I have no idea why, but as I sat here staring at a blank Word document, contemplating which angle to take for this month’s overview, the title of progressive drumming great Bill Bruford’s out-of-print transcription book, When in Doubt, Roll!, popped into my head. I didn’t even own a hard copy of that book, nor have I practiced anything from it, and yet…how apropos, right? In these crazy times, is there any other healthy way to react than to simply roll with it? As Bruford states in the intro to the book (which I’ve since tracked down), “This…is an attempt to describe how one drummer has managed to survive all the lunacy that goes with a professional musician’s life, and still retain the desire to sit at the drumset and play.” Bill wrote that in 1988, but as I and all of my gigging drummer friends have had our performing […]

July 2020 Issue