I really enjoyed John Blackwell's first double-DVD set, Technique, Grooving and Showmanship. In fact, I think some of his tips on open-handed playing are the best I've found. Hudson Music announced yesterday that they are releasing a new DVD set next week called John Blackwell Master Series. According to Hudson's write-up, this three hour DVD features John in front of a live audience, playing some of his original compositions and focusing on laying down a solid groove without overplaying. Here's the video trailer from Hudson:

It looks like Master Series will be available on Amazon on October 21st. I know I'll be ordering my copy early.

On a family trip, recently, I had occasion to listen to some music while the rest of the family tuned into a movie. (I hate movies in the car -- I'm compelled to turn and look instead of watching the road!) So, I perused the music on my Zune and found an album I hadn't listened to in quite awhile: Try! John Meyer Trio Live in Concert. It wasn't long before I remembered why I love this album so much.

The always incredible Steve Jordan lays down some of the funkiest grooves I've ever heard on this album, serving Meyer's guitar lines very well and grooving in perfect lockstep with Pino Palladino's bass lines. Specifically, there's a groove Jordan plays on Who Did You Think I Was and their innovative cover of Jimi Hendrix's Wait Until Tomorrow. While both grooves are similar in feel, Jordan mixes them up to serve each song independently. Also, once I learned these grooves, I found myself incorporating bits and pieces of them into the parts I'm developing in the studio with Lake 32.

Who Did You Think I Was

Jordan's line on this tune seems bent on kicking Meyer's guitar part. Here's a transcription of the part:

The power of this groove comes from the heavily accented snare hits on beats 2 and 3 of each measure, with a quick hit on the offbeat of 4.

Wait Until Tomorrow

The first measure of this groove is essentially the same as Who Did You Think I Was. The change comes in the second measure where there is almost a double time feel when compared to the first measure. Here's a transcription:

Notice that in the first measure, the only real difference between this and previous transcription is that the kick drum staggers out from a straight eight note pattern to a shuffle with the second hit coming a sixteenth note later. The major difference is in the second measure where the two eighth notes on the second beat give the groove a double time feel compared to the first measure, with beat three showing a paradiddle between the snare and the kick. Finally, the fourth beat of the second measure, with the kick on the second and fourth sixteenth notes, really propels the sound back to the measure one patter again.

Here's a video showing how to play both transcriptions:

Try these out and play with them. I think you find some nice parts you can incorporate into stuff you're already playing.

I had a great gig with Trigger 5 Sunday afternoon at the Augusta Brewing Company down along the Missouri River. It was a beautiful place to play and a wild set as I didn't know the majority of the songs, but Abe (bass player) and Alex (lead guitar) did a great job of queuing me on the stops and start in the tunes. Also, thanks much Mike Heeter for the invite to sit in on the gig -- I had a blast.

I am primarily a modern/prog rock guy, so sitting in for three sets with a traditional country band was a terrific learning experience. There are few genres of music where the drummer is absolutely required to play for the song than in country. There are a few areas here and there where you can add some color to your playing but, for the most part, you are there to drive the beat and help establish the feel for the song.

From the drummers standpoint, there are basically three "grooves" in you need to be able to play to successfully pull off a country gig:

1. A 50's rock-n-roll beat
2. A shuffle/swing beat
3. A train beat

I got a little insight yesterday to playing an effective and grooving train beat I thought I'd share.

Dissecting the Train Beat

At its most basic, a train beat consists of eighth notes on the snare drum with accents on 2 and on the & of 3 and 4. Transposed, it looks like this:

This is one of those areas where you can add some nice touches of color, like accenting both eighth notes on the second beat, like this:

Depending on the feel of the song, you can play this rhythm as either straight eighth notes or by shuffling them, like so:

Traditionally, the train beat has been played using brushes. While you can easily play the rhythm with sticks, you will require a lot of volume control to avoid having the snare drum completely take over the tune. The only issue with brushes is getting enough volume to cut through at a live gig, especially outdoors and without microphones on your kit, as was the case yesterday at the Trigger 5 gig.

Enter the Tala Wand

I first bought a pair of the Steve Smith signature Tala Wands by Vic Firth a couple of years ago. I know that the other major stick manufacturers also have similarly constructed sticks, so if you don't care for Vic Firth, you can probably find something comparable. I've used these sticks on a few occasions where I needed to cut through the mix but still strictly control the volume. They sound great on my Zildian K Custom Session Hi-hats and really produce a nice pop on the snare drum.

The key to the unique sound of the Tala Wand is that it's a hybrid between a brush and a stick. Multiple thin wooded dowels surround a foam core and give it a scattered, brush-like sound but allow the stick to really pop off the drum head and cut through the mix at a live gig.

To get a feel for the difference in sound, here is a quick video of me playing a classic train beat using a set of brushes, Tala Wands and a standard pair of sticks:

*Note: If you see an image above for Microsoft Silverlight instead of a video player, please click on the link and download Silverlight. It's perfectly safe and will allow you to watch my video. 

See the difference? I picked up my pair of Tala Wands at my local drum shop for $14.95, so they're not a big investment and they can really add a different texture to your sound, whether that sound is country, rock, jazz or whatever.

Yesterday evening, I became perhaps that last drummer in the world to sit down and play the video game, Rock Band. Some friends invited us over to their house for dinner and a "concert," and I was keen to give this a try after reading an excellent article in this month's Modern Drummer by Andy Ziker about his students improving their technique by playing Rock Band at home.

My daughters were very excited for me to join them in this, which is interesting: I've tried multiple times to teach them the basics of the percussive arts to no avail. So, I had two primary objectives going into last evening's "tour":

1. To see how well my daughters we able to play "the kit" in Rock Band
2. To see how well I could play

The Non-Drummers Drum
I started by hanging back and letting the kids play a couple songs so I could get the hang of how everything worked. My eldest daughter sat down at "the kit" first and they were going to play "Say It Ain't So" by Weezer.

All in all, she did a really great job. The first thing I noticed is that Rock Band represents a new way to help build solid time-keeping skills. Anybody my age remembers sitting down at the kit, headphones squarely fixed over our ears, connected to a metronome pumping that incessant clack-click-click-click-clack-click-click-click while we are trying to play something musical to it. It was difficult, but it was the way we learned to develop our sense of time and, eventually, play to a click track in a recording studio.

Rock Band actually enforces the same kind of rigid time-keeping as the metronome, but makes it fun and musical at the same time. As my daughter plowed through "Say It Ain't So," I watched her carefully (this particular song in the game has a lot of eighth notes on the "hi-hat" and snare hits on 2 & 4, more closely mimicking the actual groove of the song) and she was keeping good solid time and, consequently, racking up a huge score in the game. We've worked the metronome at home many times and not enjoyed the same success.

The other interesting technique-builder in Rock Band is independence. Several of the songs, especially when you get into the higher skill levels, require you to work the hands and the "kick drum" simultaneously. And again, because it's a game, the real song is playing in the background and there is a bonus score to consider, I watched my daughter nail that Weezer song in a way that she probably would not have been able to do studying with me in my studio.

I certainly don't think that Harmonix Music Systems (the production company for Rock Band) intended to create an educational game for drummers but, in a way, that's exactly what they've done. I didn't observe the same level of rudimentary skill building Mr. Ziker writes about in his MD article, but Rock Band definitely can help new drummers learn time-keeping and independence in a way that is fun and appeals to this new generation in a way that the "old school" methods simply won't.

Old School Meets New School
Then it was my turn to sit down and try the kit. Expectations were high. Most of the people in the room had heard me play live with a band before, so it was expected that I would crush any song that was selected. I mean, after all, it's just a game, right?

My wife grabbed the guitar and we selected "We Won't Get Fooled Again" by The Who. One of my very favorite drummers of all time, Keith Moon, and a tune that I've play a hundred time on stage. I was going to kill at this game...

Long story short, it was a debacle. Being fair and self-critical, this was the wrong song to start with. As free as Moon was with the groove on that tune, it didn't translate well to little colored bars streaming toward me on the screen. In effect, I was lost and thrashing around "the kit" like a newbie. It was embarrassing, but I got a nice round of applause when me managed to make it all the way through the song and not get booed off the stage.

I decided it was time to try something a little more straight ahead, so I picked "Foreplay/Longtime" by Boston. I made it through that tune pretty well (and kudos to our friend and the host of the party, Carol Garrett, on laying down the beautiful vocal line on a tough song). However, it was not without troubles.

Let's step back to the time-keeping aspect of the game. I can play very well to a click when need be. That being said, I'm definitely more of a "feel" player. Steady time is important, but so is letting the music "breathe" to achieve the right emotional connection with the listener. Rock Band will have none of that. If you get even a little bit off those eighth notes on the "ride cymbal," the drum track in the song stops and your start losing points and street cred very quickly.

The other thing I struggled with is not playing the "kick drum." I've been playing for so long, playing with only the right and left hands felt strange to me. I have a reputation for a heavy right foot, ala Chad Smith of the RHCP. It was everything I had to keep my right foot still. However, my left foot, pedal-free, was happily bouncing up and down on the off beats, creating a very funky groove for which I received no bonus points in the game.

Good For You, Good For Me
Overall, I think there are worse video games for kids to play than Rock Band for sure. I don't think anyone is going to be the Joe Satriani from playing the guitar in the game, but the role of the drummer is well represented and does teach some of the basics of the instrument to non-drummers and new students.

Though I didn't perform very well, it was an interesting challenge for me to play the game. When you've been playing for as long as I have, you get set in your ways and I think it's healthy for something like this to come along and kick you in the butt.

As I've told every student I've ever taught: "You get better by doing three things: Practice, practice and more practice."

Looks like I'm off to Best Buy this weekend.