February 2015 Issue – Volume 40 • Number 2

Odd Groupings Over Samba with Mike Johnston

Rock 'n' Jazz Clinic Odd Groupings Over Sama Combining Concepts for Creative Coordination Development by Mike Johnston What do you do when you have two things in the refrigerator or pantry that taste awesome by themselves? You put them together!…

Catching up with Prairie Prince

Catching Up With... Prairie Prince by Bob Girouard In the mid-’70s, the San Francisco–based band the Tubes came roaring out of the gate with over-the-top live shows, blistering musicality, and an outrageously satirical take on modern culture. Toning down their…

Greg Morrow

Features Greg Morrow Jason Aldean’s Rich Redmond sits down with the first-call Nashville drummer to trace his journey to the top of the charts. Every one of us has favorite players who have left a lasting impression on the way…

Basics - The Lindy Beat by Rich Redmond

Basics The Lindy Beat The Grooviest of Early Rock 'n' Roll Rhythms by Rich Redmond The classic rhythm we’re exploring this month has weathered the test of time since first appearing in the early twentieth century. The pattern is associated…

Chaun Dupre Horton

Features Chaun Dupre Horton The R&B and fusion vet, who’s put in time with Macy Gray, Natasha Bedingfield, and Tal Wilkenfeld, says it’s all about making meaningful connections—between song sections, between fellow musicians, and between past and future generations of…

February 2015 Issue – Volume 40 • Number 2

Hang Chops: The Other Social Media

Get Good Hang Chops: The Other Social Media Your playing skills are the number-one asset in your drumming career. That’s a given. But your ability to “hang” is a not-too-distant number two. Maybe this is a good time to make…

Catching up with Trigger Hippy's Steve Gorman

Trigger Hippy, featuring the Black Crowes’ Steve Gorman (second from left) and singer Joan Osborne by Jim Riley “You can make up a lot of ground when you don’t know what you’re up against,” Steve Gorman says to Modern Drummer…

Strictly Technique - Consecutive Flams part 3: Inverted Motion

Strictly Technique Consecutive Flams Part 3: Inverted Motion by Bill Bachman In the third installment of this series, we’re going to modify the exercise by removing one tap from the transitions. Instead of using a flam accent to shift from…

Creating Opportunity - Five Key Components for the Working Drummer

Photo by Miguel Monroy Concepts Creating Opportunity Five Key Components for the Working Drummer by Russ Miller This month’s column is about creating opportunity for yourself. Our quotation by the American author H. Jackson Brown Jr. describes the idea beautifully.…

Catching up with Terry Bozzio

Catching Up With... Terry Bozzio by Mike Haid Last summer, drumming innovator Terry Bozzio celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of his first drum lesson by performing his unique solo compositions on tour in North America and Japan. The sixty-four-years-young Bozzio, still…

The Julie Ruin's Carmine Covelli

Photo by Paul La Raia The multitalented drummer with a penchant for science and technology brings us the affirmation we’ve been waiting for. by Marian Li-Pino Carmine Covelli, drummer for Kathleen Hanna’s latest project, the Julie Ruin, has some very…

On The Cover King Crimson's Gavin Harrison, Bill Rieflin, and Pat Mastelotto

MD goes deep inside the reinvention of a prog-rock institution, which stormed stages around the country last fall with a raging new three-drummer lineup. Retrofitting four decades of genre-defining music for the seven-piece band took a lot of careful planning,…

Understand Indian Rhythmic Concepts

From left: Giovanni Hidalgo, Eric Harland, Zakir Hussain, and Steve Smith work out some high-level cross-cultural music on stage at the SFJazz Center, March 2013. Features Understand Indian Rhythmic Concepts Let’s get it straight from the start: There’s no dabbling…

Brittany Brooks

Up & Coming Brittany Brooks She’s spent the past few years touring with the R&B stars CeeLo Green and Kelis. Now the drummer says she’s more than ready for the next phase of her career. by David Jarnstrom Drummers for…

Get the Sound You Want From Your Drums! Part 2: Drumset Tuning

Shop Talk Get the Sound You Want From Your Drums! Part 2: Drumset Tuning by Dave Ribner Shortly after introducing the tune-bot electronic drum tuner in 2012, we were flooded with phone calls and emails asking how to tune different…