I found my print making mind map on another blog called Roy's Blog. Apparently this is a company or product called Topicscape that specializes in mind maps. Anyway, they have a lovely mind map directory at this address: 
Well, here we are. Matt from Po' Boy drums just sent me this poster and it looks like I'm up first. Hey, no pressure. This is a benefit and all proceeds go to the Rocky Mountain ALS Association. Saturday, May 31st at The Toad Tavern. I'm all set. As I said before, the format of my clinic will be Canon and Fugue as applied to the drumset (with a two-part fugue), some discussion of polyrhythms and ostinti, and finally a composition featuring all of the above.
I was wathching Terry Bozzio play The Black Page on the new Zappa Plays Zappa DVD and, lo and behold, I noticed that he had earplugs in. Not in-ear monitors, but orange, squishy, foam, industrial variety earplugs. This warms my heart. I have been playing in bands and attending concerts for thirty years and I have no significant hearing loss and I do not have tinnitus. I attribute this to the practice of always wearing ear protection. I always practice with either earplugs or isolation headphones. Whenever I go to a club or a concert I bring earplugs just in case. You can never tell how loud things are going to get. I buy the Aero classic earplugs in boxes of 200 pairs through Amazon.com for $20 a box. I encourage my students to wear them too.
Educational Psychology and modern teaching theory both indicate that information is more easily learned if it is considered relevant by the learner. If the information is perceived as useful and can be assimilated easily into the learner's schema, it is more likely to be retained. That said, it behooves the educator to relate new information to the learner's experience, interests, and learning style. So how does this relate to teaching drumset? Well, for my part, I ask students what they're listening to and I give it a listen. Here's the deal, they like what they're listening to or they wouldn't be listening to it. So I listen to it and try to use that to teach them . Example: I have an eight year old student who came to me with a genuine love of The Beatles. Surely that came from his parents, but who cares? This kid loves The Beatles. He tells me Beatles trivia. He knows the words to tons of their songs. Now, I worked with this guy on basic drum grooves and counting time and such, but it didn't start to come together until we started playing along with Beatles songs. I found that if he sings the lyrics, his meter is spot on. Furthermore, I had him play (and sing) We Can Work It Out . There are triplets in the bridge and this kid nailed them by ear. I honestly don't believe that this eight year old is ready to comprehend the theory involved in a 3:2 polyrhythm (I won't bother to quote Piaget here). Now I ask you, should I be making this kid play rudiments and try to tell me the difference between a half note rest and a quarter note, or should we just be jammin' along to Beatle's songs?
I've been listening to Prog and Fusion since they were invented and (don't laugh now) somehow I missed this album for 30 years. My guitar player, Frank D'Angelo, turned me on to it just this week and it's all I've been listening to. It's not like I don't know the band or the musicians. I saw Chic Corea play with Mirislav Vitous and Roy Haynes. I saw Al Di Meola play with John Mclaughlin, Paco De Lucia and Steve Morse. I saw Al Di Meola open up for Jean Luc Ponty. I've seen Stanley Clarke play with Ponty. I have RTF "No Mystery" and "Light As a Feather". I have Di Meola, Chic Corea, Lenny White, and Stanley Clarke solo records. Somehow, I just never heard this one until this week. All I can say is OMG! This disc is amazing. It's very jazz, but it's also very Prog. The first tune Medieval Overture feels a lot like what Gentle Giant was doing in the day. The last track Duel of the Jester and the Tyrant is epic. Of course it's very jazz fusion, but it's also very Prog. Towards the end it breaks down into a pseudo-baroque counterpoint (again, very GGish) and the conclusion sounds like it's in the same key and uses the same synth patch as a piece by Kansas. It might be Icarus: Bourne On Wings of Steel. Whatever, this disc is a must. Great stuff, glad I found it after all these years. Thanks Frank. Oh by the way, Lenny White's drumming on this disc is phenomenal.
Just on the off chance that you didn't know, an atlatl is a paleolithic tool believed by many to be the first advancement in weapon design, predating the bow. The word is Nahuatl (ancient Aztec) and is pronounced AT-LAT-UL. It literally means "water thrower", but has come to mean "spear thrower". Basically, the atlatl is a hooked stick upon which a spear is cradled. This serves to extend the length of the thrower's arm and adds centrifugal force to a throw, greatly increasing the velocity of the thrown spear. Early accounts by Spanish Conquistadors relate that by using the atlatl, Aztec warriors could throw a spear with enough force to pierce Spanish armor.
I'm posting this because I know some of you enjoy following the process. This is a mind map that I made to outline the topics for my clinic. I'm just writing notes on there as I think of things. Bach is there because he's the godfather of fugue. FZ is there because he's the king of polyrhythm. The Venus of Willendorf is there because it's a paleolithic fertility fetish and Bach had twenty children. I think Frank would have liked it too. TVOWA stands for "The Venus of Willendorf's Atlatl", that's the last piece I'm planning to play. I have this map hanging up in my studio so all my students can be exposed to J.S. , FZ, and The Venus.
If you don't have one of these, you should probably think about getting one. It's very Prog. When you push the button, the little Tiki Man pounds on the little plastic animal skulls in a kind of pagan island love groove that's simultaneously invigorating and annoying. If you have small children in the house, they will ceaselessly delight in pushing the little guy's button every chance they get. You will become so irritated with Tiki Man that you will probably remove his batteries. But every now and then, when no one is around, you will put the batteries back in and push Tiki Man's button. You will be enthralled by his rhythmic abandon.
Wow, check this out. My friend Marty, father of one of my students, had this snare that he got from his grandfather. I don't even know what this is except that it's obviously a very old piccolo with sixteen lugs and a wooden shell. Marty had it repaired recently and he sent me these pics. It looks gorgeous. I'm hoping he'll let me play it sometime and maybe even let me use it on a recording. Peace, Marty!
Well it looks like this is where I'll be playing next. The Toad Tavern in Littleton Colorado. It'll be sometime in the late afternoon on May 31st, 2008. This is a promo for Po' Boy Drums (very good drums by the way). At this point, I will be teaching a clinic on Canon and Fugue for the Drumset, Polyrhythms, and Ostinati. I'm very stoked about this. Sadly, my band won't be coming along, they just couldn't commit. What the heck, I'll be there reflecting the love of my inner Christ, promoting world peace and connecting with the youth of America, supporting the Dalai Lama, fighting global warming, and drinking a few beers. Maybe those other bums can come next time!
This has to be one of my favorite Prog Drum Pics of all time. This is (of course) Neil Peart from the sleeve of the album A Farewell To Kings (1977). The photo is credited to Roger Stowell and he definitely deserves the credit. I guess anything that has a profound effect on you when you're fifteen years old will stick with you for the rest of your life. You may laugh about it later, or you may worship it. None the less, you can't deny it affected you. This picture (the music too) was undeniably influential on me. Yeah, Neil, love this pic.
George Bernard Shaw once famously stated, “He who can does; he who cannot teaches.” That statement typifies either the height of ignorance or arrogance - possibly both. Here’s a quick list of individuals who both could do and did teach:
Obviously, the whole Row Row Row Your boat deal is just intended to convey the basic concept of a canon. What I've added here is a much simpler example that you can probably learn in a few tries and it really brings the idea home.
I was not familliar with the work of Deiterich Buxtehude, but I've always read that he was a huge influence on J. S. Bach, so I decided to buy a couple of his fugues online. I have to say I'm very pleased. The Buxtehude Dude writes a pretty mean fugue. Guess I'm a fan. I read somewhere that Bach spent some time following this guy around like he was The Gratefull Dead.
Don't know why, just had to post this pic. This is John "Willie" Wilcox, the drummer from Todd Rundgren's Utopia playing the "Trapparatus" circa 1985. Maybe it's a gimmic but, what the hell, it looks like fun! Willie Rocks!
So I wrote myself a script. Since I've never really taught a clinic before, I thought it would be wise to map out what I'm going to talk about, where I'm going to play an example, where I'll ask the audience to try something, etc. I'll run through it tomorrow and see how long it takes.
Johann Pachelbel wrote what may be the most famous canon in history, the Canon in D. It's an absolutely lovely piece of music that I think is a terrible example of a canon because it doesn't sound like a canon. It doesn't sound like a canon because there's no syncopation in the subject. If you look at the score you'll see that the canonic imitation is ocurring strictly on every downbeat. While it is canonic imitation, it just sounds like a developing chord progression, rather than a contrapuntal composition. Furthermore, there are no variations added - no inversion, no augmentation, no diminution, etc. I am certain that when most people listen to this piece they are missing the essence of what a canon is. As evidence, consider youtube.com. There are countless videos of drummers "playing the Canon in D." All of them are, in fact, playing along with the Canon in D and none of them are actually playing a canon. Furthermore, there are lots of guitar players playing the melody of the Canon in D and I would be willing to bet that few of them actually understand why it's called a canon in the first place. I am not a scholar of Pachelbel, but I do know that Mr. P understood what a canon is. After all, he wrote more than a hundred fugues. I wish that all the folks claiming to be "playing the Canon in D" actually knew what a canon is.
In William Falkner's novel The Sound and the Fury, the same events are presented from the perspectives of four different individuals - individuals from different circumstances, generations, social status, gender, and mental capacity. In a painting by Wassily Kandisky, the same subject is representented in different dimensions, colors and placement, as well as in entirety or in part. In a Bach fugue, the same subject is rendered in two or more voices, at multiple pitches, inverted, reversed, expanded, contracted, etc... In each instance there is a sense of simultaneity and seperateness. In each instance there is a sense of wheels within wheels, a feeling of cyclicle recapitulation infused with variation. I love it.
