The Weight Room: Flam Accent/Tap Groove

This one's pretty simple, but an awesome exercise to get your hands moving and your flams to smooth out.

It looks like this:

It is played as four flam accents followed by two flam taps.

Once you've got it smoothed out, here are some cool ways to apply it to the kit:

• Play it over jazz feet - light quarters on all four beats, crisp hat on two and four.
• Hi-hat on two and four, with bass drum notes on the flams.
• Hat two and four, kick notes on the 16th before or after the flams.
• Play the 16ths shuffled, hat on two and four - and try out some of the kick patterns mentioned previously. 
• Put the iPod on shuffle, and play it along with whatever comes up. 

Above all, make it groove. The more musical it can be, the more you're doing it right!

As always, happy drumming!

Beyond the Kit: Why music matters.

Last week I posed the question, "Why music?" Why does it exist? What's its purpose? Why does it matter?

Music is one of the defining aspects of humanity. It separates us from the other living things on the planet (I know there are some arguments that other animals make music, but we can discuss that another time). Our society is reflected in our music, and music surrounds us.

Imagine walking into a store with no music playing. TV and movies with no music. Video games with no music. No concerts. No music videos. No iPod. For that matter, probably no YouTube.

Music is part of who we are as human beings.

This is not an attempt at a complete discussion on the topic, but here are a few of my reasons for making music a central part of my life:

• Music makes me feel. Quite simply, nothing else touches my emotions in the same way.
• Music makes me think. It takes me to places in my mind and heart that I don't get to without it. 
• Music allows me to communicate far better than I can in any other way. 
• Music makes me better. I'm a more sensitive, thoughtful, passionate and effective human being.
• Like sports, music is fun. I tell people all the time that some guys bowl or play poker, but I get to play jazz and rock and roll gigs. Awesome!

What are your reasons?