Article about John Pochee

Here is an article about one of the great Sydney jazz drummers, John Pochee. I'm glad to hear that Bernie McGann's Bundeena and Ten Part Invention's Unidentifid Spaces are two of the albums he is most proud of, I love those albums.  http://australianjazz.net/2014/03/john-pochee-part-of-the-music-by-john-shand/

Advice for free!

Some of the important things I've learnt over the years, things I've done which I recommend, and things which I wish I'd done when I was at school:

Buying a Glockenspiel Pack

For those that need to buy a Glockenspiel and practise pad pack:

The Optimum Glockenspiel is a product offered at Optimum Percussion, Burwood. It includes a Student Glockenspiel, pair of drum sticks and glockenspiel mallets, a stand, a practise pad, and a bag.  Cost: $249.
Click here for information on this pack, click here for Optimum Percussion's address and contact info.

Trinity Grades

This year some of my students are working on the Trinity Guildhall examination material.  Click here if you want to read about it, although you don't necessarily need to. It's an alternative to the AMEB, similar type of program but more widely recognised around the world and the percussion resources are better.

Lewis Nash Jazz Drumming workshop

Here are a few videos worth checking out for students interested in jazz, by Lewis Nash. He's very eloquent, he plays a bit, and it's a good explanation of this approach to playing the drums. He mostly talks about playing in an ensemble, being supportive, etc, it's a chops free zone.

Holding the Sticks (Gottlieb video)

Here's a video of Danny Gottlieb, a student of Joe Morello.  One of my teachers, Jim Piesse (who is excellent, by the way), was also a long time student of Joe's and my approach to technique basically comes from that tradition.

The video is one in a series, this one is a good demonstration of holding the sticks.  I've posted it because I've been talking about this with a couple of students, it reinforces what we've talked about. 

Gdansk

A video of "Gdansk", for those of my students that are learning it...