Brian Tichy: The Importance of Consistency

Posted on November 25, 2014 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: I don’t know Brian Tichy, neither am I familiar with his drumming. But his advice here is spot on for drumset players in all kinds of bands. I will have to give Mr. Tichy a listen.

GlideMagazine.com
DRUMMER BRIAN TICHY (INTERVIEW)
November 24, 2014 by Leslie Michele Derrough

 

Q. What do you think is the most important thing a drummer can do for a band?

There really is only one most important thing and it’s keeping good solid time, and solid doesn’t mean you have to hit everything and smash it as hard as you can and all that. It just means no matter what you’re doing up there, whatever it takes to make that band sound right and groove right and drive the band correctly, the way the band should be….

And I don’t want a drummer to change it up too much. But the main thing is the groove and the timing. And the first and foremost thing you can teach a drummer is the importance of consistency. Every time you hit that bass drum, every time you hit the snare, every time you hit a cymbal, it’s got to sound like one instrument. You can’t sound like a drum, a cymbal, a this, a that. It’s got to sound like a drum set and once you can keep that thing sounding powerful in the band with confidence in your capability, then they’re not worried, they’re not turning around looking at you, and that makes the band play better, makes the guitar player not worry about anything else. That’s the main job of the drummer. You hit the damn drums, you keep it in time and you make everybody feel good about it (laughs).

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Alison Geal Wins World Juvenile Solo Tenor Drum Championship

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Scott K Fish

Coatbridge pupil is a world beater
Practice makes perfect for drummer Alison / November 24, 2014

A Coatbridge pupil with a passion for drumming has surpassed all her expectations after being crowned world champion.

Alison Geal (16) won the World Solo Tenor Drum Championship in the Juvenile MSR4 category at the World Solo Drumming Championships 2014 on Saturday 18 October at Glasgow Caledonian University.

The Coatbridge High School pupil said: “To be honest, it hasn’t really sunk in yet; I’m still a bit stunned! It’s been absolutely amazing – last year I was fourth, so I was hoping to do well but didn’t expect to win.”

There were 15 other competitors in her category from all around the world.

“I’ve had a huge amount of support from my school, my instructor David Henderson and of course from my mum and dad – I couldn’t have done it without them.”

Alison only began drumming three years ago, she plays in the North Lanarkshire Schools Pipe Band and also with the National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland….

Alison…plans to become a music teacher…. She is currently studying Higher Music and, as well as drumming, also sings and plays the keyboard.

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Val Sepulveda: What I Want To Do For the Rest of My Life

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Scott K Fish

Nov 22, 2014 11:43 AM EST
Latin Music Artist News 2014: Chilean Drummer Val Sepulveda Talks Career, Rise to Top of Male-Dominated Music Scene (Exclusive)
By Melissa Castellanos

“I have always felt a special connection with the drums. Even as a little girl I would pick out the drum lines in popular music and keep the beat with my fingers until they would go numb.”

…Val Sepulveda…gaining…international recognition in the evolving world of drumming….

Sepulveda, who began playing drums at age 15 (prior to studying piano for seven years), is the Grand Prize winner of the 2013 “Hit Like a Girl Contest” — the only international competition for female drummers organized by Drum! Magazine, Tom Tom Magazine and TRX cymbals, where she competed against thousands of entrants from 35 different countries.

Recently, Sepulveda was a part of the judging panel for the 2014 “Hit Like a Girl Contest,” along with renown female drummers, including Blackman, Sheila E., Hannah Ford and Jess Bowen, among others.

“Oh, course Shelia E. was the mother of all female drummers..,” she said.

“It was…my junior year of high school that my true love affair with the instrument began. …I snuck into a drum class…and began to goof around. [Th]e professor saw my interest and passion for the drums [and] let me stay. I thought to myself, ‘This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.'”

Her family embraced her dream of becoming a professional drummer.

In 2011, Sepulveda graduated from the University of Valparaiso with a bachelor’s degree in music with emphasis in drum performance. In 2013, came her “Hit Like a Girl Contest” win.

Sepulveda is…recording series of drum lessons for Drum Channel and…teaching live lessons for its…website, DrumChannel.com. She is currently working as a TA (teacher’s assistant) at Musicians Institute, Hollywood California.

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Alphonse Mouzon: Weather Report Was Sort of Draining

Posted on November 22, 2014 by Scott K Fish

mouzon_alphonseSKF NOTE: Alphonse Mouzon was in McCoy Tyner‘s group when he gave this interview, comparing his experience playing with Tyner and Weather Report. Tyner’s group also included Calvin Hill (bass), Sonny Fortune (reeds, flute). Mouzon was with Weather Report for their 1971 debut album. That group included Joe Zawinul (electric/acoustic piano), Wayne Shorter (soprano sax), Miroslav Vitous (acoustic/electric bass), Airto Moreira, Barbara Burton, Don Alias (percussion).

Mouzon: “It’s totally different music from Weather Report – musically, personally, spiritually.

“[P]laying with Weather Report was sort of draining. I didn’t have any identity at all, because there I was doing things mostly from the mind, not of the heart…technical, kind of worked out, so I knew what I was going to do. That’s not too cool.

“[P]laying with Weather Report…was a Europeanish, rockfish, Milesish kind of thing.

“It was a good group, but it’s hard when you have three leaders telling you what to play. You can really go through a mental thing.

“I got the experience, the exposure, but it wasn’t me, because I still didn’t know who I was.”

Source: Alphonse Mouzon: “Play Yourself,” by Dan Morgenstern, Down Beat, March 15, 1973

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Harvey Siders: Long Drum Solos Bore Me

Posted on November 21, 2014 by Scott K Fish

SKF NOTE: Here I’ve excerpted remarks about drum solos from a 1973 roundtable discussion Down Beat Contributing Editor Harvey Siders had with five drummers: Willie Bobo, Louie Bellson, Larry Bunker, Shelly Manne, and Donald Bailey. None of these wonderful players are still with us, but what an amazing legacy they left all of us.

drum_shticksSiders: I don’t like long drum solos. They bore me. [A]fter two or three choruses I get lost, in relation to the tune.

Manne: I don’t always enjoy listening to a drummer unless he’s playing within the framework of the band and the music.

Bunker: When I solo I always think in terms of the structure of the tune, and I play choruses.

Manne: …I resent…the drummer who falls into the trap of becoming obsessed with the technical aspects of the drums – you know, playing all these figures that come from rudiments. It becomes a thing of excitement, not creativity, and I find that I don’t retain that kind of solo.

Siders: Can you think of any example of excitement over creativity?

Manne: I think Buddy Rich is a stupendous drummer, and I have the utmost respect for him. But I don’t really retain anything Buddy plays. [H]e only reaches my head. He doesn’t reach my heart and soul.

Bailey: I think…most people don’t like drum solos…because…the rhythm section stops playing. [Y]ou wouldn’t enjoy a saxophone solo or a trombone solo without accompaniment.

[T]he best presentation of a drum solo I ever heard was Max Roach, when he had the rhythm section backing him up….

Manne: I think everythng depends on your approach to the drums. …I hear everything…on a melodic basis. I never know what the rhythms are going to be. I’m influenced by melodic lines.

Bunker: The drummer has five or six or seven tones available to him, and the colors of his cymbals, and that depends on how complicated a set of drums he’s using.  [H]e has to function mostly with rhythmic values and permutations of those rhythmic values.

Bellson: …I used to be a tap dancer. In essence, I’m dancing on the stage. But I’m also thinking melodically, being a music writer. So it’s important to make a solo melodic as well as rhythmic.

Siders to Wllie Bobo: [I]s there such a thing as a long drum solo in Latin music?

Bobo: There certainly is. Latin percussion instruments are basically solo instruments. I deal melodically with my solos.

Bailey: You hear more in a Latin drum solo because they always have accompaniment. I think Latin drummers are more musical than jazz drummers.

Siders: What do you guys think about when you’re taking a solo – long or short?

Bailey: I think about the song I’m playing.

Bobo: I think about solos in that same way.

Manne: I always think in relationship to the melody. It’s merely a boundary, and the challenge is to use that boundary, or stay within the boundary, then go beyond.

Source: Drum Shticks, by Harvey Siders, Down Beat, March 15, 1973

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