Transitions

Transitions

In general, the place in a song where I am the most likely to make mistakes is when something is changing. Some examples of important changes in a song  include changing meter, feel, or dynamics. Working on these types of  transitions is one of the most important and also most overlooked elements of drumming.  Transitioning succefully is a skill just like anything else, and needs to be practiced and refined as such.  Some examples of transitions that almost everyone could be better at include switching between brushes and sticks, going to double time or half time, switching between latin and swing, changing meter, and changing dynamics suddenly.   

Essential books for jazz drummers

This is a list of books that I consider essential for anyone who wants to learn jazz drumming:

1.  Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer

This book is a classic reading text that I recommend not so much for the book itself, as for the curriculum that has been built up around this book over the years.  "Syncopation" has been used as the basis for innumerable exercises for developing jazz coordination, most successfully and famously by Alan Dawson in the following book on this list.