Rabbit & Pork

Recently, I’ve been making my way through an excellent series of drum tutorials by Colin Woolway entitled Getting Started. They’re published in Rhythm magazine where each month introduces a progressively more difficult challenge.

I find the exercises in this series particularly beneficial. Each exercise builds upon its predecessors in a way that seems natural, but it wasn’t until the lesson “Hi-Hat Conversions” that I understood why - this piece of advice is given:

“The process is as important as the end result… try to persist with getting to the final result by process rather than going straight for it.”

I’ve purposely been patient with this series, ensuring that I don’t rush ahead, and it seems to be working - here’s my homework for “Hi-Hat Conversions” - it’s played on an electronic drum kit and recorded straight to a laptop.

I intend to write to Colin to see if there’s any plan/chance of being able to get a single book/CD of the lessons - that would be much easier than trawling through many magazines!

No drumming or software in this post!

Having driven a car for many years, it dawned on me that I had no idea how to ride a motorbike. I passed my CBT (Compulsory Basic Training) a few months back and recently bought a learner bike to gain experience on the road before plunging into the real test - the prize being you get to ride a real bike.

The learner bike (a Yamaha SR 125) - notice the dog wants to hitch a ride on the back even though I’m prohibited from taking passengers

The following pictures were found on my camera, 4 months after taking them at Drummer Live 05. They’re of Gregg Bissonette…

If you’d like a copy of the originals, send an e-mail or leave a comment.

One of my first posts was to comment on last year’s sale - yes, a year has already passed. This sale starts 28th Jan @ 9.30am (shop only, internet sale starts a few days later) - tickets will be drawn to determine who goes in first. Again, the best part of it all - the church opposite will provide bacon sandwiches and coffee whilst waiting.

http://www.drumwright.co.uk/

I’ve just booked tickets to see Peter Erskine (who’s well known in the Jazz world) - it’s a genre I know nothing about, but it’s gonna be interesting to see how this part of the drumming world differs from everyday rock & pop.

The venue is particularly impressive. It can be seen here (click on original building -> then ground floor -> then Duke’s Hall on the right).

From the Royal Academy website…

Monday 13th February
7:30pm
Duke’s Hall (Royal Academy of Music)

An Evening with Peter Erskine

Programme to include:

Peter Erskine Fanfare; Plan 9; Sweet Soul; Not A Word; Scotland, Africa; Northern Cross; Song For A Friend (Song For Jaco); When You Are Old (brass quintet); To Be Or Not To Be; Bulgaria

The world-renowned drummer Peter Erskine has collaborated with many seminal figures in jazz and contemporary music, including Joe Zawinul in Weather Report, Mike Manieri and Michael Brecker in Steps Ahead and, more recently, Mark-Anthony Turnage. Peter is a prolific composer in his own right and this concert will feature his music for various ensembles. In the first half of the concert, Peter will be interviewed by Neil Percy, Principal Percussionist with the LSO and Head of Timpani and Percussion at the Academy.

This last Friday, Karen and I went to see Ian Paice at a local venue. I’ve seen Ian once before, performing an excellent duet with Chad Smith (RHCP). Again, Ian played with control & feel and pace when required.

The evening consisted of:

• Ian improvising on his kit
• Questions from the audience
• A demonstration of his one-handed roll
• A mini gig (with fellow members from Deep Purple, Whitesnake)
• A raffle - one day I may get lucky

The gig was light-hearted; consisting of a wide range of songs including some classics such as Fool for your Loving and Smoke on the Water! as well as a completely unrehearsed rendition of BB King’s Hound Dog - which they nailed.

All profits from the event were donated to DrumWright’s adopted charity, Tong-Len, which supports primary education for highly deprived children in Northern India.

As I had hoped, I received the above DVD just before my Christmas break, providing time to watch it in full.

Of course, if you’re a Neil Peart fan, you’ll already have the DVD and love it. I do. The packaging is wonderful - two DVDs, a booklet of fantastic photos all housed in a sleek, shiny fold-out box. The DVD itself has a highly polished opening menu. Time has obviously been put into the production of this item.

The main event has Neil decompose his “Der Trommler” (german for The Drummer?) drum solo into about five main parts. Each part is shown from the original performance, with Neil’s usual insights provided, followed by an in-studio performance. My only gripe is that I wanted Neil to open up just a bit more - I wanted to know more about the influences / ideas behind the composition, and what technically is happending. It can feel like you’re seeing the same thing repeated again and again.

Still, there are plenty of other goodies - my favourites are:

- the two exploration stints, each have Neil jamming on the kit for about half an hour each

- the interview with Paul Northfield (co-producer and engineer) & Lorne Wheaton (drum tech)

- Lorne setting up and talking about Neil’s awesome kit

This DVD is a must for any Neil Peart fan - hopefully, others will follow - I really would like to see a tutorial of sort - but that isn’t going to happen.

First, sorry for any inconvience I may have caused whilst making some changes to this blog. Let me know of any issues (just comment here) and I’ll fix them asap.

What’s changed:

1. Moved from rabbit.caruana.co.uk to blog.caruana.co.uk
2. Combined seperate Software and Drum blogs
3. Migrated from Movable Type to Word Press