As you browse through posts there are many that are related to technique. Since this and my other blog, Music for Drummers, are mainly aimed at jazz drummers and drumming, you may find the lack of posts regarding achieving a swing feel odd.
The reason I have not attempted to post anything related to achieving that feel is I do not think it can be taught. It can, however, be developed by listening to music that has that feel. Before proceeding, consider this ambiguous definition of swing to understand where I am coming from.
As I said a swing feel can be developed. The best way is to spend a lot of time listening to music that has the feel, then practicing to it.
Musicians from my generation typically have no problem because many of us grew up listing to big band and swing music that our parents inevitably played (and in my case played to death.) I am not saying that we all liked it at the time - I personally hated it when I was young - but it was ubiquitous. It also found its way into our DNA. Moreover, drummers who went on to be the pulse of early R&B, rock and even country came from those swing bands, so other popular music from my generation's youth swung. Listen to Mitch Mitchell with Jimi Hendrix, Charlie Watts with the Rolling Stones or John Bonham with Led Zeppelin to hear examples of early rock drummers who had a natural swing to their playing.
Here are some of my listening recommendations to help you develop a swing feel if you do not already have one:
For the price you get a few minutes shy of six hours of music. The selections are not B-side stuff, and span more than a few sub genres of jazz, including swing, bebop, and cool/West Coast styles. I was familiar with most of the music on the album, but discovered a few gems I had not heard before. I also enjoyed some of the seminal work of Miles Davis (such as So What from Kind of Blue), Monk, Lester Young and Bud Powell. The sound quality is very good, adding to the value. If you love jazz you will love this album ... if you are exploring jazz for the first time, this is an inexpensive way to obtain a large collection of some of the best music ever performed to explore and savor. And every track swings. Here are some clips from the album.
First, let's address the misleading title: less than half of the music contained in this album is bebop, and some is so far from falling into the bebop genre that I had to scratch my head. A prime example is the very first song, which is performed by Benny Goodman's band. Benny was the antithesis of bebop. Of the songs that do fall into the bebop genre, only a small handful can be considered "essential". So, either the title is marketing hype of evidence of ignorance on the part of the person or team compiling the tracks for the album. However, every track swings and that is the listening objective.
If you don't normally listen to jazz, this album contains some great music spanning swing, bebop, hard bop and straight ahead jazz. Personally there is not a single dud on the album and it has brought me a lot of pleasure and many hours of enjoyment.
If you are looking for examples of essential bebop (or even total bebop) look elsewhere. If you want to enjoy a little over five hours of great jazz spanning a few sub genres, this album is a bargain and does contain some classic cuts in each sub genre.
In addition to providing five hours of musical examples of swing, this album also has some great examples of comping, and, of course, bebop drumming. Here are some clips from this album:
Additonal listening and play-along tracks are provided this page. Although the focus is brush playing, most of the tracks can also be played with sticks, and all will help you develop an innate swing feel.
This master class is from the 2010 Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival. It features a drummer who I very much admire, Lewis Nash.
He packs an amazing amount of tips, attitude and philosophy into this class. I will end this post with Lewis performing a great Ellington/Juan Tizol tune accompanying saxophonist Steve Wilson.
First up is a lesson in vocalizing what you are playing. This first piece may come across as corny to drummers not versed in jazz, but ignore it at your own peril.
The second segment is all about tasteful and balanced playing. In other words, when to use power in your accompanying and when to hold it in check to support the music.
Segment three is probably the most important of the master class (in my opinion) because too many drummers just fail to understand how to properly pull it off. Many drummers believe that our job is to merely keep time, chugging along locked into the bassist and pretty much ignoring what the rest of the musicians are doing. In fact, we are responsible for at least supporting the melody and understanding the harmonic structure of what is being played as well. Here are Mr. Nash's approach and ideas, which are worth their weight in gold:
In my intro I mentioned that Lewis packed attitude and philosophy into this series of lessons. This segment focuses on the attitude (among other topics):
In this final segment Lewis steps up to probably the biggest stumbling block most drummers - and especially the less experienced - encounter: ballads. Note: Two sources of my previous posts that are good supplements to this segment are this one, and Another Study in Tempos: Stirring the soup.
I'll conclude with a duet between Lewis and Steve Wilson performing Caravan. There are a few noteworthy things happening in this clip. Foremost is Lewis' choice of grooves and mastery of dynamics. Caravan is typically played much louder on toms, but the groove is fit to the music and the room. If you learn nothing else from this post, learn the way he tastefully supports the music by playing to the situation and not blindly playing cliches that many drummers employ on this song.
Second, you do not necessarily need a bassist or any other instrument as long as at least one instrument in the ensemble can play the melody. And surprisingly Wilson does. What I mean by surprisingly is in the hands of most saxophonists a soprano sax sounds like cats fucking. One of the reasons is the instrument is actually not in tune with itself, which is not a good quality for an instrument that is going to be the sole source of the melody in a performance. But Wilson pulls it off, leading me to conclude that he must have been channeling Sidney Bechet, the only other musician who mastered that evil instrument.
One final note: most of my recent efforts have gone into adding content to my Music for Drummers blog, and that trend will continue.
I have yet to get to part 2 of Dynamics and Sound Levels, but have time this week to finally write and post that.
In the mean time I am going to cross-post a recent entry from my Music for Drummers blog that is germane to technique (a topic that fits within the theme of this blog).
One of the grand instruments of music is the piano. So much so that in some music schools anyone entering a percussion program must prove their proficiency on a piano before getting accepted. You may be interested to know that the likes of Art Blakey was a pianist before he was a drummer, and a multitude of drummers, such as Ed Thigpen were and are outstanding pianists. The truth be known, one hundred years ago pianos were essential in many households and were the center of family and neighborhood entertainment before being nudged out by radio. Moreover, musicians such as Charles Mingus and Bix Beiderbecke - virtuosos on their own instruments - were sufficiently talented on piano to record records and albums as pianists. A side note of interest is Dizzy Gillespie, another virtuoso pianist as well as trumpter, was also very proficient as a drummer. So proficient in fact that he gave Art Blakey drum lessons that dramatically improved Blakey's playing and transition from pianist to drummer.
The bottom line is even if you never become proficient as a pianist (or even touch one), studying some of the greats is an effective way to improve your skills as a drummer. One only need listen to many of the pianists in Jazz Piano History to appreciate the complex rhythms the greats managed while still paying attention to melody and harmony. We drummers have it easy in comparison.
On the other hand, as musicians we need to understand not only rhythm, which is a given, but also melody and harmony.
I am not implying that you must learn music theory because many solid drummers have managed to become successful without the theoretical training. I am saying that you, as a musician, should be aware of what is happening musically when you are supporting the music and your fellow musicians. Hence the following, simplified introduction to some of the things of which you should be aware.
Melody, in the most simplistic terms, is rhythm plus pitch. We drummers can actually contribute to the melody since we play rhythms and our instrument has various pitches. Pitches within a certain range are notes. Consider Drum Workshop drums, which have the musical pitch written on the inside of each shell; i.e., C#.
Those pitches are limited and somewhat fixed for each instrument, depending on your touch. Despite some inherent limitations, they will allow us to integrate with the other musicians and take some responsibility for the melody. This is partially addressed in this post. Studying drummers is not as effective as studying pianists if you want to bring your musicianship to the next level.
Harmony, in simplistic terms, is the relationship between and among simultaneous notes. Watch a guitarist or pianist hold down strings (or keys) in a pattern to form chords. There are musical rules that govern how chords are interrelated. Those rules also govern how they progress to the next chord, and how that chord fits into a musical structure. For our purposes, think of chords as either consonant or dissonant. A consonant chord fits into the structure (for lack of a better way of describing it) while a dissonant chord does not seem to fit.
Placed in the context of drumming, a pattern on a tom tuned to a certain pitch that complements a chordal structure played by a pianist or guitarist would be consonant. An unexpected cymbal crash placed at the same point would be dissonant. It may or may not be inappropriate, depending on why it was used. It it was used to mark a transition to another phrase it would support the music.
Do you need to know all of this to be a good drummer? Not necessarily, but you need to be aware of it if you want to be a part of the music instead of just playing time - something a backing track or rhythm box can do. Back to my original contention: studying piano or critically listening to pianists will significantly improve your skills as a drummer, and more importantly, will aid in your becoming a musician who plays drums (there is a distinction.)
As I said, the piano is a fundamental musical instrument, and is part of the foundation of ragtime, which was a key ingredient of jazz and the music it spawned, including rock. In fact, the first four tracks on the first disc in Jazz Piano History are Scott Joplin piano rolls from 1899. The media is grouped into five sets of four discs, each focused on milestones in the evolution and maturation of jazz, the role piano played, and the masters of each era or milestone.
Here is what the set contains:
Disc 1 is devoted to ragtime, with examples ranging from the Scott Joplin piano rolls to Jelly Roll Morton, Eubie Blake, James P. Johnson, with other pianists both obscure and a few cited as unknown. There are some good examples of syncopation in this group, and the early work of Eubie Blake and James P. Johnson is sophisticated in rhythm, melody and harmony. In other words, well worth studying despite the fact that it is nearly a century old. Here is an example from this disc:
Disc 2 is Harlem Stride, with the inventors well represented: James P. Johnson, Willie "The Lion" Smith, and Fats Waller, as well as those who were heavily influenced by them like Duke Ellington, and even Fletcher Henderson and Clarence Williams pieces. Notice how much more sophisticated, rhythmically and harmonically this is compared to ragtime. An example:
Here is one more example with an explanation of what James P. Johnson is doing:
Disc 3 through 5 focus on blues and boogie woogie with some of the giants: Cow Cow Davenport, Meade Lux Lewis, Jimmy Yancey, Pete Johnson, Albert Ammons and others. Here are two excellent examples:
Discs 6 and 7 are interesting because they are divided both by race and city. 6 is Chicago Black and 7 is Chicago & New York White. Earl Hines and Jelly Roll Morton dominate disc 6, with additional tracks by Jimmy Blythe, Clarence Jones and Alex Hill. Disc 7 is more diverse with a lot of tracks by Joe Sullivan and Jess Stacey, but also Bud freeman, Art Hodes and others. One treat is by Bix Beiderbecke, mainly known for his cornet contributions to jazz, but a great pianist in his own right. His "In a Mist" is included and is well worth studying and is provided in this clip:
And an example of Earl Hines around the same time he recorded Hot Fives and Hot Sevens with Louis Armstrong:
In fact, let's drill down into a song from the Hot Fives and Hot Sevens. This song represents a major turning point in jazz, and the video explains what is happening, including what Hines is doing:
Discs 8 through 10 are devoted to swing, and is dominated by Teddy Wilson (an extremely important figure in Swing and other jazz sub genres), Earl Hines, Art Tatum and a plethora of other well- and lesser-known names. Here are some excellent examples:
Disc 11, Kansas City, has the usual suspects: Basie, Jay McShann, Mary Lou Williams (who was Monk's and Bud Powell's mentors among others), and Pete Johnson.
Disc 12 was something of a letdown. It is focused on bebop and rightfully includes a good number of Bud Powell tracks, but only a few for Monk. Al Haig, John Lewis and Dodo Marmarosa are represented along with a few others. However, I cannot resist the temptation of using some of Bud Powell's and Monk's later work as an examples. In the near future I will be doing a post exclusively about each that will dip back into earlier earlier work. Please pay close attention to what the drummers are doing in each of these clips. It's very obvious that they are aware of melody and harmony (and dynamics):
Disc 13 is titled Modern Jazz, with Lennie Tristano and John Lewis getting most of the tracks. For an example of Tristano see Bird & Lennie: a study in great music and great drummers, which includes video clips. Here is a clip of John Lewis with one of my favorite groups, The Modern Jazz Quartet. Connie Kay, the drummer, is one of my influences:
Disc 14 is Cool with Dave Brumeck, Hampton Hawes and Russ Freeman providing most of the examples.
Disc 15, West Coast, is misnamed. For example it has more than a few Monk tracks, which are strictly New York pieces, and I never associated Horace Silver or Richie Powell - two predominately East Coast musicians - with West Coast jazz either. Still, the tracks are wonderful so I shouldn't be quibbling about how they are labeled. A little Horace Silver is in order for an example. Also the late Richie Powell who perished in the car crash with Clifford Brown. Richie was Bud's brother.
The remaining four discs contain some of the giants of jazz piano and are my favorite discs from the set. Among those amply represented are Erroll Garner, Oscar Peterson, George Shearing, Hank Jones, Kenny Drew, Bobby Timmons, Cedar Walton, Gene Harris, Bill Evans, Ahmad Jamal, McCoy Tyner and Chick Corea. Among this august group are other, less mainstream - but excellent - examples too.
If this set is too comprehensive for your needs or tastes, you may want to check out Jazz Piano Masters instead.
It is more focused on a later period and strictly jazz, cutting out any examples of ragtime and stride. See my review to determine if that set is right for you.
This post covered a lot of ground on one hand, and has barely scratched the surface on the other. Know that you do not have to learn music theory, including digging into melody and harmony to learn from listening to pianists. If you have a rudimentary grasp of the concepts, then awareness of what the musicians you are supporting are doing will follow. If you achieve awareness then you will be a better drummer.
Retired IT consultant who once specialed in ITIL, and specifically, configuration, change and release management. I've traveled the world as a consultant before moving into my present position. If you truly want to know more do a google search of my last name. Contact me
