Welcome to “Nasty Drum Licks” #124 and #125. The six-stroll roll in this lesson refers to the left-handed version (LRRLLR) and the linear idea is something I’ve been playing for a while now (FLRLFR). I came up with the linear thing as a way to play something kind of slick-sounding while grooving on the hi-hat, […]

Improvisation has always been a mysterious topic for me. The information available on it, at least in the drumming education world, seems far from definitive. The video at the bottom of this post will hopefully help a bit with some of that understanding, at least as it relates to drumming improvisation. If you went to […]

Have you ever felt that certain hand techniques might be unobtainable? I remember watching Jojo Mayer’s first DVD and thinking some of the super-advanced techniques he demonstrated might take so much practice to master that it might not be worth the work. The one exception was the push-pull technique. I thought that it would be […]

Alright everyone. Here’s my top ten. I’m guessing this may spark some debate, and think that’s fine, so feel free to let me know your thoughts. Syncopation This book, written by Ted Reed, is very versatile. I use it with beginners to teach them to read rhythmic notation, but it has many other applications for […]