Nate Wood Lesson for Subscribers

For months I've been looking for an excuse to do a lesson on Nate Wood. Medium-term fans of the channel will remember Nate was my interview guest last fall - another drummer who atomized me in a "shed" by appearing to think and play in four dimensions and making me feel repetitive and dynamically limited by comparison. But it was difficult to find a subject on which to base a Nate lesson - do I cover a demanding Tigran Hamasyan tune like Serpentine? Or do I break down his solo from Kneebody's Trite, which requires probably six months of training in cross-handed break-beat hi hat technique out-of-the-gate. The problem with Nate's playing is the "difficulty level" is so high, and it's so whimsical. There aren't really any "licks" to latch onto.

But I found something - Nate's penchant for expanding the barline on odd meters, and Ben Wendel's tune Backbou from his excellent record Frame seemed like the perfect canvas upon which to demonstrate.

First things first - you're probably here for the transcriptions. Get them by clicking on the button below.

Have a nominee for the next Nate lesson? Leave a comment below!

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!