrill a lot lately and two songs really stand out. One is Dirty Work, a very laid back, greasy and dark tune with a funky groove. The other is Reelin’ In The Years which bounces along beautifully, driven by Jim Hodder’s light and fluffy shuffle with ghost notes. It’s so good I’ve listened to the song about fifty times since Sunday. Shuffles are interesting. Despite being a very common feel,… Read More »Playing Ghost Notes In A Shuffle Groove Like Reelin’ In The Years
I’ve been spending a fair amount of time working on my Afrobeat chops. I’ve been listening to a lot of Fela Kuti and his artistic descendants such as Antibalas and Abayomi Afrobeat Orquestra. I am slowly starting to grasp the complex style of Tony Allen’s drumming in particular and it’s a lot like developing jazz chops. Anyway, I wrote myself a sheet of exercises based on Tony Allen’s first groove of Afrobeat. There’s a bunch of tricky stuff I wanted… Read More »Developing Coordination With Afrobeat Drumming