He proceeded to play a couple of jazz standards and asked me to listen out for some parts and how the handover between musicians was done. Gosh – I learnt so much from him just from that one session alone. This sure beats the hell out of – “Here, this is the MP3, go listen.“

He also gave me some Pearls of Wisdom. I found it all to be so true and the last one by Miles Davis to be most insightful. I will list it here for reference for all:

• 2 factors that stop people from improvising: Fear of getting Lost and the Fear of playing wrong notes.
• If you dont think before playing a phrase, it is not improvisation, it is just an exercise.
• It is easier to sing what you hear in your head than it is to play it on your instrument – your objective is to be able to play what you hear in  your head.
• Most music is grouped in 2, 4 and 8 bar phrases. Learn to feel them, not count them.
• Listen, Listen, Listen – all the answers to your questions are there if you listen.
• Once you can hear what you are trying to play, things get a lot easier.
• If you think about what you are doing, you will remember a lot better.
• Written music is a crutch – memorize instead.
• Good musicians have a large reportoire in their heads, they dont rely too much on books.
• It takes a long time to play like yourself – Miles Davis

Q: “Would you like to be Elvin Jones ?”
A: “No”

Q: Mouth agape. “Why?”
A: “Because I dont want to”. I want to be me – just me. Not Elvin Jones, not Tony Williams

Q: Look of disbelief.

So – What is me ? What do I want ? I want to be able to play in an comfortable way with Bu and my friends, who happens to NOT be Keith Jarret, Miles Davis,  Thelonious Monk or any of the Montgomery brothers. Nowhere close. And I would like to support them musically below the bar, not above. That makes me want to be gazillions of leagues below Max Roach or Art Blakey.

Maybe one day, I want to be like Elvin Jones or Tony Williams. Maybe not. BUT not now for sure because I am not a full-time musician and I dont strive to be.

I need someone who respects me for me, myself and my opinions, my ideas and my originality and where I want to go.

After a couple of rounds of interviews, I think I may have found who I was looking for. I will refer to him as JMW as he is known to most in the jazz circuits. He comes across as a mentor and a guide and will only take students of jazz music of a certain calibre and skillset. I am so glad I passed his test as he did mine.

I told him my pains and he immediately hit the nail right on the head by articulating what I want.

“To learn Jazz 101 and that is all – no more, no less.“

He also told me, like everyone, musicians have their own paths and journeys to follow. A young up-n-coming session or recording musician may spend the most and bulk of his time practicing, playing and recording and very little time teaching and most importantly – learning how to teach. The younger ones that came from prestigious schools such as Berklee tend to think they can teach because they have a prestigious backing and have only ONE METHOD to teach – and that is - HOW THEY ARE TAUGHT.

And that is so important for these “younger” teachers to understand because every student, who is a professional in their own right, is different and have different inspirations and triggers. You cannot teach them the same way you teach younger children, who may not know what they “want” yet. I can bet my last cymbal felt that 90% of students attending or going to Berklee know they want to be a full-time musician  – BUT not every person wants to be. Some, like me, are contented to be just hobbyists.

What irks me most is that students like us put in hours and effort before every practice session BUT the teacher shows up empty-headed and takes the easy way out by asking us to loop our practice-routine over and over again at every imaginable tempo until our 50Dollars-an-hour session burns up in money ashes.

Who is paying who here ?

Do I want to learn Jazz 201 ? My answer is simple – ask me when I graduate from Jazz 101.

So, I spent a good part of last Sunday jamming on 2 separate occasions. One is the Open Jazz Jam at Tanglin Music Club at the Tanglin Community Club where I semi-jam to a nice catchy tune in which I have no clue what the song was called. The other was at my place later that evening with my friends and Bu where we belt out a couple of Jazz Standards. Nothing fancy and no complex chord progressions or abstracted renditions – just simple recognizable tunes

• SummerTime
• Autumn Leaves
• Girl From Ipanema

So as not to overpower the accoustic guitars, I used a simple 3 piece setup – 13″ Hats, 14″ Snare, 20″ Flat Ride.

I think we all did well, considering this is the first time we are actually doing it after barking at it for so long. I am truly looking forward for more to come.

Not like I am a big fan of Chick’s Electric Fusion jazz stuff but I watched him a fair bit due to his performances in Legends of Jazz. The main reason I first heard of him was due to Roy Haynes who is very well-known for playing and “main-streaming” the flat ride cymbal.

Roy was one of the first drummers to use a flat ride which can be heard on Chick Corea’s album “Now He Sings, Now He Sobs” made in 1968. He used a Paiste 602 Flat Ride in those days but has been using Zildjians these days. He replaced his Paiste Flat with a Zildjian K Custom 20″ Flat Top Ride (Video clips below). Incidentally, that K Custom 20″ Flat Top Ride is one of my favourite rides and gets a lot of time on my jazz kit configuration.

Lenny is, of course, a legend by himself in Jazz-Funk/Rock and I really hope he will be using a Flat Ride as one of his rides in the upcoming Mosaic Music Festival Concert.

This concert will be a real treat for me. Thanks Bu.

Below: Roy pioneering on the Paiste 602 Flat Ride – Chick Corea: Now He Sings Now He Sobs.

Below: Roy using a Zildjian K Custom Flat Top Ride with Chick Corea.

So, there I was minding my own business when the wife played one of the most recognizable tunes on the piano: Rainbow Connection as made famous by Kermit the Frog from the Muppets. I played in my head how the song would spin with a swing feel and immediately took my 20″ Zildjian K Custom Flat Ride and placed it next to the piano and started playing a swing pattern to it - and then realize that it is a 3/4 Time Signature Pattern.

It was real cool and it sounded real good on a nice rainy evening… I will see if I can record a short clip of it and post it here.

In  the meantime, here is a YouTube Video clip of one of my favourite female vocalist, Sarah Mclachlan singing her own “jazzy” rendition.

LONDON – New research suggests that regularly playing an instrument changes the shape and power of the brain and may be used in therapy to improve cognitive skills. It can even increase IQ by seven points in both children and adults, according to researchers.

Experts said there is growing evidence that musicians have structurally and functionally different brains compared with non-musicians – in particular, the areas of the brain used in processing and playing music.

These parts of the brain that control motor skills, hearing, storing audio information and memory become larger and more active when a person learns how to play an instrument and can apparently improve day to day actions such as being alert, planning and emotional perception.

Mr Lutz Jancke, a psychologist at the University of Zurich, said: “We found that even in people over the age of 65 after four or five months of playing a instrument for an hour a week there were strong changes in the brain.

“The parts of the brain that control hearing, memory, and the part that controls the hands among others, all become more active. Essentially the architecture of the brain changes.

“For children especially we found that learning to play the piano for instance teaches them to be more self-disciplined, more attentive and better at planning. All of these things are very important for academic performance, so can therefore make a child brighter. Music isn’t the only answer, but I do believe that it should be used in addition to other things.”

Mr Jancke said that music can make it easier to learn foreign languages. It also helps people become more perceptive in interpreting the emotions of others.

“When you play a musical instrument you have to learn about tone and about scores and your ability to store audio information becomes better.”

He suggested more studies on the use of music to enhance cognitive performance through therapy. “Hopefully, the current trend in the use of musicians as a model for brain plasticity will continue … and extend to the field of neuropsychological rehabilitation.”

Source: http://www.todayonline.com/World/EDC091029-0000078/Music-and-the-brain

We played a couple of jazz tunes, bossa novas and played along to some old classic contemporary jazz records. Our timings were off most of the time. There was off-keys and mis-beats but it was so fun playing with another musician.

This reminds me of why I took up drums in the first place – NOT to spend hours by myself behind the kit trying to work up a sweat to 300 BPM - BUT creating music (not the most perfect, but still a melodious tune nonethess) with another musician.

Maybe it is just me …

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1. Stick Control by George L. Stone
2. Syncopation by Ted Reed
3. Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer by Jim Chapin
4. Accents and Rebounds by George L. Stone
5. Master Studies by Joe Morello
6. Musician’s Guide to Polyrhythms (Vol. 1 & 2) by Peter Magadini
7. The New Breed by Gary Chester
8. Portraits in Rhythm by Anthony Cirone
9. Studio & Big Band Drumming by Steve Houghton
10. Future Sounds by David Garibaldi
11. Realistic Rock by Carmine Appice
12. Afro-Cuban Rhythms for Drumset by Frank Malabe and Bob Weiner
13. Drum Concepts and Techniques by Peter Erskine
14. Modern School for Snare Drum by Morris Goldenberg
15. Double Bass Drumming by Joe Franco
16. The Sound of Brushes by Ed Thigpen
17. Bass Drum Control by Colin Bailey
18. Modern Rudimental Swing Solos by Charlie Wilcoxon
19. Patterns (Vol. 1,2,3,4) by Gary Chaffee
20. Buddy Rich’s Modern Interpretation of Snare Drum Rudiments by Buddy Rich & Henry Adler
21. Advanced Funk Studies by Rick Latham
22. Modern Reading Text in 4/4 by Bellson and Breines
23. Drum Wisdom by Bob Moses
24. Even in the Odds by Ralph Humphrey
25. The Drumset with Afro-Caribbean Rhythms (Parts 1 & 2) by Chuck Silverman