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Here is an exercise. You don’t necessarily need an instrument, you can use your voice. First, let’s think about summer. Make a sound, any sound with your voice. The summer gets hotter and more humid. Transform the sound you are making to match the descriptionRead More

Learning music is a strange proposition. Many musicians get lost in it. If someone wants to learn music, surely it is with the intent of extending the vocabulary, the tools in the box, so to speak. And, I suppose, that much is true: if someone studies music thoroughly, they willRead More

Human beings are always forced to cope with inertia. I’m talking about the object’s inertia. Which, by the way, I interpret as chaos. Take this harmless spoon, grab it firmly in your hand. Oh but, the fingers slip, the spoon lift up four inches from the table, comeRead More

I just came back from France. We were at the airport yesterday. As I watched the crowd shuffling by, I was struck by all these people, so different, so diverse, converging in the place. Maybe the difference of culture was the most obvious. African women with bright colorsRead More

When I lived in Paris, people would come visit in the summer and tell me that the city was crowded, impossible to manage with all these people every where. And I remember thinking: “Absolutely not! Listen to that! The city is empty, or, at least, running low on people.” It isRead More

Music is fun! I would even argue that music is the most fun a human being can have. I give you a kitchen with standard equipment. I give you a bunch of kids from 3 to 77 years old. I give you the will to make something happening that is not cooking and, cataclop-cataclop! we haveRead More

It used to be that all the good gigs for drummers involved reading. I can confirm the fact and tell you that, to this day, the most profitable gig I’ve ever done implied that I know how to read. It is such an essential part of being a musician that when I went to BerkleeRead More

A lot of people who start an instrument have a vision, or an inspiration. Because they fell in love with the concerto for Piano #2 of Rachmaninoff or a drum solo by Ian Paige (Deep Purple), they have finally taken the decision to try the piano or the drums. When they arrived atRead More

Practicing is not easy labor. It can become a chore very quickly. So, one of the thing that can help, is a routine. If we are accustomed to do some piano or drums everyday, preferably at a predetermined time, always with the same succession of exercises or subjects within theRead More