Learning New Music

This past couple of weeks I have been deluged with new music to learn.  Below is an example, the beautiful tune "No Surprises" from an all Radiohead jazz gig put together by my friend Bobby Muncy.

All this got me thinking about one very important part of being a musician that I don't hear people discussing very much, how to learn new music.

For me, if I am burdened with having to think a lot on the band stand, the music really suffers.  There are any number of things that I could be thinking about that would interfere with my ability to listen and interact with a band in an organic way, and often they rear their ugly heads when I am playing music that is unfamiliar.  That being the case, the most important part of learning new music is to put yourself in a position where you can turn off your brain and just play.  All the strategies that I am going to recommend have that end in mind. 

I know it isn't cool, just do it.

1.  Organize

Although this may seem really obvious to many people, just getting organized can really help ease the process of learning new music.  If you have charts, put them in a binder in alphabetical order.  If you have recordings, put them on your iPod.  Make this easy on yourself and do this work when you have time so you won't be scrambling when you don't.

2.  Study what you have

If you have a recording of the music, the best place to start is to listen.  You want to focus on things like melody, form, important hits, and overall groove/vibe.  Try to get a sense for the song without going into too much detail.  It is crucial to remember that you are not trying to transcribe, or even necessarily emulate how the drummer on the recording is playing.  If you do try to do this, you will be so caught up trying to think about this on the band stand that it will trip you up. 

Transitions Part 3: Brushes To Sticks

Brushes to sticks

The transition we are going to focus on in today's post is moving between brushes and sticks.  This transition appears to be relatively simple and unimportant, but in reality it is very difficult to do well and makes a big difference in how the music comes across to an audience.  It is exactly the sort of thing that you don't notice when it is done correctly, so many drummers make the mistake of not practicing it. You can see me do a version of this transition at 1:25 in the video above.  The song is another great Bobby Muncy original "Bouncin With Joe And Dana", and the soloist is the fabulous Gene D'Andrea.

Endings

The two most important parts of a song

The two parts of a song that are going to have the biggest impression on an audience are the beginning and the ending of a song.  In today's post we are going to talk about four general strategies for playing great endings. 

1.  Listen

Everything you do, including playing a great ending, is predicated on your ability to listen.  If you are listening intently you can have the confidence to know when to be flexible, and when to be assertive.  The following clip of me playing a great Bobby Muncy original is an example of how listening can make an ending flexible:

Did you hear how the note the band held at the end started to rise and crescendo?  That wasn't planned, it just happened because everyone was listening to each other.