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Friday, December 26, 2008

The Ride Cymbal is Santa


Today I spent 3-4 hours playing the jazz ride pattern. I am completely in love with John Riley's book "The Art of Bop Drumming." The main revelation so far is that the ride cymbal pattern, in the midst of it's triplet feel, should accent and fully drive a QUARTER NOTE pulse.

Previously I had played the pattern how I felt it; slightly accenting only the 2 & 4. If you accent all the quarter notes and get that relaxed rounded sound, it grooves so hard it feels like flying.  

I literally spent almost four hours today getting that ride pattern like a Brancusi bird :). Allowing the ride to EFFORTLESSLY be ABSOLUTE and INVINCIBLE (with hi hat on 2 & 4) is the foundation for exploring all the ecstatic complexities of jazz drumming and independence.

It's Christmas today.  The deepening of the knowledge of the music I love, the music of New York, the music of the bones, the music of smoke and ash, the music of destruction and from the shivering silence of the Primal Origin, endless resurrections of zero-gravity waves of blood-pumped sound, the one ingredient of the physical universe, is the perpetual intravenous Christmas presence of my life.



2 comments:

  1. Compliments! Stumbled upon your blog and loved it. Would like to return here and deepen my knowledge?

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  2. Excellent I am glad that someone is reading this stuff. Thanks and Happy Holidays!!

    ReplyDelete