Recent content by toddbishop

More Jack

I haven't played a top of the line Tama drum in ages. I don't think I know anybody who uses them. For awhile there were a lot of the 10/12/14/18 Stagestar/Imperialstar sets around, I liked them better than most cheap drums. They must have dumped a lot of them in Europe, they were the house...

Another one:

Here's an old favorite:

Or keep the TV on... in the background, just so time doesn't stop altogether.

None of those guys know what you need to do right now, which is to fix your funky left hand. Even the ones making the 'fix your funky left hand' videos. And watching a video isn't doing it. It's a lot easier to see what you're doing with the mirror.

First, stop watching videos, stop trying to do multiple grips/techniques. Take your copy of Stick Control, set up your practice pad in front of a mirror, and play every part of the book you can, playing the LH leading exercises for longer than the RH leading ones. Use a simple grip and...

I never routinely did it, except on swing tunes and shuffles, I do it more in recent years. Usually I'll sketch it in, not unlike what Hart was talking about there. The conversation about it is real one dimensional, just a question of "doing it" or "not doing it"-- like, when, and what else do...

There are different ways of doing it. He was asking about feathering the bass drum in jazz. The best way to learn to do that is to get a swing gig, or an organ/blues gig where you're playing a lot of shuffles, maybe a dixieland gig, and play the drum for effect. Like all the original people who...

Jeez, what the hell. They were manufacturing for a little while, then... ffffft. Never any kind of announcement on their state of affairs. I had the impression it was an inter-family squabble? I'm assuming they're legally encumbered somehow, and that's what's stopped them from communicating...

Thinking of retiring to Assmanshausen, Germany, if you know what I mean.

In that case using my Butthole Surfers example may not be wise. If none of the suggestions worked to at least illustrate the principle, just make them count everything they practice, and do a lot of listening with them, counting along with the recording. Do that first actually.

Find a listening example where it's real clear-- an obvious chord change happening on the 1. If they don't know what a chord is they should still be able to hear the change in color. Or if there's a vamp with a real strong 1, something by Parliament maybe. Failing that, something else where the...

I don't know, one of those hammered bronze numbers.

I got a used 6 1/2" Ludwig bronze drum in the mid 90s, and it was my main drum for everything for about 10-12 years. It was certainly louder than the 5 1/2" maple pre-Craviotto Craviotto drum I was playing. Seemed to have a slighly warmer tone than the average steel drum, I never checked. It...