Skip to content

Drum Blog

Drum Lesson – Pharrell Williams’ Happy

Here’s a video wot I knocked up for a couple of students demonstrating the beat for Pharrell’s Happy which seems to be popular with the kids these days. It looks a lot better than the previous effort due to a lighter environment but I really need to sort out the audio since at the moment I’m recording it all on my Q3 camera and then boosting the talking bits to fit in with the drums, hence all the noise when… Read More »Drum Lesson – Pharrell Williams’ Happy

This Is The First Afrobeat Drum Groove According To Tony Allen

And I suppose he’d know something about it… I highly recommend watching both of the following videos. The audio is not fantastic but there is a demonstration of some typical Highlife drumming and how he added a left foot hihat on the 2 & 4 and then he shows us the first groove of Afrobeat. When I first tried playing Afrobeat, I found that playing 16ths on the kick on 1 and 1e and 3 and 3e is particularly challenging… Read More »This Is The First Afrobeat Drum Groove According To Tony Allen

Chuck Silverman’s Keepers of the Flame – Cuban Rumba Traditions

Legendary drum educator Chuck Silverman’s documentary is in the editing stage and they need a few more shekels to help them finish it off. This is a good cause to support if you have an interest in Cuban drumming and the traditions of drums and percussion in general. Keepers of the Flame ? Cuban Rumba Traditions is a documentary project about the elder statesmen of the Cuban musical genre called Rumba. The history and culture of these men and women,… Read More »Chuck Silverman’s Keepers of the Flame – Cuban Rumba Traditions

I Have Joined The Ranks Of YouTube Drum Coverers

As someone who lived before there was such a thing as the Internet, I still find the notion of being seen by anyone anywhere in the world somewhat creepy. I normally share videos with people via file sharing services. But as internet users are migrating away from their desktops and laptops towards tablets, I keep getting complaints about not being able to view the videos I send. So I end up using YouTube because it seems to work on any… Read More »I Have Joined The Ranks Of YouTube Drum Coverers

Clyde Stubblefield and John Jabo Starks, the Funkmasters Interview

Here is a great interview, produced by Meinl, with the incredibly funky and hugely influential duo – Stubblefield and Starks, the most famous of James Brown’s drummers. Clyde and Jabo talk about how they got started, how they came to play with JB and share stories about their life as touring musicians and some of the hazards of being in the music business. Very entertaining and highly recommended.

Trash Can Endings – Another Cool Lesson from Rob Brown

I just came across this video by Rob Brown on a subject I’ve not seen covered much before – the big rock ending or Trash Can Ending (not a term I’ve heard before but will adopt, albeit as Dustbin Ending). I tend to leave it to chance which is a bit risky because there’s the possibility of making a horrible mess. Rob’s ideas here are clean, sound great and can be combined to great effect. I am going to get… Read More »Trash Can Endings – Another Cool Lesson from Rob Brown

Hard To Handle Video Lesson

Blimey, making a video is not easy. Kudos to all those who do such a great job on Youtube. Anyway, here’s my demonstration of the main bits in Hard To Handle according to The Black Crowes. It’s intended for the students attending the band workshops I am putting on with my colleague Rodrigo but it might be useful for anyone wanting to learn the song.

WipeoutDiddles Sticking Exercise

A quickie for you: I was in the drum room the other day and was enjoying listening to a band playing some familiar covers one of which was the Ventures’ surf classic, Wipeout. Here’s a way of playing the pattern that happens in the solo drum break using paradiddles in a pattern that switches lead hands every two bars. Once you can play the pattern competently, do it with flams for the accents. Scroll down the page to hear the… Read More »WipeoutDiddles Sticking Exercise

More Tony Allen – Fela’s Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense

Important Addendum: The drummer on this album is not Tony Allen, I shoud have checked the credits. It was made after Tony Allen left Fela Kuti’s band. In a recent post I linked to the Fela Kuti Bandcamp Account. I was immediately drawn to the album called Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense and was delighted to hear the album’s title track open with the same groove that my first Afrobeat related post about Ariya Astrobeat’s African Kings has in its… Read More »More Tony Allen – Fela’s Teacher Don’t Teach Me Nonsense

Got A Pair Of Vic Firth SD4’s

I’ve been looking for some sticks to use for my weekly jazz set with the Gex trio. We have to play very very quietly most of the set. I am using brushes 80% of the time but need to swing some sticks on a couple of numbers. I tried the AJ2’s and the AJ6’s both pretty good. The 6’s feel really weird like playing with overgrown toothpicks but great for a really small sound. If I have to play anything… Read More »Got A Pair Of Vic Firth SD4’s

Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy