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Grooves

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

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.

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

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

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