Chris Coleman - It Was Never About Competition

For practically every podcast guest, there’s a question I’m “winding up” to ask.

For Chris Coleman, it was “what’s the space for competition in music?”

Just like everybody else, I’d tuned into Chris’ viral clinic clip, discussing the origin of - shall we say - “church improvisation”, and found his description of the “pop-up”, late-night shed sessions in the church, captivating. But how does Chris reconcile this friendly competition with…well, the “subjectivity of art”?

In Chris’ opinion, the “competition” was always a misnomer.

Added for “click bait”, after people started publicizing the sheds. And as the 2001 winner of the Drum-Off, Chris doesn’t begrudge people monetizing the shed-life. After all, as he puts it, many these drummers were killer players who, were it not for Youtube, would have struggled to find mainstream audiences. But the imperative to get clicks, views, and money changes things.

Which is all only to say that, by Chris’ recollection, it was never about competition. And if somebody brought that vibe into the room, it was clear they were an outsider.

In this brief-but-action-packed interview, Chris and I also chat about how he balances tours and life, and his methodology for teaching up-and-coming players.

Know you’ll enjoy this one!

Playing Eric Moore's "Signature" Lick On Drum Heads He Sent Me

First things first - grab your free transcription here.

I will admit this week’s video is a bit “gimmicky”, in a way I don’t usually make videos.

It was hard to resist this opportunity, though.

Seemingly out of the blue, Eric Moore messaged me asking if I wanted new drum heads. I guess he, or the folks at Aquarian, had suffered through enough instagram footage of the heads on the shared kit in my practice space, and decided to take pity.

It’s true that, now that I have a nifty overpriced-curtain-rod upon which to mount an overhead camera without relying on iota on duct tape or a staple gun, the heads on these drums have been “front and center” in more videos. And, as I describe in the video, a fair bit of “decision paralysis” had set in, preventing me from taking any action to replace them.

So it transpired that on one afternoon in early October, I noticed a large, flat cardboard box in the mail room of my apartment building.

Rushing it to the studio and tearing open the box, I saw Aquarian and Eric had sent me not one, but three sets of heads. (It probably helped that I only use a four-piece in my studio.)

So I thought - “gear review” - let’s play these new heads for the people.

Then I thought - do I transcribe an Eric lick even though it’s going to be a lot of work? Unfortunately, yes. (And youtube allows you to 0.75x the speed, so it wasn’t that hard.)

And that, friends, is how I ended up playing one of Eric’s “signature” licks on the very heads he plays in the video.

This has everything? Don’t care about heads but want to learn the lick? Watch the video! Don’t care about the lick but just want to see how much better new heads can make Nate’s kit sound? Watch the video!

Hope you enjoy!

Nobody's Talking About This Influential Drum Funk Beat

First things first - grab your free transcription here.

Ever wonder what’s going on when Chris Dave plays with The Drumhedz on Tiny Desk, or Snarky Puppy play songs like Thing of Gold? Or Adam Deitch plays…many things that Adam Deitch plays?

I wondered too, and it reminded me of my interview with Stanton Moore last year, and our discussion about the low-key influences of Afro-Caribbean rhythms on New Orleans music. Stanton wholeheartedly endorsed the idea that “clave”, as we know it from music like Son and Salsa, exists in New Orleans music too, and brought up Ziggy Modeliste and The Meters as an example of that throughline.

Here’s my conspiracy theory - if the DNA of clave influenced the meters, it’s not crazy to think a lot of the funk and soul beats downstream of them also carry that lineage.

All of this is a bit tangential to a concept I probably didn’t invent, but that occurred to me listening to these more modern artists like Chris and Adam. Funk Claves. Instead of playing straight 8ths or 16ths, you essentially play a “clave” with the lead hand. It can be a literal clave, or it can be looser. (The clave you’ll hear Chris playing sounds like a 2-3 oriented “son” clave.)

Whether “clave” is just a descriptive word that helps us orient these funk beats, or hints at a more fundamental lineage, these beats are fun to practice on the drums, and they’re a very useful tool for many musical situations. Which is why it’s mysterious to me that we’re not hearing more about them. (Is somebody somewhere teaching a “Meters Beat”?)

Anyway, in today’s video, we delve into all of that, and show you how to play them.

Hope you enjoy!

Internet Drummer vs Real Jazz Jam Session

What happens when an “internet drummer” turns up at a real jam session?

Will all those hours in the practice room translate into real music with humans, or will everything fall apart after the requisite 30-carefully-edited-seconds that are the stock-and-trade of today’s Tiktok drum universe.

Last Friday, I decided to test it out.

I went to Smalls, possibly the world’s most famous jazz jam session, which livestreams everything to audiences of thousands on YouTube, to test my mettle. Would I fold as soon as things went “off script”, or would I “dig deep” and find my footing.

Of course I’m 98%jesting. Sitting in in jam sessions is a mundane act thousands of musicians of every stripe do every week. It’s something my students do with regularity. And it’s something I used to do a fair bit earlier in life. But it’s also true that I’ve on a roughly-ten-year hiatus from playing for real audiences with real huans onstage. And that there were some questions in my head about whether I’d have “cobwebs”, or if I’d be able to “get back on the horse”.

And for fun, I decided to take my camera to my very first foray back into live music. Where there was a genuine possibility I’d forget a tune, or lose the form, or get stage fright.

This video is also not just about me attending a single jam session, but rather a bit of a “confessional” about my first baby-steps into my return to playing live, and my burgeoning idea to start a band. I’ll talk about why I’ve come to believe it’s important to play live, why I quit, and why I stayed away for so long.

If you’re interested in the very mundane act of my sitting in at a jam session, great! If you’re interested in my thinking about what purpose live playing serves for musicians, great! Either way…

Hope you enjoy!