I Was WRONG About Jazz Drumming - Here's How

First things first - grab your transcription here.

A few years ago I made a video called something like Six Crucial Jazz Solo Idioms From The Greats. In it, I chronicled some of my favorite “block and tackle” jazz licks. The type of stuff that if you play, people know you’re playing jazz drums.

The Philly Joe stuff. The Max stuff.

In subsequent years I actually coached a handful of jazz drum students, and realized what a monumental jump I’d be asking them to make if I simply handed them some transcriptions of famous licks of great players and expected them to come out in their playing.

To begin, we’re far-worse-equipped to synthesize other people’s vocabulary into our own than I think most novice drummers realize. But it’s basically memorizing a sentence in a foreign language. Sure, you can say it, but are you reeeeally speaking it?

But even proto that, I hadn’t realized that simply playing swung 8ths - let alone with the hats on “2” and “4”, is a complex task, even for a drummer who can play basic vocab in so-called “straight 8ths”.

So in this video, I set out to right my wrong. I want to supply all the missing “connective tissue” that will help you synthesize the licks of the greats, not just memorize them. The swing feel, the coordination.

Then, some basic vocabulary to “flow” in swung 8ths, into which we can then insert Philly Joe or Max licks. And that very act of joining them to the existing flow helps to synthesize them.

If you’ve ever wanted an overview of how you might go from total novice to sounding pretty good at jazz drum improvisation, this lesson is for you.

Hope you enjoy!

If You're A Serious Drummer, You Should Do This

First things first - grab your transcription here.

And, until Thursday the 24th at midnight, get your membership to JP Bouvet Method here, using the code SaveAnnualJul25 to get $100 off an annual subscription, or SaveMonthlyJul25 to get 50% off your monthly sub for the first 6 months.

One useful way to show you’re not full of “it” on drums is to keep an ostinato with one limb or another.

From the “four on the floor” of drummers like Gene Krupa, to “2 and 5” on the hats in bars of 5 from Max Roach, to left foot claves, to more modern “stack ostinatos” from drummers like Jharis Yokley, to even big band figures, or the “hits” of the solo section of Jazz Crimes - which we can thank for the thumbnail inspo…

…drummers have been using ostinatos since way back.

And if we’re really being honest, part of it is to signal to an audience we know what we’re doing. Because we might know we’re not dropping any beats in that solo in 7, but to the audience, it’s abstract art their toddler could do.

Of course, that’s not the only part - ostinatos are a great “cross training” device to help make our time and coordination, and even our ideas, stronger. Not to mention they’re often useful to signal to a band where we are in the bar, in case of rare events like needing to arrive at the downbeat together.

But lest you look askance at the idea of signaling to an audience that you know what you’re doing - and I know my audience, and I know at least some are looking at it askance - let’s remember a few things…

First, drums have been a showpiece since their inception. We don’t begrudge Papa Jo or Sonny Payne being a little showy.

What’s more, throwing the audience a bone about where the beat is is often a way to bring them along in the musical story you’re telling.

Finally, sure we’re artists, but, per Benny Greb, are we not also entertainers?

Well, we’ll get into all of that in today’s video.

At any rate, hope you enjoy!

The Tony Williams Take That You Might Not Like

First things first - grab your transcription here.

And, until Thursday the 24th at midnight, get your membership to JP Bouvet Method here, using the code SaveAnnualJul25 to get $100 off an annual subscription, or SaveMonthlyJul25 to get 50% off your monthly sub for the first 6 months.

We revere Tony Williams. Drum royalty. One of the true greats of jazz drums, nay drums writ large. Real ones know. Everybody from Vinnie Colauita to Mike Mitchell credits Tony for quantum-leaping the genre. His performance are masterclasses in raw emotion balanced with control.

And that’s exactly why this controversial hot take from a clinic in 1985 might rub you the wrong way. Because it’s about the control side of “emotion balanced with control”.

First off, I love all my commenters. And you know what comes with a “but”, and the “but” is that there’s a sizable contingent I like to call the “just feelers”. Who are probably directionally right if they’re giving advice to overly-cerebral drummers. “This is supposed to feel good. It’s supposed to happen in your guts; not your brain.”

But that last clause needs another word. “Not just your brain.”

Because at least Tony Williams thought control was important. That raw emotion was mostly interesting in relationship to control. That he didn’t want to be “reeeeally hoping something worked”. He wanted to know for sure. And that’s not going to sit well with everybody.

Because it’s one thing if I say “practice, you guys. Control is important.”

You can dismiss me as “too up in his head”/”too cerebral”. But Tony?

But for anyone tempted to dismiss the “just feelers” entirely, they have at least half the equation too.

This stuff is usually much easier to see when we take it out of the realm of music. Do we hope pilots and astronauts have a good “seat of the pants”/”stick and rudder” sense of what to do, and good aviating instincts? Of course!

Do we think those develop without years of study and training?

How about doctors?

My favorite type of hot take is one that’s not really that controversial once you look into, but which still gets people up in arms. It’s like an underpriced stock. Anyway, my hot take on this hot Wednesday afternoon is that you need both the cerebral - the control - and the rawness - the emotion.

And “stick around” for when I reveal why that’s like golf.

At any rate, hope you enjoy!

Is The Internet Ruining Drumming?

First things first - grab your transcription here.

And, until Friday at midnight, get your membership to JP Bouvet Method here, using the code SaveAnnual to get $100 off an annual subscription, or SaveMonthly to get 50% off your monthly sub for the first 6 months.

The above paragraph is not unrelated to today’s subject, because I consider him one of the good things that’s resulted for drummers due to the internet.

This is a subject everybody has an opinion on, which I don’t think anybody’s addressed head-on. We touch it through proxies, like “modern drumming”, and “how to make a living as a musician these days”. But it’s engendered such strong opinions, I thought it deserved a video all its own.

Part of the reason is I want people to own “the internet has made the world worse for drummers” if that’s what they really believe.

20 years ago - heck, 15 years ago - we had a world in which if you wanted to watch a great drummer play, you needed to rent a DVD of them, or go see them live. In which if you wanted a lesson with a great teacher, you needed to travel to them, or go to music school. In which if you wanted a career in music, you needed to impress a gatekeeper, or several gatekeepers.

In was a world in which sponsors, drum magazines, music schools, agents, and record labels held most of the power, and could name their price.

But did all the work required give us something in return?

Did we appreciate those performances more if we needed to pay for a CD or a live concert in order to hear them? Did we appreciate the lessons more if we needed to pay an individual? Did the small number of “anointed ones” in the orbit of the gatekeepers enjoy better careers than most musicians have today?

Now, of course, we have a world with everything at our fingertips. Any video of any drummer, any lesson on any subject, and also access to an audience for anybody willing to put in the hours “getting good” - or at least getting entertaining - and has that made things better?

Has it made the world more “fast food”? Where instead of whole performances we appreciate only isolated solos, and it that warping the musical instincts of young drummers? Are the algorithms that show us more and more cool solos once we watch one contributing to a flattening of musical variety?

Are the ubiquitous impressive physical feats, like one-handed single strokes and impossible blast beats making everybody feel worse about their own playing?

And has the move from record-based payment to sponsored posts and patreons pulled the rug out from under the working “journeyman” players, forcing them to either “eat tide pods for views” or get a job for Uber Eats?

It’s far from a simple “up or down” picture. And in today’s video, I’ll do my best to give both sides a fair hearing. They you can decide!

Hope you enjoy!