While I am grateful for the growth of my website (and y’all’s feedback!), sometimes the amount of back end website work I have to do is a real time suck!  This month, I have fixed a host of display issues, defunct links, and worked on some optimization to boot.  By all means keep the suggestions coming though – despite all of the content being free on this site, I take pride in it being high quality as well! 

I have been having a lot of success with teaching my students Jazz Independence/Comping with the transcriptions/play alongs on the Jazz Grooving page, so May’s update comes with three more great exercises — all transcriptions of the comping rhythms of great artists, orchestrated for the snare and bass drum (to be played with ride time and 2&4 on the HH). 

1. Autumn Leaves (Hank Jones’ piano comping)
2. Sonny’s Crib (Sonny Clark’s piano comping)
3. Giant Steps (Tommy Flanagan’s piano coming and Art Taylor’s drum comping)

Check out all 15 of the comping exercises on Jazz Grooving page.

The New Breed, by Gary Chester is one of those must have books for every drummers library.  However, it his too hard for most students starting to learn groove coordination.  I have always wanted to write a simpler version of it to get my students introduced to Chester’s concepts without such a steep entry point.  Well, I finally got around to it this month, and you can find my “New Breed Primer” on the Lessons Page.  Click on the “Groove Vocabulary” tab>“New Breed Primer,”  maybe read a little, and then download the PDF’s!

This month I have added Part 2 of the “Open Hi-hat-istory” examples.  This adds 15 more of my favorite usages of opening the hi-hat in a groove context spanning many genres, and many decades.  You can find links to the PDF and youtube playlist on the Groove Etymology page.

Opening the Hi-Hat during grooves is challenging for younger students, so I finally got organized and put together some transcriptions and a playlist for my students to develop this skill progressively.  While this is only Part 1 of this series, there are some real challenges towards the end of the 15 examples.  Check it out on the Groove Etymology page – enjoy!

Creating the “What’s New” page 3 years ago has been a pain in my butt…but creating a page where people visit to see what new content as arrived every month, has forced me to keep the content of this site growing…and looking back on the result of that self imposed accountability, I am proud of the progress.  I hope you are enjoying all of the completely free content, and if you want to support Drum Fillosophy in a small way, you can always buy my 1st book “Melodic Stick Control” HERE.  FYI, my 2023 resolution is to get my 2nd book done!!  Even though working hard on the new book, I will keep new content coming every month, and this month you will find 3 new play along SoundSlices for the reading exercises on the Melody Rhythm Reading page:

1. In The Air Tonight
2. Sledge Hammer
3. Come Together

Click HERE to see what was new in 2022.