Loading ...Today we’re going to take a look at linear drumming. The style certainly isn’t new, but it’s used so often in everyday playing that it would benefit all drummers to study it regularly. Linear, in drumming terms, refers to a line of single notes played one at a time. In other words, there are no stacked notes such as a [...]
Spring has sprung and training has begun! Just because we use our fine motor skills and not the gross ones does not mean we don’t work as hard as any of the ball players out there. They run laps and throw balls, we drill scales! In this weeks lesson I am tying in some old and introducing some new scale [...]
In last months issue I mentioned the words “sum of all your parts” and it got me thinking about the importance of being diverse. As a music and drumming educator for the past 18 years, I’ve noticed many students who only wish to focus on one style – usually rock & roll. And given rock’s propensity for stardom, and a [...]
In this weeks lesson, I want to cover one of the most commonly used scales, the Pentatonic Minor. This scale comes from the natural minor scale. If you have never heard of the natural minor scale, that is the scale formed when you start any major scale on its’ 6th degree. For example, take the notes of your Bb major [...]
Many rock songs, soul tunes, funk classics, and anything that is at all blues based, which is almost all of the music we hear today makes use of certain melodic and harmonic devices that are used so regularly that they’re considered clichés, which isn’t necessarily considered bad. A collection of guitarists as diverse as Steve Vai, Joe Walsh, Jimmy Page, [...]
The Ebow is a very popular electromagnetic device used to create infinite sustain on steel stringed musical instruments. It has been commercially available since the 1970s, and has been featured on thousands of recordings. The most primitive Ebow technique involves sustaining a single string while changing its pitch by altering the left hand fretting position. The advantage to this approach [...]
Young students often ask me why they need to practice this material. I always reply “because you’re a sum of all your parts”. Imagine if you will a car company that only focuses on transmissions. Well, what about the rest of the car? You wouldn’t get very far on just a transmission alone. In today’s age of music, you need [...]
Hi everyone, and thanks for tuning in today. In this video I demonstrate ways that drummers can embellish their grooves, or change styles within the same groove. Often times drummers get stuck thinking that one way may be the only way, and these examples could guide you towards opening the doors to new opportunities. I demonstrate one groove several different [...]
As we’ve been covering barre chords in previous articles, Here’s a way to memorize the notes of the A string, so we can identify the barre chords all over the neck. First, we’ll come up with a “Fifth String Tune”. Memorize the following pattern of notes, taking care to notice where your fingers fall in relation to the dots on [...]
Just like I would want to taste and know every ingredient I would use in my favorite chili recipe, I like to know what I play in my bass lines. It could be chord tones, scale notes, passing chromatics. All of these things are helpful in being able to identify. Why? These are our tools. Guitarists have chords (which I [...]
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