Animal Snare drum

Animal Snare(view gallery)

Carl from Animal Custom Drums very kindly lent me this snare drum to road test. I used it on a function gig last night and it was a pleasure to play. I'm very much looking forward to trying it out with Wishbone Ash on the next tour. Keep an eye out for the flames!

Cropredy from the rear

Croprey from the rear (view gallery)

This was a fun gig!

Pink Pop - drum cam

I apologise for the sound quality of this clip, there are some cool shots though and it gives you an idea of what it's like behind the drums.

6-way independence

(view gallery)

Remember those Deely-Bobbers - headbands with springs and little balls that looked like antennae? What if you attached drumsticks to the springs? That would give you two more sticks to play with. You know Thomas Lang will be doing it on his next DVD but remember where you heard it first.

Tip for Brushes playing

The biggest gripe I have about playing with my Vic Firth brushes is that once you've fully extended the brushes the triangular bend in the metal handle gets in the way of playing - it's always digging into my palm when I try to play.

Today I had a lesson on brushes playing with Dave Hassel. He leant me some brushes for the lesson and he'd bent the ends of the handles at 90 degrees. It made a huge difference to comfort as they didn't get in the way at all. If you play with brushes I recommend trying it.

Permutations of 4 notes - for use in most lessons

Permutations for 1,2 and 3 notes out of 4.

These permutations can be used to gain independence against any ostinato (repeating pattern). For example, play 1 and 3 on the kick, 2 and 4 on the snare and play the permutations on the hi hat (as 16th notes); or, play 16ths on the hi-hat and play the permutations as accents.

When working through the bass drum permutations make sure you focus on the placement of the notes - make sure they fall together when they're supposed to. With bass drum patterns that begin on an 'e' or an 'a' think about the preparation - make sure you lift up in plenty of time.

Single (1 out of 4 notes - all possibilities):
1
e
+
a

Double (2 out of 4 notes - all possibilities):
1,+
e,a
1,e
e,+
+,a
1,a

Triple (3 out of 4 notes - all possibilities):
1,e,+
e,+,a
1,+,a
1,e,a

Cool Video

I recently teamed up with Jeff Stauffer from Hippolime to produce a nice video of the Seven Days outro. I'm very pleased with the result - hope you like it.