Thomas Pridgen Lesson for Subscribers

This week's lesson found me at "80/20 Studios West", filming a quick video while bunking/hanging with my parents in Montana. (Yes, "white trash surfing", or riding the inner tube of a big rig tire down the river, is the truth. No, don't carry your car keys with you.)

Anyway, in search of something "quick and dirty" I could make for you guys, I remembered a Thomas Pridgen lick from one of the first Gospel Chops videos ever made, and luckily it dovetailed with something I'd been messing about...sorry - messing around...with (hanging out with too many Brits lately;) since shooting the Nick Smith Lesson two weeks ago.

"People have been playing that same lick since the '90s! I played that lick on the Jimmy Kimmel show with Keyshia Cole!" Thomas says, apparently urging viewers to move onto something else. As novice Gospel Chops aficionado, I had different things in mind.

If this lick's a cliche, I probably need to learn it.

Oh - before I forget, the transcription:

Anyway, enjoy the lesson, and if there's a Thomas lick or concept you'd like me to transcribe and/or explain, just leave a comment below!

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!