Tag: Chicago drum teacher

  • 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…

  • Memory

    Steve Gadd, says composer extraorinaire Paul Simon, has a particularity: while he improvises he can recall a pattern that he just played and play it again exactly the same. It sounds like an obvious thing to do, but when you have the technique that he has, it becomes a very complicated job for the brain…

  • Receiving

    I had many blogs on the subject of listening. You can go through some of them if you wish. Let’s put it in a social contest. I have learnt that when someone tells you his problems, it doesn’t mean he wants you to fix them. He might just want to say out loud what is…