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Drum Blog

Skype Lesson With Todd Bishop Of The Cruise Ship Drummer Blog

Last night I had my first Skype lesson with Todd Bishop of the Cruise Ship Drummer blog. It was an experiment for both of us and I was pleased to be a guinea pig. Although I’ve been asking Todd for a lesson for some time, I realised once we’d established a Skype connection that I hadn’t thought about exactly what areas I wanted to work on with him. Nonetheless, I had a great lesson in which we discussed his approach… Read More »Skype Lesson With Todd Bishop Of The Cruise Ship Drummer Blog

Ash Soan’s Reggae Delay Effect

Here’s a quickie – Ash Soan is releasing short videos with little ideas to try out, lots of fun and interesting things. This one demonstrates his way of producing the effect of the delayed cross-stick or hihat sound that is very common on reggae recordings. Ash has an app for Android and Apple gadgets called Drum Hub where you can access more material, it’s worth checking out.

Cruise Ship Drummer’s Book of The Blog – 2013 is Here

My copy of Todd Bishop’s latest book-of-the-blog has arrived. His blog, Cruise Ship Drummer (he’s based in Portland, Oregon, despite the .co.uk thing) is a frequently updated stream of drum lessons, transcriptions, music suggestions and bits of drumming related wisdom. Todd’s previous publications include the Book of The Blog – ?2011 and the fantastic, almost pocket-sized, 100 Grooves. The 2013 Book of The Blog has 122 pages and contains all of the downloadable drum exercises and transcriptions that appeared on… Read More »Cruise Ship Drummer’s Book of The Blog – 2013 is Here

Free Streaming of Fela Kuti Albums

I just discovered that a load of Fela Kuti albums have been made available to stream on Bandcamp. This is a great opportunity to listen to an amazing collection of music. Since I have been discovering Afrobeat and Tony Allen’s drumming in particular, I will be trying to hear as much of this stuff as I can. When I first found the Bandcamp page I clicked on the first item that caught my eye, an album called Teacher Don’t Teach… Read More »Free Streaming of Fela Kuti Albums

More Afrobeat – Tony Allen’s Groove on Fela’s Go Slow

I have been dawdling about with this and Miles Arntzen’s fab article in January’s Modern Drummer has reminded me to keep going with my learning about Afrobeat and Tony Allen’s drumming in particular. Music is The Weapon Of The Future is an album I’ve been listening to quite a bit. On the track Go Show Allen’s juxtaposition of lightness and fearsome groove is almost too much to bear. I have been trying to get the feel of this track right… Read More »More Afrobeat – Tony Allen’s Groove on Fela’s Go Slow

Groove Lesson – Rich Woman by Li’l Millet & his Creoles

She got the money and I got the honey Rich Woman by Li’l Millet & his Creoles is a brilliant New Orleans R&B song I had to learn for my recent Astrojets gig at Ain’t Nothin’ But in Kingly Street. The groove is slightly quirky and the feel is amazing. There is little or no variation throughout the track. The drummer according to this source is Bartholomew Smith. Covers of this song were done by Canned Heat (whose version sounded… Read More »Groove Lesson – Rich Woman by Li’l Millet & his Creoles

Playing From The Foot – Rob Brown Lesson On Tightening Your Groove

Here’s an idea I know about already but I didn’t know I know about it. I play from the foot but I can’t say that I’ve ever articulated this to myself, it’s just something I do that probably relates to playing a lot of funk, or something. Anyway, a great video from Rob Brown explaining how focussing on the placement of our bass drum strokes will tighten up our grooves.

JPF Amplification, Custom Made British Valve Amps – Documentary

The founders of JPF Amps are old friends of mine and I’ve had some small part in their evolution since I got to experiment with some of their early models including the MKII featured in the following film. JPF is dedicated to building high quality amps for guitar and bass as well as operating an amp repair workshop which serves a broad range of clients from weekend warriors to well known performing artistes. They are based in Denmark Street at… Read More »JPF Amplification, Custom Made British Valve Amps – Documentary

Bass Drum 16ths Excercise

Here is a page of exercises I wrote tonight for a student who is developing their right foot. We worked on playing two sixteenths using heel-up and heel-toe. I thought it might be useful to post the sheet up here. I would start playing at 60 BPM to ensure that all the strokes are lined up. Count out loud and think about the balance between bass snare and cymbals. Play the bass sixteenths nice and even. Bass Drum 16ths –… Read More »Bass Drum 16ths Excercise

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