The beat that's taking over my playlist - Subscriber Only

I had an interesting comment already on this week's lesson...

I'll paraphrase, since I'm waaaay too lazy to ask permission to use the quotation;)

"All this Dilla stuff that's taking over music today is just the 'latest fad'. When are we going to get back to what made music good back 'in the day'?"

I mostly feel the opposite way.

I think most contemporary beats are wack...

...and that the resurgence of interest in Dilla's canon is one of the bright spots.

For context, this all began with my Spotify library.

I don't like to brag, but  there are only two things I feel I'm truly great at. (Drumming, though I'm aspiring to it, isn't even one of them.)

The first is parallel parking - I'm like Parallel Park Rain Man. Most people will look at a small spot on a crowded street with a line of cars behind them and panic. I think "meh, no hill, no inclement weather, no kids playing - that's only a 4.5."

To paraphrase Tom Cruise as Daniel Kaffee in A Few Good Men, "unfortunately for Dawson and Downey, I don't do anything better than I parallel park."

The second is culling a walled-garden-of-awesomeness from the general mediocrity and palaver that populates Spotify.

Everybody thinks his playlist is the best, and, with a single exception, they're all wrong. That single exception is me. ("Is I"?)

What I started noticing in my tune library was that the "intentionally-off-kilter" beats we've come to shorthand as "Dilla beats" (unless Dilla's estate starts sending cease-and-desist letters - nothing would surprise me anymore;) - were well represented.

It's gone beyond the classics like Slum Village, The Pharcyde, and Tribe.

It's Hiatus Kaiyote, and a bunch of people I'd never even heard of.

Here's the thing, though - this is a highly curated playlist. Of all (objectively, of course) great contemporary music. (If you don't believe me, you'll have a sampling from the clips in the lesson).

There's definitely some "selection bias".

Which is why I say Dilla's taking over my playlist. Where's it's less-widely-represented is in contemporary music in general.

I have to wonder about the influence of Robert Glasper in putting Dilla back on the map, but I tend to think it's huge.

Black Radio wasn't an accident, either. In several places on the record, Glasper drops conversations with his bandmates in which he's expressing essentially the same sentiment as my YouTube commenter: "most contemporary music is wack. We have to change that."

The artists using the "off kilter" beats in their music are the very folks likely to be either listening to Glasper's work, and/or the original Dilla catalogue.

But I digress. Today, I bring you a "tasting flight" of four such tunes, selected from my playlist.

The Phrase I'm Not Allowed to Say - Subscribers Only

I never imagined I'd be important enough to get a cease-and-desist letter.

But there it was, in my inbox, in early 2016.

And, it turned out, I wasn't the only one.

The subject of today's video is a channel whose name I don't dare say publicly.

(You're welcome to infer;)

After the initial sting of having to change the name of my video wore off in 2016, I mostly put the issue to bed.

As I explain in the video, I moved on.

But the issue is back.

So, I thought I'd make a video that summarizes all of my thoughts and experiences with it.

(I can only speak for myself.)

Long-story-short, I, like many Drum Fans, fell in love with the content of a certain YouTube channel, and was using their name willy-nilly, to describe any playing that fit the style.

Until they asked me to stop.

Now, some 3 years later, a brand new lesson on subject from Rob Brown prompted me to ask, "do we still even need that phrase?"

See if you agree.

Straight 8th Brush Lesson - Subscribers Only

First things first - why not grab the transcription here:

Straight 8th Brush Beats

Why not play brushes on everything?

That’s the question John Riley asked me, many years ago, for which I didn’t have a great answer.

Through the years, I’ve tried to wage a “booster” campaign for the humble brush - to coax others out of the resistance that kept me from getting great at the brushes for so many years.

Eventually, it was my love of the great jazz drummers, from Ed Thigpen, Vernel Fournier, and Roy Haynes to Blade, Bill Stewart, and Hutch.

But I’m painfully aware that my channel attracts both jazz enthusiasts and…not-jazz-enthusiasts alike, and…well…the brushes have an image problem the sticks don’t share.

Sticks, you see, are equally appropriate in any musical genre.

Only play country two-steps? Great. Sticks.

Like zydeco? Fantastic. I’ve got an idea: drumsticks.

You get the idea.

Brushes, however, and with few exceptions, are only associated with jazz.

Which left me in the difficult position of making the case that we should “liberate” the brush from simply a jazz implement…

…without seeming to disparage the great drummers who developed the idiom.

Let me put it this way:

Papa Jo, Connie Kay, Ed, Vernel, Roy, Philly Joe, Art Taylor, Paul Motian, and everybody else took the brush tradition so deep that, for aficionados, their music needs no qualification.

But, for people not familiar with these greats, are we going to say brushes are “off limits” for them?

Nope.

Play brushes along with Jack White.

Play brushes with Cardi B. With Rihanna. With Hova. With Soundgarden.

They’re just another texture - and a great one.

Play Brushes On Everything.

And this lesson humbly submits two way you might start.

Be sure and grab your transcription here.

Straight 8th Brush Beats

"Hard Tunes" Lesson - Subscribers Only

First things first - grab your transcription below:

Hard Tunes Transcription

So there's something that happens when I see a difficult tune I can't play.

It's akin to Biff Tannen calling Marty McFly "chicken".

I'm all set for the day in the shed...

I've got my life in a good balance...

I don't want for anything.

All I have to do is walk away.

Then, I hear the tune calling "what are you...CHICKEN?"

"NOONE CALLS ME CHICKEN"

So it was was the tune that inspired this week's lesson. And, like many of the tunes that "call me chicken" recently, it's by Tigran Hamasyan.

But let's get deeper.

I realized there's something specific that make a lot of Tigran's tunes particularly difficult.

It's not just the shifting meters you have to remember - though some tunes certainly have those.

It's the way you often have to keep two rhythms - of two different phrase lengths - in your head at once. And, I realized, it's not unique to Tigran.

In today's lesson, I'll examine 3 tunes by 3 different composers, all-of-which place a similar demand on our cognition.

Oh - and don’t forget Le Transcripcion:

Hard Tunes Transcription