I Hit West L.A. Music with a friend today today for a Steve Gadd clinic. Sensational. Both the clinic and the conversation were greatly inspiring on so many levels.
Interestingly enough, I think one of the things I found so inspiring about the whole clinic was when Steve discussed the occasional need to get outside of his own head, describing his brain as “a rough neighborhood. It’s not safe to go alone.”
He also shared his view on minimalism and variation. He’s fascinated with taking something very simple, and exploring how many various ways it can be experienced.
On a mechanical note, Steve shared a particular sticking pattern that he says he’s gotten lots of mileage on over the years due to its flexibility. Jon and I went over it over a couple pops afterwards. It’s a 16th pattern, and goes like this:
R-RL RRLR LRRL RRLR
A variation is this:
R-RL RRLR LRRL RRLL
Notice the double stroke at the end.
Gadd demonstrated how useful this is by playing it across the drum set, over a samba pattern played on the feet.
Played this one on the way home. Start by feeling the Rights as accents, then start moving the accents around. Try different drums, or as was in my case, the steering wheel and the dashboard.
R-RL RRLR LRRL RRLR
R-RL RRLR LRRL RRLR
R-RL RRLR LRRL RRLR
R-RL RRLR LRRL RRLL
I know what he means!
After the Gadd clinic, Jon and I dropped in to 14 Below on Santa Monica Boulevard for a couple pops and some conversation. I was just cleaning out the pockets of my shorts this morning and found the bar napkin Jon used to jot down the basic sticking. He first wrote it down as an eighth note pattern illustrating the accents, then as a sixteenth note pattern with both hands:
*This includes the second note, which Gadd actually eliminated in his demonstration.