You may have noticed that I combined the November and December uptakes this year, because…well life got a little fubar.  On the positive side of updates, the drum clinic that I did with my good friend Gregg Bissonette last month went great!  You can check out a PDF of some of the demonstration exercises that I performed for the clinic HERE.

I am also in the final, final editing stages of my new book Fixed Stick Control.  I had a bit of a snag with my book cover artist having a medical emergency, but eventually found another artist to restart the project.  If you are interested in checking out the final cover design, you can preview it HERE.  I hesitate to predict the release date at this point after many publishing delays, but I am hoping for some Christmas magic!!

While I didn’t make my goal of releasing my new book Fixed Stick Control by today, I can tell you that it is very close despite some challenging delays.  You can get an idea of what this book is about however by checking out the following link: Fixed Stick Control Sneak Preview.  Stay tuned!

I am inching towards publishing my next book “Fixed Stick Control.”  Lots of work to be done, but despite crunch time, I managed to add the Youtube playlist and flashcards for the Grooves of New Orleans transcriptions on the Groove Etymology page.  Hopefully October 1st update will be a new book to check out!

I have played music in the “Fake” New Orleans (N.O. of Disneyland) for nearly 30 years.  While I played my share of Dixieland music, I also got a chance to play some funky New Orleans inspired grooves.  Head over to the Groove Etymology page to check out 18 groove transcriptions of some southern fried funk and 2nd line under the heading “Grooves of New Orleans”

The new “Groove Camp” page is now complete with 4 new listening links, and 4 new flashcard study links.  My comprehensive approach for increasing my students groove vocabulary is to get them organized, listen, and practice.  I’m doing the organizing on the Groove Etymology page – so you can get to work on the rest (not the resting!).

As my Drum Fillosophies evolve, I occasionally update previous exercises I provide my students to reflect those changes.  I spent much of May revamping my Groove Camp handouts.  These are groove handouts that contain 3 examples (each) of some essential grooves that drummers should learn.  I emphasize the importance of learning them in context by providing a song to listen to/play along with for each groove.  My revamping included changing out some of these examples with new grooves that I feel are more quintessential, and I also added more info to each groove to help students expand their general groove knowledge.  I have also added these grooves to the Groove Etymology page to make them a little more “findable” and have created a new page for them to live on HERE.  Next month, I will add some playlists and flashcard links for “away from the kit” study/internalization.   

A modest update this month with a YouTube Playlist, and study flash cards added to the Jazz Fusion/Funk transcription PDF on the Groove Etymology page.  For those of you who have been asking about the release of Fixed Stick Control (the new book I am working on), all I can say is that it’s nearly complete, and IT WILL BE DONE in 2024 (trust me I am getting impatient too!).  If you would like to check out my first book, you can find some info/reviews HERE.

The Groove Etymology page continues to be my focus for the time being.  If you want to learn (and not forget) a great number of grooves, it is paramount that you organize them into categories that make sense for you.  The only alternative is throwing them in your metaphorical “brain junk drawer” – which is terrible for retention.  This month I added 12 must know Jazz Funk/Fusion/Boogaloo grooves for the aspiring jazz drummer.  Check them out at the bottom of the Groove Etymology page, and come back next month when I add the YouTube playlist and Notedex Flashcards.

As promised, I have added the listening playlist and flash cards for studying the 1960’s Rock Grooves (Part 1) on the Groove Etymology Page.    I have also fixed a few errors on the transcription page for the 1960’s Rock Grooves – so sorry if you already printed the 6 pages!!

As I go through each era to pick the essential grooves for my students to learn, my criteria usually falls under at least one of the following:

1. Is it a good groove/drummer?
2. Is it an Artist/Song I think they should know?
3. Do cover bands just expect you to know it!?

If I say yes to any one of these questions, then I include it in the list.  This month I was working on the 1960’s, and my criteria made the task a little daunting in scope, so I have broken it up into two parts.  You can head to the Groove Etymology page to check out 1960’s Grooves Part 1 (26 transcribed grooves!).  I will have the corresponding playlist and flashcards for study in next month’s update!

Happy New Year! My persistence in creating new free content every month for DrumFillososphy.com for the last few years is starting to make this site a fairly respectable repository of unique exercises to broaden your drumming wisdom.  My students are loving the Groove Skeleton Overlay exercises, and I have added 2 more this month which you can check out HERE.

While the DrumFillosophy 101 page has been somewhat neglected in terms of additional content, I did add a new category to the “Cross Training” book – “Flash Cards”.  I have created digital flash cards for my students to study grooves when away from the kit, but have now begun to include flash cards for philosophies that I find enlightening.  The first of these additions is Bruce Lee’s 7 affirmations.  Lee’s affirmations are a little deep, but I find them inspirational for their depth of contemplation in creating my own meaningful affirmations for 2024.  Check out Bruce Lee’s affirmations on flash cards HERE.