Listening implants music in a person at a very early age. Listening is accepting all different genres of music—from ethnic to jazz, rock, classical, Latin, African, and everything else. This is when we really begin to understand the different essences of each style and genre. Drumming is rhythms, timbres, sounds, ghost notes, accents, and rudiments that we translate to a band or group—especially when improvisation is involved. God gave us an incredible gift. Our senses—ears, eyes, memory, coordination, expansions, and peripheral hearing allow us to listen to someone’s time and statement, and then accompany or improvise with them. Jazz kind of puts everything together. Sometimes, when you listen to piano solos from McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, or Joe Zawinul, you hear an exact phrase that you can play to copy their statements. They play it melodically, and we translate it rhythmically, using the instruments and sounds we have. It’s a […]

September 2021 Issue