Tony Allen

This Is The Second Groove Of Afrobeat According To Tony Allen

Having watched the whole Tony Allen Masterclass wot I posted about here yesterday, there are two beats drummers need to know and you’re OK with Afrobeat. The first one I wrote about in this post – joethedrummer.com/this-is-the-first-afrobeat-drum-groove-according-to-tony-allen/ So I’ll call this the second groove of Afrobeat. Play until you make them smooth with a crispy hi hat just like Tony does it. On the masterclass video you can watch it demonstrated here – https://youtu.be/zNru-AhcBwo?t=11m10s

Afrobeat Drumming – Beats Of Tony Allen, Book Review

OK, I think it’s obvious by now that I’m really in to the drumming of Tony Allen and Afrobeat in general. When I got into Afrobeat, I looked for teaching materials to help me develop my Afrobeat chops. There weren’t many resources available so I had to start writing my own. Over the last couple of years I’ve managed to get a good sense of Tony Allen’s drumming and have been lucky enough to see Allen live on two occasions.… Read More »Afrobeat Drumming – Beats Of Tony Allen, Book Review

Developing Coordination With Afrobeat Drumming Pt. 3

If you haven’t seen them already, Check out part 1 and part 2. So let’s continue to develop our coordination with Tony Allen’s first groove of Afrobeat. Now that we can play a bunch of different ride and snare patterns, it’s time to do some work on the left foot. A unique aspect of Tony Allen’s style is the way he creates an interesting interaction between his hi-hat foot and his hi-hat hand patterns. I missed this facet of his… Read More »Developing Coordination With Afrobeat Drumming Pt. 3

Developing Coordination With Afrobeat Drumming

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

Tony Allen

Tony Allen Interview On The Trap Set Podcast – “My Drumming Is Complicated”

Check out The Trap Set podcast and this great interview with Tony Allen – www.thetrapset.net/052-tony-allen-fela-kuti-afrika-70-solo-artist-rocket-juice-and-the-moon-team/. There isn’t all that much by way of Tony Allen talking about stuff, drum related or otherwise out yonder in the cyber-ether-netverse so I greatly enjoyed listening to him talk to Joe Wong about his musical background, his inspiration, influences and outlook. Allen is kind enough to point out his drumming is complicated. I am entirely inclined to agree and am working on assimilating some… Read More »Tony Allen Interview On The Trap Set Podcast – “My Drumming Is Complicated”

Drum Intro For Tony Allen’s Go Back From His Latest Album

Damon Albarn is a pretty lucky guy since his rock star status allows him to play with musicians of the calibre of Tony Allen. Having said that, he’s quite good at songwriting and Go Back from the album Film Of Life is really good. On the album version of the song is this intro which I just realised is absent from the radio version of the song which is available on Youtube. I guess it’s a good reason to get… Read More »Drum Intro For Tony Allen’s Go Back From His Latest Album