Go Get Igoe's Groove Essentials

This week I had to prep for an audition.  The prerequisites called for a versatile drummer whom could play various styles of music.  Now I had just gotten off the road and didn’t have the comforts of home, a place to practice, or access to my library of drumming books.  I needed to figure something out so I got to work.  I found a friend with a spot to practice so I could get some wood shedding in, but I still needed something to motivate me to practice. 

Now when I am at home in the comforts of my own studio with access to my own library of materials I often find myself working with a great multi-style play along series by legendary drummer Tommy Igoe called Groove Essentials.  I have purchased series 1.0 on DVD and followed up with series 2.0’s play along set and have been quite impressed by this master drummer’s methodology so I made my way to a local music store to find Groove Essentials 1.0 play along series and was amazed that the drum department employee had no idea about this book or this amazing drummer.

For all of you who don’t know Tommy Igoe was a child drumming phenom who toured with The Glenn Miller Orchestra at the age of 18.  From there he landed in New York were his career really took off becoming an in demand session drummer and hitting the road with a roster of legendary artists from Blood Sweat and Tears to Stanley Jordan and Art Garfunkel.

In 1997 Igoe was asked to create the drum book for the Broadway musical version of Disney’s The Lion King.  His charts converted world and African Rhythms into a pop style for the drum set and have become the standard workbook for a slue of drummer who play the show in New York and around the world.  Soon after that success Igoe teamed up with Vic Firth to create a study manual that opens up drummers to the various styles of world music and to adapt those styles to the drum set.  Together they created Groove Essentials 1.0 that teaches drummers how to play a number of core rhythms on the drum set from rock to funk, to jazz, salsa, calypso, reggae, samba, bossa nova, and so much more.  According to Igoe’s website “This groundbreaking work has been credited with influencing more teachers and educators than any educational publication of the last 50 years.”  The book has won numerous awards in publications such as Modern Drummer Magazine and has become a staple in drum set instruction practices and universities across the U.S.  The book was so successful that a follow was introduced quickly after entitled Groove Essentials 2.0 and itself became it’s own drum set education success.

The included poster that outlines 47 various styles of music.

The packages include a great poster, DVD, play along CD and workbook full of charts.

What is unique about Igoe series is the various packages the lessons come in.  There is a DVD that includes a beautiful poster with the transcribed rhythm notations of the various styles.  On the DVD students can watch as Igoe picks apart each style and demonstrates each rhythm at varying tempos.  The more courageous can purchase the DVD and Play along package that includes written charts for each style minus the drums so the student can attempt to play along to a number of different songs in each style.  

All together this set includes six hours of play along material, and printed charts that represent what a drummer should expect in the real world, minus the bad notations by previous drummers that haven’t been erased.  The charts help you understand how to read music while you work through the demanding selection of rhythms with the play along real band.

Groove Essentials 2.0 goes deeper into various drumming styles and offers the same packages for the student.

Groove Essentials 2.0 is offered in the same packages, but goes deeper into the drum set style dictionary with 53 brand new grooves including jazz brush work, interesting rock and funk styles, less known world rhythms, a section on odd meters such as 5/4, 7/8, and 9/8, and it’s own selection of “World Tour” charts (Groove 1.0 has these also) that are a commanding workout in which the drummer must play to music that changes through various styles. 

For the advanced drummer the “World Tours” found in both the 1.0 and 2.0 version is a unique challenge.  The pieces range from 15 to twenty plus minutes and require the drummer to read and interpret the accompanying charts as the student plays along to a killer band without the drums.  During the music the drummer must change tempos and styles while leading the band on fills, accents, and changing genres of music.  They test your ability to stay focused, move from one style to another, read and interpret charts, and keep great time throughout the process.   

I strongly suggest that any serious drummer look into adding both of these systems to your learning library.  They are available at any brick and mortar or online music store as well as directly through Tommy’s site at http://www.tommyigoe.com/store.htm.  They have helped me elevate my playing and my understanding of the world of music and I am sure they can do the same for you.

Merchandise now available

Hey to all you drummers out there,

I just launched an online store with a small collection of drum themed t-shirts, mugs, and other items.  I will be adding more each week.  You can check out the new line by clicking here!

I have included a bunch of items with the statement "drumming is peace", well, because it is. Over the years studying this craft I have learned how important the drum has been to the development of our planet. The sound of the drum mimics the heart beat and that is why the earliest indigenous tribes in Africa used drums and drumming to communicate with one another even before they learned how to speak.

Over the evolution of our planet the idea of rhythm spread to every corner of the world and many cultures based their own unique dances to specific drum rhythms.  In many tribal societies it was believed that the drummer could speak to the gods and was highly revered by the entire village for these powers. For other communities the drums signified a time of joy and happiness. Slaves played drums to keep their spirits up after long arduous hours in the fields. Carnival in Rio is based around specific drum beats that get those beautiful booties shaking. Even in our modern society we can still see how important the "beat" is. Club dance music is almost completely absent of lyrics and melodies, instead it is built on the pounding rhythmic bass that keeps the drinks flowing and the spirits up.

I once had the pleasure to meet the Ambassador to South Africa. When he found out I was a drummer we became great friends. Someday I will blog the amazing conversation I had with him for hours about how respected the drummer still was in many parts of the globe, but for now I will sit back and relax knowing that what I do is as true to the heart as anything out there because "drumming is peace!"

YOU CAN FINALLY DOWNLOAD MY BOOK!!!

Happy days are finally here for me.

With a little down time from the road I was able to finally get my book "Rudimental Technique and Analysis" available for download through an online merchant for only $9.99.  You can Download it NOW! Check out this promotional video on the book's features.

I started this book after I finished my first cruise ship contract.  After getting home I felt the need to step-up my playing so I started working monthly with Berklee professor and drumming icon Kenwood Dennard.  His lessons on timing, independence and technique opened up my ears to the core concepts of drumming.  I had always been a huge fan of the 26 standard drum corps rudiments so I started putting together a practice regiment that revolved around the simplicity of using just those twenty-six moves to better my playing.

As drummers we all know of these rudiments, but many of us are confused of how they can be used.  Sure anyone can play a paradiddle, but it is a different thing to play that paradiddle to your metronome at various note values.  In my sabbatical with Kenwood and my private studies I found that I could use these basic techniques to develop my hand technique, double bass foot technique, timing, and independence.  I then used my experience as a graphic designer to chart out how each rudiment can be played to the click with your hands and feet, how they can be used for fills, grooves, and how you can gain your independence with them.

I recorded samples of myself playing through each exercise and had originally planned to get the book published, but thanks to the ol' Internet I was able to convert the entire book into a PDF format that includes the audio samples embedded in each lesson.  You can learn more about the book at my website www.jeremylarochelle.com or if you are feeling frisky download it today from e-junkie.

A Reading Challenge

I met a great pianist on this past contract and got to know a little about his years in the music business over many dinners together.  It turns out that this amazing player actually started out as a big-band drummer spending many of his childhood years in New York working in this complex style of drumming before making his way out to LA to study with some of the best teachers.

At his first college audition he was presented with a very difficult challenge.  He was asked to site read parts from the iconic snare drumming manual Portraits in Rhythm by Anthony J. Cirone.   It was this story that peaked my interest about the manual and pushed me to download it from Amazon's Kindle service for my iPad.

For all you drummers who think you are a great reader this book will challenge your personal opinions about your ability.  The manual covers a number of rudimental styled snare drum solos that will challenge even the most ambitious drummer.  There are lessons in 4/4, 2/4, 6/3, 3/8, single beats and ones that cover a number of changing time signatures.  And if the time signatures couldn't challenge you enough the stickings will.  You will be forced to do flams and ruffs into six stroke, seven stroke and nine stroke rolls all in weird time markings. Perhaps the books greatest attribute is the use of dynamic markings and accents in the most unusual places all designed to turn regular drummers into great musicians.

I have been working through the pages for about three weeks now and I am starting to understand many of the lessons, but the work has just begun.  Each page must be practiced slowly and diligently.  At times I have to break out a pen and paper to figure out what is written, but I am on a quest to be a better musician so I accept the challenge with open arms.  As I am learning there is a reason that Modern Drummer magazine placed this book in their Top 25 Drumming manuals.  Download it today at Amazon Portraits of Rhythm, grab your metronome and get ready to work.

Can You Hear Me Now?

It was probably the scariest story I have ever heard as a drummer.  It came from an elder statesman in our craft, and it changed his life forever.

It took just one rim shot and the ringing in his ears started almost instantly and never went away.  Eventually the tinnitus took over his life.  He had trouble sleeping at night with that constant humming in his ear.  He went to countless doctors and eventually had surgery to remove the bone that protects his eardrum, the root of his problem.  Now he has to wear hearing aids constantly.  He almost lost his ability to hear and with that his ability to play drums, all because he didn’t wear earplugs.

Immediately after learning his tale I have taken ear protection on the gig, in the practice room, and behind the kit much more seriously.  I think we all should because hearing isn’t like other things in our life were you loose it for a little bit, retrain yourself and get it back.  Once you loose your hearing, any part of your hearing, it is gone forever.  Have you ever been at a loud rock concert and left with that ringing in your ear?  That is a sign of permanent hearing loss.  And if you don’t think playing drums is just as loud as a rock concert, have I got a wake-up call for you.  That China cymbal you bang away on alone is louder than a passenger jet taking off, and like my buddy it only takes on hit to change your life forever.

There are many types of hearing protection on the market.  You can use the disposable gummies you roll up with your finger and insert into the ear canal that cost a couple bucks.  There are the orange hard rubber ones that you twist in that you can buy at Wal*Mart for under ten bucks.  Finally for you serious folk there are the custom molded plugs that come with a choice of noise reduction, they call it attenuation, and I use a 15 reduction in my left (hi-hat ear) and 10 in my right.  This is what I use every time I sit behind the kit, or at a loud show.  

(Picture from http://hearnet.com/) 

Getting this protection was easy and pretty cheap.  I think I paid under $150 and they have lasted me for four years now of constant road use.   I visited a local audiologist who specialized in hearing aids; got a mold made and sent it into Westone http://www.westone.com/ and they did the rest.  At the same time I also purchased a set of their dual driver In-Ear Monitors, but that is a whole other post.

 

To learn more about hearing loss visit this great website on the subject.  http://hearnet.com/ , Westone has a wealth of information at http://www.westone.com/hearing/hearing-and-your-ears. I encourage all you serious drummers out there to start protecting your greatest asset today.  Before it’s too late. 

Fundamentals of jazz versus rock.

I recently was hired for a six-month contract with a jazz quartet.  Now I’ve played jazz before with trios, quartets and even big bands so I had some knowledge going into the gig, but I had been playing rock and country for the past three years so it felt like I was heading back to my hometown after being away for years.  I mean I still knew the streets, but a lot had changed.

Luckily for me the leader of this band was heavily experienced in the concept of, let’s say, classic jazz.  A former pianist with the Glenn Miller Orchestra, child prodigy, and killer big band arranger this guy new what he wanted to make the gig work.  In our first conversation I caught him telling me a story about past experiences with Miller Orchestra drummers.  As the rhythm leader he wanted one thing “give the horn section air conditioning with that hi-hat on 2&4.”

Now Ron’s story reminded me of my lessons with famed drummer Kenwood Dennard.  I had arrived in Dennard’s lab seeking to better my swing and chart reading.  Our first lesson was on the fundamentals of jazz, meaning what went where.  Kenwood passed on a lesson he had learned from Dizzy Gillespie and informed me of one important fact of jazz.  “In jazz you have to make sure the band can hear your hi-hat.”  And so my studying of jazz fundamentals began.

In rock you keep the time with your kick drum and your snare.  With your heavier beat falling on one and three and the backbeat on two and four.  In jazz this concept is almost reversed.  The hi-hat and ride take over, with your hi-hat keeping time on two and four, and the ride providing the swing.  The snare is played a lot lighter and acts as an accent to mimic melody parts, and your bass drum drops the bombs to liven the story up. 

Take a listen to past masters.  A good place to start is Max Roach and Roy Haynes. Kenwood hipped me to “A Study in Brown” by the Clifford Brown and the Max Roach Quintet to open me up to the basics of jazz.  I encourage any new jazz drummer to take a listen to this great album, as Max was one of the most prominent pioneers of our craft.  These cats kept that hi-hat pumping on two and four and swang’ the band with that ride like it was nobodies business.  As jazz drumming history evolved new players like Elvin Jones came along and changed things up.  Elvin pretty much kept his hat around the two and four, but kept time with the entire kit flip flopping the beat with his infectious tom fills and snare drum comping rhythms.  Art Blakey used the snare to reinforce his time so well that I think Swiss watchmakers use him as the source of time for their products.  And then arrived Tony Williams and the concept of jazz evolved to a whole new level for the drummer.  But Tony is a whole other story that I am not ready, or schooled enough, to tell.

How to Get Drumming on a Cruise Ship.

So here you go folks?  A quick introduction into the process of finding cruise ship work...In video format so you don't even have to read!

Cymbal Sounds

I got a call from a drummer buddy the other day and he was psyched.  While putting together a new cymbal set-up he heeded my advice, well not really my advice but anyway, and decided to mix the sound spectrum placing Zildjian K’s in the ride and hi-hat position and Zildjian A’s on the crashes.  “It sounds great and mixes well” was his response.

What he is talking about is his cymbal sound spectrum.  A lot of drummers don’t pay much attention to this fact, but the great ones do.  It works like this.  As an old engineer friend of mine once related to me about mixing drums;  when mixing drums in the sound spectrum think of placing them on an imaginary bookshelf.  You put the kick and floor toms on the bottom shelf, snare in the middle and cymbals on the top.  I just took his sound advice, no pun intended, and applied it to cymbal acoustics.

Generally speaking you want your crashes to be on top of the ride and hats when it comes to drum set sound.  Your foundation cymbals, the ride and hi-hats are part of the solid groove to your sound; the crashes are actually accents in your playing.  So by using a brighter cymbal for those accents you get a different sound than your foundation brass. 

Now my buddy, a great heavy metal drummer, decided to switch the idea up and use brighter cymbals for his rides and hats and darker cymbals for his crashes.  Generally this is the same idea and it accomplishes the same task.  It separates your sound spectrum and helps your drums fill different head space in the EQ. 

 All manufacturers have different lines of dark and bright cymbals.  If you can give it a shot, mix up those choices and see how you can create your own cymbal sound spectrum.

The power of the single and double stroke

This week I want to talk about two fundamental movements for the drummer.  While analyzing the basic 26 American Corps Drum Rudiments I noticed that the stickings fall into four basic styles: flams, roughs, single strokes and double strokes.  Let’s put aside the flams and roughs for a moment and focus on the two very basic stickings: the single stroke and the double stroke.

The singles stroke is your typical RLRLRL…pattern.  When you let the sticks bounce this soon becomes your basic drum roll.  This is the predominant sticking when playing sixteenths, be it on the hi-hat for funk-based stuff or around the kit for a fill.

The double stroke is the RRLLRRLL…pattern, and consequently my favorite type of sticking because it gives the illusion of a single roll with one hand, say on the snare, while you move the other hand around the kit.

When analyzing the rudiments you will find that most of them are based on either one of these stickings, and some, like your paradiddles use both. 

The late Joe Morello new the importance of these two movements around the kit and often used a simple exercise with them to promote his “Master Studies” books.  The exercise goes like this.  Play four bars of single strokes(RLRL), than four bars of doubles (RRLL), and then four bars of single paradiddles (RLRR, LRLL).  You can increase to eight, sixteen or twenty-four bars of each per your liking.  Use a metronome to stay honest and increase your speed gradually without any spaces in between stickings.  For you double bass enthusiast out there the same exercises can be done with a double bass drum pedal or dual bass drums.  Either way you will be amazed at how quickly your skill sets will improve through the use of this exercise.

These movements are not just stickings, but rather a way to unlock complicated drum parts you may encounter.  Because most drumming will fall under one of these movements you can use that knowledge to figure out how your favorite drummer is moving around the kit.  Is he playing that fill hand to hand (LRLR) or with double strokes (RRLL)?  I often analyze new grooves by trying both movements and soon find that one produces an easier flow for the song, and surprisingly that is the right way the original guy played the part.

There are reasons that the rudiments are built around these two movements and with proper practice and insight they can help you unlock any complicated drum part.

Drum on!