Build Your Professional Manual Standard, from Groove Basics to Advanced Coordination

In this collection of three videos you will find basic kick patterns in three categories. 1. quarter notes, 2. eighth notes, and 3. sixteenth notes. All are performed under the same simple hi hat and snare part so one can focus on the kick drum note values.

Essentially what I’ve done here is establish what I’ve found to be the top 36 eighth note kick drum variations of pop rock music. And I've done so by establishing a “grid” type of exercise. But because I favored standard musical practice and procedure over a strict mathematical grid, this practic...

Having good hands on the drums is crucial for achieving control, precision, and dynamic expression in your playing. The way you grip your sticks, the fluidity of your wrist motion, and the sensitivity of your fingers directly impact your sound. Whether you're playing fast, intricate fills or layi...

Sometimes it's not the notes that you hear but rather the notes that you can't hear or barely hear that make the difference between the sound of a beginner and that of a seasoned professional.

Drum tuning is crucial for achieving the best sound and tonal quality from a drum kit. Properly tuned drums enhance the overall musical performance by ensuring each drum resonates with clarity and depth, contributing to the cohesiveness of the band or ensemble. Tuning affects the pitch, sustain, ...

Welcome to this four part series concerning drum fills, wherein we will discuss:
1. How to properly incorporate the hi-hat
2. One "can't miss" drum fill formula
3. Linear drum fills
4. a transcription of a live performance

A great example of the impact of this concept on what we play as drummers in any style of music, is how tempo affects the ride cymbal pattern. It‘s the way that the drummer interprets this concept in the execution of the cymbal pattern that determines the feel of the music.

Over the course of my life I have studied many musical traditions from all over the world and because of my work I have been very blessed to have actually gone to Senegal, South Africa, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Guatemala, and so many more places where I have been privileged to observe these ...

The easiest way I’ve found to learn odd meter, is to focus on one time signature at a time, establishing its own style, instead of just “odd meter” in general, and to create a parallel from a corresponding more familiar common meter.

In this collection of videos we learn three systems that have us hold down an ostinato with two or three limbs while reading long etudes with the available one or two. This is the stuff that I studied mostly while preparing for most of the paid work that I have had in my career.