As exhausting as the place can be, I targeted the top people and got results. I even got to meet Pete Lockett, which was truly awesome. I showed him my books, got encouragement, and left feeling very energized for the challenges ahead. I met with friends at Remo, spent a lot of time at the incredible Ludwig booth drooling over their new hardware (which is everything and more you could ever want), and talked with the guys at Modern Drummer and DRUM! magazine, both of whom were intrigued by my books. 

I was sitting against a wall resting from very sore feet when I met Angeline Saris, bass player for Narada Michael Walden. We had a great conversation about odd meters, just two strangers hiding downstairs for a moment in the quieter area of NAMM. What an interesting way to meet someone quite fascinating!

Two days of NAMM can run you into the ground, but it was worth it and then some. I’ve spent many years working on the projects I’m about to release, and hopefully, they will do what I think they will do… if so, life will change forever. If not, I finished what I started and have an equally interesting project waiting in the wings that I promise will get your attention if you are into odd meters.

If you went to NAMM, you know what I mean by intense. I hope it was productive for you if you did go, and if you didn’t, get in some year. It’s the ultimate musician’s candy store!

So last week, I make my way off the 101 freeway to Avenida de la Vina, only to find an empty building. There was a drum set and a guitar in the front window, but no drums for sale. Nothing. Empty. Gone.

A guy walking up to the door answered my question: Mike’s Drum Shop had closed a few months before. Nwo it was just a rehearsal and lesson shop.

I couldn’t believe it.

A drum store in business for 40 years closes? That’s two generations of drummers, maybe father and son studying at the same place, building and sharing memories. A place where legends held clinics and passed on the torch of knowledge. A place to get excited about one hundred miles away and getting closer.

If this post can be of any benefit, I hope drummers will pay a visit very soon to their local drum store and support it, even if all you can afford is a magazine. I’m going to make it a point to start looking up small drum stores on the Internet, and if I have a few bucks, order something now and then. Times are obviously tough for us all, but this is something we should all want to be a part of preserving.

As you read this, Drummers World in New York City is also no more… it closed on Dec. 28th, after over 30 years of business.

Who’s next?

That’s not a question we should have to ask very often.

I got my start with formal lessons from The Percussion Center, in Newport Delaware. Dick Kenny was the owner, and he was a cool guy who cared about young drummers. He gave lessons, sold kits and parts, did drum recovering… the whole thing. Joe Brancato, a legend at Musician’s Institute, taught there when I was in my teens. I learned some valuable lessons from Joe, and Jim Chapin was a regular as well. Imagine being 15 and sitting in a room (as I did for a few golden lessons) with the guy who literally wrote the book on four-way jazz coordination.

These places must survive if the truest messages of drumming and comradery are to survive.

I hope you will let other drummers know about this post, and hopefully if they read it, they too will find a way, when they can, to support local drum stores. We have access to the world through the Internet. Maybe 2012 will be the year that the brotherhood of drumming, which absolutely exists, can come together and Occupy Drum Store Closings.

As it should, because our heritage and the time-honored means to pass it on is on the line.

I’ve been working on a very large writing project that is just about to launch, and it’s the reason I haven’t had more time to put pieces up here or even play around Los Angeles as much as I’d like to. Many years ago, and I mean many (1982), I took some lessons with Terry Bozzio and learned about permutations as they applied to rhythm patterns. He lit a fire in me that took over and ignited a thought process that has taken decades to work out and refine. As I wrap that project up, it seems as though a lifetime has passed from when I first got the idea to write a book about a very unique approach to rhythm pattern theory.

The scope of this project is huge. I walked away from it many times over the years simple because it was so big, and it fried my brain every time I tried to tame it. But a few years ago, I finally got a handle on the approach, and now, it is about ready to be revealed.

It’s all based on a simple question: How many rhythm patterns do you suppose there are? I can safely tell you that I know exactly how many basic patterns there are, and while this approach has been explored to some degree over the past few years, what I’ve been working on is seriously ten times larger and then some. It has taken every bit of energy and focus I have to bring it to a close, and every day when I look at this site and the reading stats, I get a little more energy to keep going.

So, thank you all very much for reading my drumming blog over the past couple of years. In a few weeks, I should have everything wrapped up and will formally present it here. I hope you’ll stop back and check things out when I do. Until then, have Happy Holidays, and keep playing those drums like there’s no tomorrow!

David Aldridge

Los Angeles, California

And then I heard the rest of his energy in tracks that really, for the time, were pretty intense. To many of us, Gene’s music is generations away from what we’d listen to on a regular basis, but I have to tell you, I am now a convert. His musicality and phrasing are just too cool. There’s no other way to put it.

Krupa is the picture of drumming cool.

He opened some serious doors for us as a soloist and bandleader, paving the way for us to lead and not merely follow. For that alone, we should be grateful. But do yourself a favor tonight: type “Gene Krupa” into the Spotify search window and listen to 20th Century Drum Master. Listen closely to every little sound Krupa makes. You will hear a musician playing the drums. And I do mean playing…

Then go read a little about a drummer’s drummer. We owe it to Gene to keep his flame burning.

A week later, I took them over to Remo’s Recreational Music Center to give a drum circle/drum set demo for some kids with Tourette Syndrome. It went great (as I wrote about in a previous post), and I managed to get some decent pics of the kit. I thought fans of Ludwig might enjoy seeing them, so here’s a few shots.

I bought a pre-Ludwig Ghost pedal a few months later, and when I sit down behind these things and let loose, they sound like blasting cannons. I was in the Pasadena Guitar Center about a week before I went out to Temecula, and the main reason I went was because a customer in the Pasadena store who knew Ludwigs well told me in no uncertain terms that I should LEAP at these things. Best drumming advice I ever heard.

When I play these things, I am often reminded of a quote from an intense biker named Speed I knew when I wrote for Easyriders magazine:

“Moderation is for monks! Take BIG bites!”

Got that right, pal…

Don Brewer was a 22-year-old drummer from Flint, Michigan who hit the drums like a man possessed. His red sparkle Ludwig Super Classic kit took a beating that reminded me in later years of the ferocity and passion with which Gene Krupa played, although not quite so loud…

I never got to see Grand Funk Railroad live as a kid, and it wasn’t until recently that I found some videos of Brewer’s playing. I was truly amazed at his physical stamina. I’d emulated it for years just by ear, but watching him slam was something else. His solo on TNUC contained clean and thundering power triplets between his hands and feet that I worked on for many hours as a kid. Each impact was more than just a solid THUD; it was a mule-kick to the head.

The YouTube clips revealed how hard he hit the cymbals as well, and he really did slam them. Zildjian should thank Brewer for consistently demonstrating how incredibly durable their product was and remains. And of course, there’s no mistaking the sound of a Supra-phonic Ludwig snare drum, anywhere or anytime. You’ve been punched by Bruce Lee when it is hit just right.

I found a YouTube clip that is typical of Brewer’s power, and the best part of it is at about 2:42 into it. Brewer just finishes unleashing his trademark power hand-foot triplet barrage, takes a few seconds to breathe, and then… he slams his snare drum with his HEAD.

Okay… a little beyond Bonham’s “Moby Dick,” and I wouldn’t suggest trying this at home or anywhere else… but you have to love the passion.

Rock and Roll should never need an apology. It is what it is. I learned a lot from Don Brewer about how to hit like your meant it, and when “Foot Stompin’ Music” came out, my right foot got one hell of a workout trying to keep a full-blast rock shuffle hitting on all eight cylinders. I moved more into jazz a few years later, refining my touch and learning how to generate intensity without a lot of volume, but to this day, Don Brewer remains one of my favorite drummers because of how he approached the kit. He was a kid from the land of muscle cars, and by God did he ever how to stomp a pedal and smoke the tires.

Enjoy the clip, and wear a helmet if you decide to give that snare a hello from your forehead…

Welcome to audiation.

Wikipedia gives a good definition of the word: a high level thought process, involving mentally hearing and comprehending music, even when no physical sound is present. Musicians have experienced this most of their playing lives, but how many of us have really focused on developing it?

I want to suggest that as drummers, we begin to pay great attention to developing our ability to hear drum set and percussion sounds internally. It takes some work, but if there was ever an area here practice pays off, it’s here.

What’s the value? Well, for starters, the clearer you can conceive of a musical idea, the easy it becomes to execute it. I began doing this when I was 9, imagining drum solos and seeing them played on a kit. Over the years, I refined this ability by daydreaming about music endlessly, just like every other musician out there. I just didn’t realize that by doing so, I was helping myself become a better player.

I write a lot about polyrhythm and odd meters, and I use audiation to practice both quite a bit. Odd meters seemed to come naturally as a kid, but polyrhythms have taken a little more work. If you check out some of my previous posts about 5-and 7-note grouping practice methods, you’ll find some simple two-handed exercises that let you hear 5:2, 5:3, 5:4, and 7:2, 7:3, 7:4.

Using audiation, I can now more clearly conceive of these ratios and improvise in my mind using the drum set and cymbal tonalities. I can then sit down behind the kit and “realize” these sounds with some slow, focused practice. This approach is really nothing new to drummers, but now it has a more formalized name, and believe me, music researchers are fascinated by its potential.

Our instrument is slowly receiving more and more attention from the science world, and this is one esoteric area I believe deserves quite a bit of study. Researchers at The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego have technology that lets them map a picture of the brain as you perform. Imagine using audiation to create sounds in your mind and seeing a picture of where it occurs. What might this tell us about how music and language are related?

Point being… from here forward, science will be exploring music perception to a degree that’s light years ahead of what’s come before. If we adapt as drummers and learn more about how we perceive music, it can help us take things further as well.

Peter Erskine often speaks of the simplicity of playing just a quarter note. Here’s a simple exercise that if done correctly will demonstrate a practical application of audiation:

1. Play four measure of quarter notes on your ride cymbal, medium tempo.

2. Pretty boring, huh?

3. Now, close your eyes and play those same four measure in your head, and perfectly and precisely as you can. Focus on seeing the cymbal in your mind and watching the stick hit the surface. Make it perfect. Okay, eyes open.

4. Not so boring.

5. Close your eyes again. Play four perfect measures of time, and then let four more measures pass in silence.

I think you’ll find the results to be very interesting…

When I do this, two things happen: my mind begins to improvise in the silent four measures without effort, and I feel a stronger connection to all four limbs.

Give it a shot, and see what you hear.. literally.

http://www.christopherreeve.org/site/c.mtKZKgMWKwG/b.5002989/k.2EE4/The_Beat_Goes_On__Jason_Gerling.htm

http://www.jammingrooves.com/home/about.html

A car accident put him a wheel chair for life, and most drummers would figure that their playing days were over. Jason Gerling is not most drummers. He has pushed past the obvious limitation and found a way around it, getting back to the thing he loved in life.

What Jason has overcome really does put things in their proper perspective. You have to believe that when he takes the stage, he TAKES the stage, savoring every second of being able to perform and express himself. All playing should feel so special, although hopefully not at the price Jason had to pay. But one thing seems certain: When he sits behind his kit, Jason is not in a wheelchair. He’s on a drum throne of determination, one that makes him feel like quite a king in his triumph over adversity.

http://biorobotics.harvard.edu/research/imped.html

You probably won’t read about this in Modern Drummer, but think about one possible application. Suppose they can use results from this research to help a drummer with a damaged arm re-acquire their skills? Maybe an extremely advanced version could even let a drummer who has lost a limb play again.

I can think of at least one famous player who might want to know more about this. I hope the technology advances quickly enough to let him and others get back to the kit as closely as possible. Seriously, how cool would that be?

Now let’s take it one step further: suppose a type of glove could be developed that would allow you to experience drumming at unbelievable speeds?

There’s just no telling…

1. Use THREE different weights of drums sticks. I use large marching sticks, a pair of 5A’s, and a pair of 7A’s. All are nylon tip.

I start out with the 5A’s and warm up with single strokes, very slow, to wake up the wrists. Next, I go to double-strokes, and I spend several minutes just relaxing with this keep the wrists and fingers very loose. After that, I use single-stroke triplets for a few minutes, followed by about three minutes of six-stroke rolls (RLLRRL) to keep the speed in shape.

After this series, I switch to the marching sticks. The key is to keep you hands and fingers as relaxed as possible while practicing. Getting tight serves no benefit. Lastly, I switch to the 7A’s, and the leap from heavy to light really wakes the hands up.

2. For all of this warm-up, I also focus on three sets of volumes. I start out medium, then very loud, then very soft. I mean, extreme. The leap back and forth from the different volume levels with each set of sticks keeps the sensitivity up, which is what really provides the control. The more in-touch you are with the different feel of the sticks, the more precisely you can play.

3. Lastly, consider using both matched grip and traditional grip with these exercises. If you are familiar with both the French and German tympani grips, you can add some variation to the matched grip.

Try playing 10 minutes with each stick group. At the end of 30 minutes, you will definitely feel like you’ve done something good for your hands.