Monday Drum Day: Trading solos

Yesterday our gang of jazz-curious friends got together at London Road Studios to work on some more tunes. This time I took along my new cymbals that I featured recently.

Apart from the cymbals I just have to take a snare drum and my sticks to use with the kit they have there. We had @purplesinger on piano, @daniellemurray on clarinet and Bob (no Hive account yet) on flute. Our bassist Paul could not make it.

This is a great opportunity to apply what I have been learning on the Drumeo jazz course. Previously I was sort of trying to mix rock and jazz beats, but I now know I need to play a bit less. I can still indulge a bit when we do 'trading fours', which is where we take turns to do a short solo. I am really winging it there as I have not worked out many beats to play. There is also the issue of keeping track of how long the solo should last. I have a little guidance from the piano on that.

I still have much to learn about this style. We tried some pretty challenging tunes that some of us struggled with. That is okay as we are not under pressure to perform, but we will do some at our next open mic.

Bob records all the audio and here is a selection of what we played.

I think people liked the new cymbals that are on a different level to what I had before. The sounds are much richer and more varied. I took along my old crash for some extra variety.

I shall keep working on the jazz stuff, but will mix in some other styles in my own practice.

Rock on!