Jeff Ballard Lesson for Subscribers

Jeff is the first of a few weeks of lessons on things I wouldn't have been able to do a year ago. People have been asking for a breakdown of the Knives Out beat from the Brad Mehldau Trio for ages, but I wasn't good enough to make it happen.

Luckily the collective pressure pushed me to get my act together, and in the process I figured out a few shortcuts to playing half-swing-half-breakbeat stuff as Jeff does on that tune.

First things first - the transcription...big shout outs to Tyler in Chi-town, who's been transcribing these last few, often at the last-minute, and nailing them. Whoop whoooooop!

Like most of the drummers I cover, especially those with careers as long as Jeff's, Jeff has created an idiom leagues too deep and too broad for me to abstract with a single lesson - nay - with hours of lessons. It's hard to know where to start - I first heard Jeff with Chick Corea, then not longafter on Kurt Rosenwinkel's break-through records The Enemies of Energy and The Next Step. I saw him play with Mark Turner at the Vanguard a number of times, in groups alternately helmed by Kurt and by Mark himself. When Jeff joined Mehldau's trio in 2006, it was another jolt of electricity for college-aged drum nerds, and Knives Out seemed the most appropriate place to start because it was Track One on Mehldau's first record with Jeff in the drum chair. The Mission Statement.

Do you have a favorite Jeff record, tune, or solo? Leave a comment below!

Nick Smith Lesson for Subscribers

Ahoy folks this week's "guest" needs no introduction. Famous not only as one of the best drummers of his generation, but also - and in my opinion more importantly - for bucking the "conventional" path to success: playing in church, going to Berklee, then getting huge on the internet, largely on the back of bootleg church clinic videos and the insurgent Soultone Cymbals YouTube channel, is Mr. Nick Smith.

That's why the track that's the subject of this week's video hits so close to home. "Comin from low, still on the rise - Look at Me."

Anyway, you're likely here for the Transcription, so let's get to it!

Have a favorite Nick Smith track? Let me know in the comments below!

Stewart Copeland Lesson for Subscribers

It's hard to quantify fully the influence Stewart Copeland has had on drums writ large, and on me personally. The first album I was allowed to call my own when I was a kid was a copy of Regatta de Blanc, which I nearly wore out playing Message in a Bottle and Walking on The Moon. Fast forward 13 years and I went off to college and discovered jazz - first drummers like Philly Joe Jones and Art Blakey, then modern drummers like Eric Harland and Kendrick Scott. Long-story-short, it had been a minute since I gave Stewart a concerted listen. Then a few months ago I discovered some clinic videos on YouTube, and before I knew it I was down a rabbit-hole, rediscovering songs I hadn't thought about in ages.

Here's the thing - Stewart still sounds like he was recording those songs in 2008. Put the police back together, get Eric Harland to sub for Stewart and my guess is he'd sound an awful lot like...Stewart. That's how deep the influence runs, and that's how ahead-of-his-time Stewart was.

Anyway, you're probably here for the transcription!

Have a favorite Police song? Tell me what it is in the comments below!

Tony Williams Lesson for Subscribers

There's probably no skill more fundamental to playing jazz drums than playing the ride cymbal, and no better practitioner than Tony Williams. Tony was the Paganini of the ride cymbal. The Franz Liszt. While others played in the traditional fashion (and Roy Haynes and Elvin had their own unique takes), Tony deconstructed the ride beat, and got so deep inside it he was able to pull off seemingly Matrix-like feats. And the most signature, the most quintessentially "Tony", was the six-note sequence.

Well, in this era of the Flynn Effect and killers like Justin Brown, Kendrick Scott and Eric Harland, you may find players who nearly equal Tony's facility, but nobody who's surpassed it.

First things first - here's your transcription.

Have you developed any hacks to improve your ride cymbal? What's worked and what hasn't? Leave a comment below!