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In the video I just taped yesterday, I unpack the idea of “meta concepts” - themes we can pull out of collections of seemingly unrelated things, that help us shortcut our understanding of the world.
One of my favorite examples is grammar. By knowing what the subjunctive tense is, you can practice it as a thing in its own right, and that hopefully saves you time learning a language.
And ghost notes are, in my opinion, a useful meta-concept.
You could take the canon of funk drummers like Jeff Porcaro, Brenard Purdie, Clyde Stubblefield, Mike Clark, David Garibaldi, Harvey Mason, etc. and approach each individual song as if it was its own completely-isolated world…
…or you could recognize some patterns that occur across the works of these great drummers. And if I had to choose one pattern that typifies all of them, it would be ghost notes. (See what I did there? ;)
Besides time and touch, there may be no more useful meta-concept to shed when it comes to getting inside the beats of the great funk and shuffle drummers. By practicing the timing and touch of ghost notes, it’s my contention that you’ll save yourself time becoming a funk master.
And pulling the ghost-note thread feels more faithful to the way our favorite players themselves probably learned things. Music doesn’t exist in a vacuum, after all - all the great players were checking each other out, and borrowing concepts.
In this lesson, I’ll focus on 3 great funk drummers: Jeff Porcaro, Bernard Purdie, and David Garibaldi, and we’ll look at how ghost notes enhanced everything they do.
Then I’ll have some exercises for you.
Know you’ll enjoy this one!