Flow Grooves - The Drum Beat That's Suddenly Everywhere (Updated)

First things first - download your free transcription here.

One year ago I made a video on the family of grooves we were starting to see…well…everywhere.

They weren’t like other grooves - not “boom chick” like rock, not “straight 16th” like James Gadson/Stubblefield funk, nor even like shuffles per se.

Their closest living relative were probably the linear funk grooves of players like David Garibaldi, but of course “the kids” were putting a gen-z topspin on them.

Players like Jharis Yokley, Zack G, and recent podcast guest Berj Fazlian were chief among the drummers taking this way of playing to the next level.

At the time, I didn’t know what to call them. So I invented a name: “clave flow”. Which is also the title of the course I created around them in JP Bouvet Method. (Link and coupon codes below.)

Since then, they’ve become more recognized, and have a mainstream name: flow grooves.

So - what are they, exactly?

Strictly speaking, it’s any practically-continuous improvisation around a backbeat - not necessarily “3” or “2 and 4”. It’s usually done with chatter between closed hats and snare ghost notes - though often with extra implements like cowbells on the snare - and usually places the backbeat on the snare, though sometimes it’s on the stack. It’s mostly linear, though not without exception.

But it’s always easier to demonstrate than to explain. Click on the video, and you’ll immediately see examples of Berj and Zack playing them.

And students love these. It’s way out of proportion with what I would have predicted. But my guess is that learning the system to play these grooves gives people a feeling of freedom they haven’t felt before while grooving.

Ok - but how do we learn them?

You can get transcriptions practically everywhere, but I tend toward the “teach a person to fish” approach. Hence, I’m going to show you a simple system to get you started.

And it’s way simpler than when I first considered these grooves a year ago. We’ve had a year of refinement working on it with students, and working through the course material for JP.

In fact, I bet if you take the basic lessons (“rule of 16”, “rule of 8”) into the shed, you should be able to play basic versions of these grooves in just a day.

Hope you enjoy!

P.S. I’m doing a small promo for JP Bouvet Method this week, where the above-mentioned course lives. If you dig this youtube video, you’ll probably want to go way more in-depth, with tons of written examples. You can grab a 7-day trial to JP Bouvet Method and support me in the process using my affiliate link here, and, until next Friday, you can save…

-50%/month x 6 months with the code SaveMonthlyJun26

-$100 off your first year with the code SaveAnnualJun26

Just enter the codes at checkout.

Stop "Overthinking" Drum Hand Technique - Just Do This

First things first - download your free transcription here.

Hand technique can be a frustrating Kafkaesque morass.

To a beginner or intermediate, the constellation of instruction makes it seem like there are dozens of unrelated orthodoxies that never come in contact, not to mention a literal waterfall of “quick tips”.

I’m gathering steam for a “grand unified theory” of hand technique video - because it’s ridiculous that, with the same laws of physics, we can get such disparate approaches from the various camps - but in the meantime I wanted to chip away at a simpler problem: how to “know if it’s right”.

In my opinion, that’s what makes teaching and learning hand technique so difficult: most of it happens inside the hand, where it’s hard for the student to observe the teacher or vice versa, and that’s on top of the lack of telepathy or mind-melding, so we have to use words and demonstrations to coax the student in “warmer” direction until they finally feel the “rightness”, then they can continue to seek that. But how do they know if what they’re feeling is “right”?

Enter today’s 2 exercises.

They’re almost impossible to do if the technique isn’t “in the right direction”, and if you can do them, it’s a good indication that you’re “warm”.

Ironically, even though there’s a messy universe of hand technique orthodoxies out there, most students I see who need technique help suffer from the same issues, and they’re basic “laws of physics” stuff:

Using too-large muscle groups to do the job smaller ones could do.

“Stealing” the energy of the stick through inefficiency, and having to “add it back”, usually (see number 1) with larger-than-appropriate muscle groups.

And this is the beginning of the grand-unified-theory.

Whether via French grip or German, drum corps or Murray Spivack, practically all good drummers have 2 things in common:

An efficient division of labor amongst muscle groups.

An ability to harness a lot of the “physics” without adding unnecessary new energy to the system.

Phew.

Enter today’s 2 exercises:

The 2-finger rimshot, and Speed Golf Rob.

Both are simple to explain and understand, even if they take some time to do. But both will point you in the right direction.

For more detail, check out the video.

P.S. did you know you can sign up to be the first to hear when we open up new slots for Impossible to Fail, my flagship 1:1 coaching program? Just click here to sign up for the waitlist.

How Much Should You Muffle Your Toms?

First things first - download your free transcription here.

I need to spend less time on Reddit. Put, this past week, it “pulled me back in”.

Over the stupidest stuff, too.

A poster had shared a video of their tom tuning, and asked for feedback. Without looking at any of the other comments, I wrote something complimentary. Then, contrary to the advice I’d give to anyone, I looked at the other comments. And this poster was getting dragged by everybody, for the simple act of muffling.

Slapping a couple of moon gels on, to get a deader sound. Like Steve Gadd. Purdie before him. Ringo. But nope, guess the Reddit community will no longer abide anything other than fully-open, “let a thousand overtone angels sing”.

What I should have done was close my phone and go for a walk. What I did instead was fire up the laptop and begin penning the screed that turned into this video.

In which we’ll examine the true history of muffling, which players were famous for it (hint, not just modern ones), their likely reasons, and the gear that made it possible.

Then, we’ll cover tom tuning and a few “hot licks” I like to warm up.

Finally, we’ll run our own experiment: from “wide open” to “dead as hell”. And you can be the judge.

Hope you enjoy!

P.S. did you know you can get 30 days free at JP Bouvet Method (until May 3) with the code FLOW, and support 8020 in the process. Get you some!

Berj Fazlian - Berklee as Hogwarts, 32nd Notes, and Life As a Young Drummer

I’m going to stop hiding the fact that I fancy myself a bit of a “next hot thing” whisperer for the drums.

Can barely dress myself, can’t cook worth a lick, but amongst my friends I have a decent track record of saying “have you peeped this drummer” a few years prior to their becoming a household name. So it was with Ari Hoenig among my classmates in music school, Nate Wood a few years later, and pre-Butcher-Brown Corey Fonville.

So it was with December’s podcast guest, Diego Ramirez, who I believe in a few years will be on the tips of young drummers’ tongues, and so it is with today’s. Someone you might know if you’ve seen any of my videos on what I call “clave flow”.

At the age of 18, he’s already become synonymous with a style that’s sweeping drumming, more than practically anyone else. And if there is a such thing as “prodigies”, he’s that in every sense of the word, having played for only 10 years. (And his description of putting in 8-hours-a-day of practice both tracks with past guests like Chris Turner, and should give you an idea of the work required to make that kind of meteoric rise.)

I’m speaking of Berj Fazlian. Son of an orchestra conductor, Berklee student, and, already, a sensation.

In person, Berj is amiable and warm. And can’t hide his enthusiasm for the drums. It’s no wonder that, like Turner, drums never felt like “work” to him.

In this meandering conversation, we speak about Berklee-as-Hogwarts and navigating the world as a young drummer, with strong undertones of finding a voice in the wilderness and trusting your own tastes, even as a “prodigy”.

Hope you enjoy!

P.S. did you know you can sign up to be the first to hear when we open up new slots for Impossible to Fail, my flagship 1:1 coaching program? Just click here to sign up for the waitlist.