“Stro’s Place” Drum Play Through

Here’s another cover video following the flavor of my last. This tune is another Steve Fidyk track called Stro’s Place from his Big Band book.

It’s a hard swinging twelve bar blues full of all the big band glory that you would want and expect. It’s not a particularly wild or challenging drum arrangement. As with any big band playing, it’s more about keeping solid time, moving the band forward with momentum and foreshadowing the band’s hits.

I decided to work through this track for one reason, my low tempo swing time is pretty lame. It’s wonky. It’s closer to the front of the beat one moment and closer to the end of the beat the next. As always, it’s a work in progress, always under construction.

One lesson I took away from this (which ended up being somewhat of a holy moment) was the answer to my original question of how exactly does my swing time get better? Of course this question was already answered by Dave King years ago, and I of course already watched his video, and I of course never listened to his advice because I’m an idiot. I’m unsure of the video (otherwise I’d link it here) but he said something to the effect of, take away everything on your drum kit except the hi hat, ride cymbal and throne. Let the body only focus on the swing and how it sits on top of the 2 & 4 stomp with the hats.

I never stripped away the kit, but I knew that in playing this track my attention would be on keeping time, playing ad nau·se·am that ching a ling with a 2 & 4 stomp, producing the same effect from King’s suggestion.

And of course the other take away from this venture would be just to listen to Dave King in the first place when he says you ought to do something.

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