Early Access - YouTube Video AND Podcast - Ed Soph and Independence

Download the free transcription here.

Today we have a two-fer I’m very excited about.

One of the forefathers of jazz drum instruction - though as you’ll hear he doesn’t like the taxonomy, preferring to say he’s an “improvisation teacher” - and an 80/20 hot take on a ubiquitous concept in drumming that I think is almost-worthless as an umbrella term.

Change my mind!

Let’s start with independence. I think as a global concept it doesn’t get us any closer to the things is purports to solve than just practicing those things individually.

For instance: a swing beat, being able to improvise with the kick drum during a groove, something like clave in the left foot, and soloing against weird ostinatos, the way Dan Weiss and Marcus Gilmore do.

I wager that you’d be better off practicing all those things individually than creating an overarching category and calling it “independence”. In the video I drill into why we have so-called “meta categories”, when they’re useful, and when they’re not. And I make some conjectures about the history of “independence”, and why the word might be a marketing vestige.

Which might seem at odds with one of the most venerated drum teachers of all time. Until you drill in and realize Ed Soph is himself an iconoclast. His energy is pure punk-rock, and he has no time for the idea of “handedness” on the drums, nor the “walling off” of jazz from other forms of improvisation.

(I chose the thumbnail photo because, agree or disagree with the views, I feel it captures his defiant attitude.)

Ed and I chat about hierarchies in music, how Denton, TX became a music powerhouse away from either of the coasts, teaching psychology, the value of honesty in music, and more.

Couldn’t be more excited about a couple of bits of content, and hope you enjoy!

Early Access - YouTube Video of The Week - Play Ghost Notes Like Porcaro, Purdie, and Garibaldi

Download the free transcription here.

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!

Early Access - Quincy Davis - New York Jazz Stories, and Making The Tradition Personal

Quincy Davis might be the number one jazz educator on YouTube.

And like Stanton Moore, Quincy is not an “online native”. He studied with the great Billy Hart. He’s got many playing credits, among them Tom Harrell and Benny Green. (But that’s just scratching the surface.) He’s on the official faculty of the fabled University of North Texas.

But he also adapted to the online world in a way that makes him unique. His YouTube channel is a mix of straightforward jazz lessons, subtle innovations, and authentic, no-frills teaching.

Quincy and I were contemporaries in New York in the early 2000s. I used to hear him at Cleopatra’s Needle, and watched as his name started popping up on albums and tours.

I was curious to learn what equipped him to “hit the ground running” in New York. But we quickly went down a rabbit-hole about finding one’s own voice while staying true to the tradition, dealing with imposter syndrome, and re-discovering your love for the music. (This conversation was one of the big inspirations for my latest video.)

I know you’ll enjoy this conversation with Quincy, who’s wise-beyond-his years, and who embodies in every aspect of his being the musical maturity he found.

Early Access - The Hardest Thing About Becoming Great At The Drums

I’m here today to talk about a paradox I haven’t heard many others speak about.

Even if you do drums as a hobby, you’re going to face challenges and have to reckon with how high the level goes, and still find a way to sit down and enjoy playing.

But if you harbor ambitions of being “great”, both sides of this double-edged sword can sting. Here’s the conundrum:

One the one hand, you have to become obsessed with getting better, to the detriment of balance in your life, your mood on many occasions, and many hours of your life you could spend doing other things. You have to live and breathe the drums, and do things others aren’t willing to do.

On the other, you have to accept yourself completely, be gentle with yourself, and nurture a little seedling of your own voice through the harsh winter winds of ego, extrinsic pressure to conform, mean comments online and in person, and the years it’s going to take to germinate.

Fall off one end and you risk spinning your wheels - never really getting purchase on your true potential.

Fall off the other, and you risk hating the drums, washing out, mental health badness, and lots more. Is anybody else talking about this?

Anyway, today I decide to explore this paradox, through a few examples from my own story, and tons of completely-scientifically-unfunded anecdote. Ready to come along for the ride?

Where do you come down on this supposed spectrum? How have you struggled for balance, and where have you found it? Leave a comment below!