Tag: Chicago drum lessons

  • Humble like a pro

    How do they do it? You hear them on recordings, you see them on TV, you search them on YouTube. Those guys play the drums in all sorts of bands, all sorts of styles, all sorts of situation. They manage to execute incredible feats of speed or technique. And they never make a mistake. never.…

  • Polished up basics

    Playing the drum set is usually done with a pair of sticks. You have the pieces of wood in your hands, you strike the surface, you get a sound. The principle seems simple enough. It is not. Nobody has the same strength, the same touch, the same personality and, of course, the same training. When…

  • Dealing with performance anxiety

    Concerts are nerve racking. So much preparation goes into a rock concert, so much is expected to go well, so much shame can overwhelm the player if he messes up. More often than not, the performers get butterflies in their stomach, they feel sick, some of them even puke before stepping on stage. Also, sadly,…

  • Keeping it real

    I often wondered, when I was a young man going to concert, what it took for the huge bands I saw to get the crowd going. Everything seemed magic: the music was great, the performance was energetic, the sound was impeccable and the crowd, oh Man! the crowd was with them heart and soul. We…

  • Sound source 4

    There are some cousins sounds on the drums, some sound sources that are exactly from the same family. Of course, the 2 crashes hanging from their stand on a regular drum set, would be a good example. But the toms, whether you have 2, 3, 4 or more, are also close cousins of each other.…

  • Tip from the pro

    In live situation, when the drums are not miked, here’s is what usually happens. We hear the bass drum and snare clear and loud as well as the hi hat if it is played with the shoulder of the stick on the side of the cymbal, or half open in a “whooshy” sound effect. The…

  • Sound source 3

    I am now at the third part of a blog on orchestration. And I want to talk about the idea of developing a beat. I have put as an example a single song sung by Stephan Eicher called “Est it alles”. The drummer for the song is Manu Katche. The whole tune is nothing else…

  • Sound sources 2

    The drummer is in charge of time keeping. That is the accepted version of the drummer’s role in a band. But the successful drummers understand something else: colors, taste and tone attached to feelings. Orchestration is directly related to that. And tuning the drums is one of its main component. Let’s look on YouTube at…

  • Hey Soul Sister

    This is a video we did last summer. I already published the promo video and the video of Obladi-Oblada that my son Louis was singing. This one features my daughter Emmi in a fairly modern song that our family has been singing for the last 5 years.

  • Sound sources 1

    When we look at a drum set we are looking at an orchestra. A percussion orchestra. This blog in several part will be talking about orchestration. The orchestra of the drum set. Let’s start with the snare drum. It is, for the drummer the beginning of everything. We develop speed, accuracy, versatility on the skin…