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Jazz, Fills, and Freakers

The first time I ever saw Thomas Lang he was giving a live seminar. At that time, he did the impossible. He played one drum rudiment with his hands (flam accent) and another rudiment with his feet (flam taps) at the same time, all the while speeding up one and slowing down the other. Then he reversed that process. I looked around at all the audience.

WE ALL HAD JUST ONE MIND – A MIND THAT HAD JUST BEEN BLOWN!

I never forgot that moment, so last year I decided to work on something perhaps a bit similar but based off my own personal jazz preferences. This latest video is the result of that concept.
After establishing a basic jazz pulse, the metronome is introduced, and continues to mark time throughout the whole video. Notice that beats 1 and 3 show up on the furthest right side of its click, with beats 2 and 4 appearing on the left. At some point the snare drum starts to detach itself from the metronome (as well as the other limbs) and proceeds to gradually speed up. Right after the snare and bass begin alternating with each other and gradually speed up together. Interesting that the ride and hi hat apparently didn’t “get the memo” to speed up so they just stay in time with the metronome.

Later on in the video, I experiment with taking basic eight note triplets and orchestrating them in groupings of four instead of the usual three. This had the effect of sounding like a basic rock beat but being played at a slightly slower speed (84 bpm) than that of the metronome (112 bpm). Not to get too geeky with it, but the slower rock beat is exactly 3/4th as fast as the metronome speed. (dude, that’s what you get for mixing up your threes and fours … just sayin’)

Sorry I haven’t been able to post more videos lately. I’d like to say that I’ve been practicing a year on this video but that would be stretching it a bit much. Actually, it did take me many months to learn to play this - especially while having to listen to that metronome to keep me from “cheating”.  But in addition to that, a lot of other things are happening for me as well. This last year my wife and I became empty nesters, and at the moment we are getting things together for a possible move.

Thanks for being patient. Nothing like a huge musical challenge to keep this older jazz drummer on his toes.