How to Comp for Jazz Drums

Practically any place modern drummers place the hi hat in ostinato situations can trace its roots to Max Roach.

Why? It was Max who was the “grandfather” of odd meters. Want to play in 3? There’s a Max beat for that. 5? 6? 7? Check!

Which brings me to the primary subject of this week’s lesson: why does it sometimes feel awkward to play the hi hats on “2 and 4”? (This is a question I got asked in Thailand.) The reason, I realized, is that sometimes you have to play phrases that don’t conform neatly to 4 beats. Well then, where are you supposed to play the hats?

I dealt with this issue somewhat in the lesson “How to (Really) Play Jazz Drums”, and I have templates for it in my course, but it wasn’t until recently that I realized all these “logical” ways of playing the hi hat have analogs in Max Roach beats. Could studying Max be a shortcut to comping in modern music situations? As a student of Marcus Gilmore and Justin Brown, I have to say of course.

Anyway, you’re probably here for the transcription.

And for the comment thread this week, what challenges you when you’re trying to play backbeat grooves like Keith Carlock, Jojo/Mark/Zach (the KimYe or BenIfer of our time?) or Nate Wood? I’m doing the first of my collaborations of this fall/winter with Gabe of the excellent channel Drum Beats Online, and we want to tackle phrasing in modern backbeats. Hit me with your questions!

Two Tricks to Play Better Solos

Nate Wood likes to compare practice to building a clay sculpture, and I got my first taste of what he means the last 3 weeks. In this lesson, I’ll give you a short version of the lesson I taught in the Asia clinics last month. I couldn’t have done this lesson a month ago, and I wouldn’t be able to do it again.

Anyway - Nate Wood. When you practice, he muses, it’s like adding a piece to a clay sculpture. It’s soft, so you can shape it. That’s practice. Then you need to fire it. That’s gigging, or playing in front of an audience.

My clinic run went predictably: the first clinic, in Hong Kong, started off rough as I was finding my stage legs. That sent me into a near-panic, causing me to steal away for early-morning practice sessions in Bangkok between speakers and masterminds at my business conference, and rework the presentation from the start. That paid off. Somehow, in front of nearly 35 people, including two of Thailand’s best drummers, I pulled it off.

By the time I got to Taipei, I could “jump around” within my prepared material. My sculpture had been fired. Two days later, back in Kaohsiung, I turned on the cameras and did it for the channel. That’s this lesson.

And for the comment thread this week, should I go to PASIC? It’s expensive and sudden, but...sunlight, and Mark. And John. Oooh choices. (Maybe I should wait for NAMM. Is that more my peeps’ pace?)

How to Steal From Max Roach

Three weeks ago, before my Asia trip began, I put out the call on Instagram: what should I make my next jazz lesson about. Responses ran the gamut, from comping at fast tempos to...coordination. And I’m sorry to say this lesson is about none of those.

But I believe it will satisfy you, because it answers the spirit of many of the questions I get about jazz drumming: “if I’ve never played legit jazz drums before, where do I begin? And what’s authentic?”

Well, it doesn’t get much more authentic than Mr. Roach. Anyway, the lick I cover in this lesson was inspired by Max, but I’ve heard Philly Joe and Jimmy Cobb play it as well. As well they should: it’s just a combination of two extremely simple rudiments. Which is sort of my point: jazz isn’t necessarily a whole different vocabulary. It’s familiar things, just in a slightly different context.

In this lesson, I expand on the ways Max used this lick, then I show you how I would use it in “modern” playing. (Though I’m sure there are those who will say “Max was modern!” and in one very important sense they’re right.)

Anyway, you’re probably here for the transcription.

And for the comment thread this week, another “selfish” one - what’s your favorite thing to do on a long flight, and what do you most look forward to when visiting New York? (I’m going to need both in two short days;) (You can also comment about drums or the lesson;)

What I Really Think About Hand Technique

It’s been a few weeks since I waded headlong into a controversy, so I figured “what the hey?”

Maybe even more than foot technique, hand technique is the subject of debate, orthodoxies, and sacred cows. Fingers or wrists? French or German? Bounced or articulated?

At various stages in my life I’ve studied all of those approaches, and the technique I use now differs from all of them in two respects. First, it’s not a fixed approach, but rather an adaptive one. It can look like French grip with a thumb-index-finger fulcrum at times. It can look like German grip with the fulcrum in the back fingers at others. Second, it’s not a left-brain, top-down approach, but rather a backward-justification of what “feels right”.

In this video I cover the primary things a good technique is supposed to do for you and 3-dimensional spectrum of possibilities techniques can fall into. Then I share the one secret that’s responsible for most of my “success” taming the hand-technique beast.

And for the comment thread this week, I’m again inviting drama. Have you had a hand technique issue you’ve solved. How?