Wednesday, April 07, 2021

John and Nate's jazz drumming page

I wrote this for a couple of my younger students— it's a collection of simple jazz patterns that we went over verbally in a lesson. It's meant to be very loose introduction to a type of playing that is different from the rock/funk they've already done, in which I've included some things they can get quickly. 


In the lesson we run the patterns, and I tell them a few basic, important things, and I give them a listening assignment, including things like: 

Freddie the Freeloader - Miles Davis / Kind Of Blue
Blue Seven - Sonny Rollins / Saxophone Colossus 
Moanin' - Art Blakey / Moanin' 
Stolen Moments - Oliver Nelson / Blues And The Abstract Truth

The next steps might be my recent easy jazz solo page, or any number of my EZ methods, as is appropriate. The idea is not to try to form these kids into jazz drummers via drum lessons— I don't believe that's possible, or desirable— it's to acquaint them with the music and the way it's played, so when they (hopefully) get into jazz band in school, they'll have some idea of what to do. Give them a chance to get interested in it. Then they can begin becoming jazz (or jazz-capable) drummers, if they choose, by playing music.   

Get the pdf

No comments: