Ostinatos / Circles / Jon Fishman, Steve Gadd & open-handed (and minded) hi-hatting

I rather dread introductions to new folks at family and non-music workplace-type gatherings. "What do you do?" someone asks, "I'm a musician" I reply. Generally what follows is "oh you're in a band!" ("how cute" is usually implied, but sometimes stated), or what is for me the toughest question of all, "what kind of music do you play?" Um, all of it?

Seriously, I try! Secretly I envy guys like Travis Barker with their neck tats and hi-hats above their heads; they decided early on to do one thing and either succeed or fail. There was no chance of that for me. In my earliest days it came from Neil Peart. What was he doing with those temple blocks and that glockenspiel? I've got to learn how to play those! Then as a teenager I actually attempted tabla and put in at least the ol' adolescent-try to learn various hand drumming techniques. My every free afternoon was spent as a voracious hunter/gatherer of LPs, cassettes and CDs of basically anything that looked remotely interesting from anywhere on earth. And once I read Mickey Hart's Drumming at the Edge of Magic it was over; all these years later I still see that as the launching point of the ethnomusicology dissertation I will eventually finish (seriously, I will).

Somewhere about 8 years ago whilst pectoral-deep in a phase of learning everything I could about reggae--which included stints in the house band backing 7-8 Caribbean singers at night at The Western Front in Cambridge MA--I had a talk with myself. Obviously I had no real career in reggae (but I'm proud of these albums). It was time to move on.

Circles being what they are, mine led me back to where I began at rock n' roll. Actually, I still play everything, but my bread and butter these days is rock and jam and fusion music. And though it doesn't necessarily apply directly, every minute I spent trying to trot like Horsemouth on Marcus Garvey or drop anvil-heavy backbeats like Style Scott with the Roots Radics informs every minute I play now.

Tomorrow night I'm heading into NYC to see a band I loved as a kid, Phish. It's funny for me because I was there when the original fire burned and saw countless Phish shows between '92-96. It was seminal, but I've definitely moved on. The fandom I was open to as a young man is a closed door now, but I still deeply appreciate their dedication to bizarre music and in particular to focused improvisations.

From the drummer perspective, what I admire most about Jon Fishman is the way he crafts parts that are as much a part of a song's composition as any harmonic element. My enduring favorite (let's be honest: I really only know Phish songs pre-1996...) is "Stash," a song with an extended improvisation anchored mostly by a hi-hat ostinato that Fishman plays open-handed (Figure A). Here's a version from a show I attended as a youth.

Figure A: The bottom is HH played with foot, the top with hand. Fishman usually plays the top as an open HH sound

 In the earlier versions of the tune he has "go-to" right hand and bass drum patterns (Figures B & C), but they're negotiable.

Figure B: The bass drum ostinato

Figure C: the "starting point" pattern Fishman plays with his right hand on the ride cymbal, often on the bell

Because the pattern is played with his left hand on the HH, Fishman uses his right to punctuate on toms, snare and cymbals in a pocketed but rhythmic fashion. The consistency of the HH pattern creates a lovely little canvas on which Fishman, and the band, can paint happy little squirrels, distorted Picassos, or just toss handfulls of colors. The lack of a backbeat increases the dynamic range and allows the jam to simmer; Fishman isn't enforcing groove or time, he's just keeping the string taut.

In this newer version Fishman employs the same concept but orchestrates it with his left hand on a woodblock and his right on the snare for much of the jam. The effect is similar but the groove is a bit more defined.

Though I heard this approach first from Fishman, he didn't invent it! I'm not sure Steve Gadd did either, but let's just say he owns it. He uses the same hi-hat pattern with a deeply funky backbeat during the solos on this version of "Way Back Home" by the Gadd Gang. He also takes advantage of the open-handed approach to add colors to the groove by way of toms and cymbals with his right hand.

Finally, why don't I be brilliant and put up a video of myself playing a variation on the beat right after Gadd... Ok, here it is! I love this groove. I used a version more like Gadd's during this recent Max Creek take on the tune "Peace Train." I sometimes use a version more like Fishman's in the open section of Max Creek's "I Will Always See Your Face" too.

Some Ideas to Practice:

1. Put Figures A-C together. 
1. Hint: if Figure A is kicking your butt, try starting just by playing 8th notes with your foot. Add the in-between LH notes later
2. Hint 2: Trying playing 8th notes with your right hand quietly on snare (this is more of the Gadd sound), this amounts to just playing straight 16ths between your two hands and may make it easier to get going
3. You can also try doing this with any bass drum pattern, such as the 3 extra I've put below (Figures D-F)
2. Begin experimenting with your right hand. 
1. You'll probably find at first that your right hand is stuck on the downbeat 8th notes. Try making all but "2" and "4" ghost notes and you off on the Gadd groove. 
2. Try reading rhythms from Syncopation with your right while keeping the ostinato with the other limbs
3. Double time:
1. The syncopation rhythms. Performed as written they'll all fall on the downbeat 8th notes your right hand would usually play. Double timed they'll crossover the hi-hat pattern more and you'll develop more independence.
2. The bass drum patterns. Or half time them. They all have two easily-phrased relationships to the 16th-note pattern of the left foot and left hand.
4. Improvise!

Extra Bass Drum Patterns, Figures D-F:

Happy Omnidenominational Holiday

It's hard for me to imagine that this album is 5 years old! We made it in basements and attics across Middletown, CT, save for the one trip to Boston to get MC Kabir rhymin' on Jingle Bells. Every holiday season I go back to it and am overcome with a wave of sentimentality and love for the people I made it with.

Buru Style was as much a collective as a band; I'm not even really sure how many people passed through in the three or four years we were active. We gigged a bunch but recorded even more. Our Bandcamp page is a testament to what we actually put out (most of it; our tenure with Toussaint Liberator is documented elsewhere), but I have hard drives full of the unfinished tracks, a lot of which I still think are fantastic. Everyone in that group was and is a shining spirit in the world and music is just part of what they all had to offer. The music was unstoppable; there were no quiet dinners, there was no hanging out in a living room that didn't turn into some sort of mini-music festival, even if the only instruments available were thighs and voices. We embraced many styles of music but were mostly obsessed with dub, in particular in using it create stretches of instrumental music that created tension and release without using solos. We're no longer together because the band members shot off in different directions, quite literally around the globe. (Well, Jamemurrell Stanley and I are still a dynamic drum duo actually...). That and for all the joy and music we had in abundance, we had zero sense of how to package and monetize our work. (That's always been my problem: if I love it, I go for it, profit be damned. I was there for every minute put into this bad boy from recording to mixing to making the album cover myself...)

We called this album The Omnidenominational Holiday Experience because, as a band with several Jews, a few distant Christians and a Muslim, that's what a holiday album was going to need to be. Like Kabir says in his rap on Jingle Bells, "Friends and family / The reason for livin' / Holidays, happiness, the season of giving," it's all about all of us. I've never understood this "War on Christmas" thing; I'm a Christmas guy, but I'm so happy to wish you (and you and you) a happy holiday because love and joy are for all of us. And the more of it there is, the better we'll all be.

The music is pretty omnidenominational too. For my money, I'm unaware of a funkier version of Dreidel, Dreidel. Silent Night and Hanukkah, o Hanukkah reference the other-worldly sonic landscapes of dub that Buru Style was so fascinated with. Hanukkah also features two of my favorite drum toys: the jing gong and roto-toms! Jingle Bells is given that old school hip-hop touch by my friend Kabir's original rap, as well as several local kids (including my son who sounds much different now). And that's me playing the dog barks in the background.

It's up there on Bandcamp, spin it for free! And happy holidays, however you celebrate.

Sounds and Silences

In the wee hours of last Saturday night, while Max Creek’s road manager Mike gathered keys at the front desk of the Parkview Hotel in Syracuse, I wandered. The Parkview seemed nice; we had come out ahead in the Priceline lotto. The heat of a fire radiated from the common area and I made my way toward it. The gas fireplace was the centerpiece of an open room with several nice couches, tables and chairs. The space was empty—it was 2am—but a TV, mounted just above the fireplace, blared CNN and advertisements into the empty space.

There’s nothing unusual about that, and frankly, that sucks.

When did we decide to cede a majority of public spaces to the media? Why do we wage—to borrow from political-speak—The War on Silence?

My favorite definition of “rhythm” comes from Michael Bakan’s World Music text in which he describes it as “how the sounds and silences of music are organized in time.” While we funky people think of rhythm as what we do, it is just as much about what we don’t do. Without silences, or at least dynamic contrasts, we’d be making nothing but drones.

So what does this have to do with TVs and fireplaces? Everything! We, in as much as I can look at the U.S. and utter the phrase “as a culture,” have messed up our rhythm by overlooking the importance of silence. Instead of allowing that hearth to be a place of possibilities—quiet reading, conversation among friends or strangers, introspective thought or (gasp!) nothing at all—we’ve given it away to the media. And the media is anything but passive; it is the true occupy movement. The media hijacks our minds and feeds us suggestions via sound waves and light waves. There are definitely agendas at play and few if any of them lead us toward the loving, compassionate existence every human truly wishes for somewhere inside. If you think I’m overly dramatic try an experiment: turn a TV on in a room with two people and try not to watch it. Resist as you might, eventually one or both of you will be staring at the screen even while trying to communicate with the other. Soon you’ll mention something you just saw be it a product, a joke, a politician, etc.

While the myriad screens we carry and come in contact with are different, the media owns them all. Those screens have many capabilities, but a primary use is as an access point for the “national conversation.” In recent weeks the demeanor of that conversation has degraded rapidly. Hate is out in the open; hate is being responded to with hate. I feel despair. We are out of rhythm.

There is never “an answer,” but embracing silence and dynamic contrasts in life writ large would certainly help. A direct consequence of turning off the media is once again experiencing the humanness and individuality of the non-amplified voices around you. If we turn down the shouting we might begin to hear softer voices that speak quiet truths. A direct consequence of silence is hearing yourself.

Some Ideas to Practice (the-not-entirely-music-way)

• Turn off TVs in public places. They all have power buttons. Just reach out and do it, it feels great. I do it all the time! 
• Avoid political memes. This one is hard for me. Sometimes they just feel good at first glance and I want to repost but when I’m honest I know they’re made to make someone else feel put down. It’s negativity. Negativity is a dead end.
• If you’re a musician, or are just going to see a band, ask that TVs be shut off while the band is playing. Do the networks need free product placement at my show? Did you come to be with friends, dance and listen to music, or mostly because you knew reruns of the Wonder Years would be flashing behind the bar?
• Add your own suggestions below!

Some Ideas to Practice (The music way)

• This is an exercise I do with all my beginning students and still practice myself. The idea is to first create a steady flow of notes—we drummers call it a single-stroke roll—and then experience the rhythmic excitement that can be created by permutating one 16th note rest through the phrases. 
  
• Choose an equal phrase length (2 or 4 bars) and alternate between the left and right columns. 
• We practice it in a “straight sticking” format meaning that if you start with your right hand, it will play any note that lands on a number or an “&.” Your left will play all the “e”s and “a”s. 
• This exercise is a gateway. Take it and run with it. Ideas:
• Move notes to different drums
• combine measures
• use two rests instead of one
• double-stroke some notes
• phrase them around the kit
• Play it along to a song
• Do it with another instrument - it would work well for scales for instance
• Sometimes I refer to it as the “classic fill generator” because by combining the rhythms in each line you can create almost any of typical drum fills you might hear sampled on your favorite Beastie Boys album. 

“Practice.”

v. To perform (an activity) or exercise (a skill) repeatedly or regularly in order to acquire, improve or maintain proficiency.

n. The actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method, as opposed to the theory or principles of it; performance, execution, achievement; working, operation.

- Oxford English Dictionary

I am a lifelong student, and not simply because I’ve yet to finish my dissertation. Practice, in all its forms, gives me a reason to be. What do I practice? Everything. There are obvious, quantifiable things: drums for instance, for which I can sit and exercise physical mechanics and codify my results with numerical measurements. And Bikram yoga, another practice somewhat assessable vis-à-vis tangible, embodied accomplishments. I am forever working toward a PhD in ethnomusicology that too has required reading, responding, grading.

But all of the above are gateways. As I deepen my practices I move beyond the physical and the quantifiable toward the cerebral and conceptual, and in rare special moments there is no difference. Learning to deepen my breath improves yoga, drumming and life writ large, and processing a bit of Saussure grants me a bird’s eye view of what I might be attempting to say with it all. My focus on the fulcrum my thumb and index finger create for my drumstick can propel me toward both a cleaner double-stroke roll and “nada brahma,” a Hindu phrase translatable as both the “Sound of God” and “Sound is God.”

The greatest successes of my professional practices as a performer and educator have come at the crossroads of all of the above. But there is never a complete arrival; every great moment leaves behind more ideas, questions, and things to think about and to work toward. That is the beauty of practice: there is no conclusion. As much as we use our practice to put forth the fruit of our engagement with the act of practicing, there will always be more practicing to do.

Here on “Practice” I’ll be sharing moments from those crossroads. I hope that what I share relates to your crossroads as well and that you’ll join the discussion.