The Phrase I'm Not Allowed to Say - Subscribers Only

I never imagined I'd be important enough to get a cease-and-desist letter.

But there it was, in my inbox, in early 2016.

And, it turned out, I wasn't the only one.

The subject of today's video is a channel whose name I don't dare say publicly.

(You're welcome to infer;)

After the initial sting of having to change the name of my video wore off in 2016, I mostly put the issue to bed.

As I explain in the video, I moved on.

But the issue is back.

So, I thought I'd make a video that summarizes all of my thoughts and experiences with it.

(I can only speak for myself.)

Long-story-short, I, like many Drum Fans, fell in love with the content of a certain YouTube channel, and was using their name willy-nilly, to describe any playing that fit the style.

Until they asked me to stop.

Now, some 3 years later, a brand new lesson on subject from Rob Brown prompted me to ask, "do we still even need that phrase?"

See if you agree.

Straight 8th Brush Lesson - Subscribers Only

First things first - why not grab the transcription here:

Straight 8th Brush Beats

Why not play brushes on everything?

That’s the question John Riley asked me, many years ago, for which I didn’t have a great answer.

Through the years, I’ve tried to wage a “booster” campaign for the humble brush - to coax others out of the resistance that kept me from getting great at the brushes for so many years.

Eventually, it was my love of the great jazz drummers, from Ed Thigpen, Vernel Fournier, and Roy Haynes to Blade, Bill Stewart, and Hutch.

But I’m painfully aware that my channel attracts both jazz enthusiasts and…not-jazz-enthusiasts alike, and…well…the brushes have an image problem the sticks don’t share.

Sticks, you see, are equally appropriate in any musical genre.

Only play country two-steps? Great. Sticks.

Like zydeco? Fantastic. I’ve got an idea: drumsticks.

You get the idea.

Brushes, however, and with few exceptions, are only associated with jazz.

Which left me in the difficult position of making the case that we should “liberate” the brush from simply a jazz implement…

…without seeming to disparage the great drummers who developed the idiom.

Let me put it this way:

Papa Jo, Connie Kay, Ed, Vernel, Roy, Philly Joe, Art Taylor, Paul Motian, and everybody else took the brush tradition so deep that, for aficionados, their music needs no qualification.

But, for people not familiar with these greats, are we going to say brushes are “off limits” for them?

Nope.

Play brushes along with Jack White.

Play brushes with Cardi B. With Rihanna. With Hova. With Soundgarden.

They’re just another texture - and a great one.

Play Brushes On Everything.

And this lesson humbly submits two way you might start.

Be sure and grab your transcription here.

Straight 8th Brush Beats

"Hard Tunes" Lesson - Subscribers Only

First things first - grab your transcription below:

Hard Tunes Transcription

So there's something that happens when I see a difficult tune I can't play.

It's akin to Biff Tannen calling Marty McFly "chicken".

I'm all set for the day in the shed...

I've got my life in a good balance...

I don't want for anything.

All I have to do is walk away.

Then, I hear the tune calling "what are you...CHICKEN?"

"NOONE CALLS ME CHICKEN"

So it was was the tune that inspired this week's lesson. And, like many of the tunes that "call me chicken" recently, it's by Tigran Hamasyan.

But let's get deeper.

I realized there's something specific that make a lot of Tigran's tunes particularly difficult.

It's not just the shifting meters you have to remember - though some tunes certainly have those.

It's the way you often have to keep two rhythms - of two different phrase lengths - in your head at once. And, I realized, it's not unique to Tigran.

In today's lesson, I'll examine 3 tunes by 3 different composers, all-of-which place a similar demand on our cognition.

Oh - and don’t forget Le Transcripcion:

Hard Tunes Transcription

Traditional vs Matched Lesson - Subscribers Only

First things first! Grab your transcription below:

Grip Lesson Exercises

I thought it was time to wade into the “traditional vs matched” debate.

For how little “dog” I have “in this fight”, it’s astonishing how much the two sides get "dug in”.

I had teachers actively discourage me from learning traditional grip (the same as some now discourage learning leglock entries from reverse delariva guard;).

So what are the sides?

In my experience, it breaks down like this:

On one side, the “traditionalists”. You don’t hear them talking about it much, but they all play it.

(Many in the New York jam session scene are so “traditional-dominant”, their left hand is weak when they try to switch over to matched.)

Spend enough time around Smalls, The Needle, Lincoln Center, etc, and you’ll start to feel some “peer pressure”.

On the other, the much-more-vocal “evolutionists”. These are the folks who will tell you trad grip is a “waste of time”, or it’s “obsolete”.

Well, what do we find when we look at actual jazz drummers? Evidence of both approaches being successful:

Ari Hoenig, Eric Harland, and Bill Stewart on the “mostly matched” side…

…Brian Blade, Hutch, Kendrick Scott, Jochen Rueckert, Tane, and plenty others on the “mostly traditional” side.

But, as I’ll argue in the lesson, at the highest levels, you don’t find many trad players who can’t also play matched. (Think from among the above group.)

What’s more, the newest generation of players like Marcus Gilmore, Justin Brown, Justin Faulkner, etc seem to play both with about equal competence.

So - which way to go?

Check out the lesson.

And don’t forget to grab your transcription below:

Grip Lesson Exercises