Member Spotlight: Bob Bird

This is going to be a new and regular feature: the Member Spotlight. Today, we have a performance from Bob Bird. Bob came to the studio about a year ago.

As a younger man, Bob played jazz drums in clubs on a regular basis but then stopped playing. After a fifty year hiatus from the instrument, Bob started working with me and his small ensemble playing has really come along quite nicely! Bob is playing along with a track from John Riley's excellent book "Art of Bop Drumming", which is required reading for any one serious about their craft. This is a play along track entitled "Last Week". For more information on studying drums at grooveKSQ with Bryan, please visit https://www.grooveksq.com/lessons.

Audio engineering and video production by Bryan Tuk.

Experimentation & Repetition

One of the things that rarely gets adequately discussed in music lessons is the amount of repetition necessary to develop new improvisational ideas. While some musical ideas do happen spontaneously in the moment during a performance, those ideas are the exception rather than the rule.

One valuable use of your time then is to think about the kind of idea you are trying to develop, and then go sit down behind the drum set and work that idea out. Over and over and over again. The larger the sample size of experiments, the more you will discover about your own playing.

Here is an example: I was thinking about developing some licks that incorporated a nine stroke roll into a linear pattern. The video below shows only a handful of reps of that idea which were done during a one hour session on the idea. In a one hour block, you can play a variation on that lick probably 200 or 300 times. That is how you develop soling ideas. It takes work.

Thursday Night Chops Livestream

The lifestreams are coming back in a big way this summer! If you missed this week’s video on Twitch, you can view it right here. All you need are your sticks and practice pad!

Required Viewing: Max Roach

Grace, creativity, composition. One would need many more words to adequately describe Max Roach’s solo playing. One of the absolute all times greats - he would be on drumming’s Mount Rushmore if there as such a thing. To my students - watch this intently, then watch it again. Required viewing that will vastly improve your soloing if you take some pointers from the great Mr. Roach.

ENGINEERING NOTE: This performance was recorded with a single overhead mic.

Drum Recording 101: The Importance of Room Mics

This is the first in an occasional series on the production side of music, which is becoming more and more important for players of all ability levels.

TMF Organ Trio now available!

You can now stream the entire new album by Tuk Mattock Fredericks on Bandcamp.com. There are also hi-resolution versions available for sale which you can download to your device. We had a blast making this record, and it features some terrific playing. You can stream it below: