The best way to improve your playing is simply to get out and do it in public. The practice room is essential but there simply is no substitute for putting your hard earned practice on display and getting real world feedback from other musicians and audiences.
To that end, I’m gathering a list of all the regular jam sessions I know of in and around the Los Angeles area and will update that information here.
3 of the greatest on the planet. Awe inspiring, goose bump inducing. Watch and weep, for joy that is 
I keep missing the TV show “Dancing With The Stars”… been trying to catch it for ages now. The reason being is that Ralph Humphrey, the drummer on the show, has been a fantastic teacher to me for the last few years. He’s the head guy at Los Angeles Music Academy (LAMA) drum department, along with Joe Porcaro.
The show appears to have come to a conclusion tonight, with the winner being a Brazilian race car driver Helio Castroneves. More details in this Reuters article.
I can’t speak highly enough of the lessons I’ve had with Ralph. When I first went to him I said something like “I need vocabulary.. I need way more words on the drums and way more ways to say them”. Since then, to say he’s blown the barn doors off everything I took for granted about drumming, what was and is possible, would be no understatement.
The mind expanding moments I’ve experienced in his drum studio during lessons have often reduced me to laughter at the ridiculous things I suddenly understand that come into focus with those “Aha!” moments. For example one day 5 over 2, and 15 over 16 all made perfect sense without that much effort. He has an amazing ability to be able to impose structure on what sounds like something that’s completely random and bring a clarity to it I’m certain I’d never find own my own. I need to ask just how he comes up with all this stuff!
Get more information on Ralph about the show “Dancing With The Stars”, and what he does when he’s not laying down the groove for “Dancing With The Stars” at the LAMA site, and DrummerWorld.
Anyways.. if you need lessons, and you’re in Los Angeles, look him up! If you’re super nice, get in touch with me and I can forward your number to him.
Yes I made up that title.. no I’m not sure much of what it means either
This is a bit of a random collection of grooves inspired by the anonymous rooster groove CD.
Still working on practicing recording, listening to myself, getting stuff uploaded, learning the process and working out some wrinkles. It’s pretty harsh listening to yourself too. These aren’t coming out and grooving exactly the way I hear them quite yet.. but I’m going with it anyways and I expect them to improve over time.
I’m already wondering this site layout my not be the best for what I’m dong. I’ll run with it for now. I have some ideas for making things easier to browse, but that’ll take me bringing some web coding skills up to speed and right now I want to play MUSIC!
At some point I will probably chart out these tracks and post that with the loops.
These tracks flow better as loops as made a point of looping them in the audio editor and making sure there weren’t any obvious hiccups. Might have to go back and edit earlier ones to tidy them up the same.
Medium funky swing, 2 bars [0:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (135) Medium funky swing fill, 1 bars [0:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (105) Hypno swing thing, 2 bars [0:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (864) Hypno swing fill, 2 bars [0:04m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (91) Medium disco crash, 4 bars [0:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (103)
