(drum music) – You know, there's a race
to outdo the guy next to you. And this guy can do this, oh, I have to do that plus,
plus something else. And that's a very
unmusical way to go about doing anything behind
any instrument. Make things simple,
try to take words out. My thing's based on
subtraction and simplicity. I think I'm done, I
think I'm done here. – No, you've said
that three times now. We have lots of time left.
(jazz music) (host applauds) – Yes! Seriously, I love my job! – Thank you, good night! – Ladies and
gentlemen, Tommy Igoe. I can't believe
you're on Drumeo. Man, for years.
– For a long time. – For a long time,
we tried to do this. For years, I've been
studying your stuff. Me and Dave always talk about, about this inside of Drumeo,
with all our lessons. – Well, that's all I have
to show you, that's it. That was everything in
one tune that I know. You're welcome. – And I can't believe
you're here on Drumeo. I seriously love my job. So thank you so
much for coming on. – Thank you for
having me, thanks. – So if you don't
know who Tommy is, you probably have studied in
his books, even unknowingly. He's the author of Groove
Essentials one and two, and Great Hands for a Lifetime. Both are excellent and
best-selling products. And also, we here at
Drumeo are going after you, and trying to, trying get
the best selling product (laughs) – You're coming for
me, good luck baby.
– I know, right?
– You won't believe what's coming out next year. I've got a better idea,
let's do something together. – Yeah, yeah, we'll
figure that out. So he's a huge personality. And all I know about
this lesson is the title. Because he's just missed,
he just likes to go for it. So what songs are
you playing, Tommy? I don't know, what do
you want me to play? So he played on the
Broadway Lion King, Birdland Big Band in New York. You have Tommy Igoe's
Groove Conspiracy. – That's in San Francisco.
– In San Francisco. And so you've got, you're
always doing something. And as well as
teaching privately.
– Yeah, yeah. I have like four bands that are
running currently, you know. I just did a tour with the
United States, the South, the East Coast and
Midwest with a band called the Berlin All
Stars, which is half a band from the West Coast, half
a band from the East Coast, with a live, with a live painter
onstage with us painting. You know, so we would,
so this is how I roll. I never get, I
don't plan anything. I think the best
stuff comes from fear, danger, and improvisation.
So the band doesn't know
what we're gonna play before we go on, and, you know, if I call a set list, it's
90 seconds before the show. So the painter had no
idea what we were doing. So he would paint new
stuff every night. – That's great.
– You know. And then we'd, you
know, auction it off at the end of the
show and stuff. So it was really cool.
– That's super cool. I want to take a moment to thank the sponsors for this lesson. Big shout out to Yamaha,
all the people there, Shawn, Ryan, Kim, Omar,
and everyone with Yamaha has always been so
supportive of us. Zildjian, Vic Firth, Remo, definitely check
out those companies, they make some great products. You also should check
out Tommy online. He's, it's pretty
much @TommyIgoe for Facebook,
Instagram and Twitter. – You see the great thing
about having an unusual name, just look Tommy Igoe,
and there it is.
– You'll see it all. – Yeah, it isn't like, you know, somebody with like
a really, you know, Steve Johnson, or somebody
like you know, like– – Mike Davis.
– Yes, exactly, Mike Davis. There's a lot of Mike Davises. Steve Smith, there's
a lot of Steve Smiths. – If you like Drumeo, we'd
love for you to check it out. Go to drumeo.com/trial, you
can get a free seven day trial. We are streaming
live all the time, and doing all kinds of cool
things inside of Drumeo. With that said,
let's get into this. We've got Great Hands
for Groove Essentials. This is like the perfect title. – Well, we were
thinking about it, 'cause you know, we're
gonna do the thing tomorrow, and you know, so,
those two titles are kind of the titans of
their respective genres. So, how about we do, you know, 'cause one is not, they
relate to each other. And Great Hands is built
on a foundational technique that's rooted in relaxation
and musicianship.
And Groove Essentials,
at some point in every drummer's development,
you're gonna butt up against a technique
problem, almost always. You know, it's either gonna
be something over speed or musicality, dynamics,
you know, phrasing. So why not combine it together, because they are
completely related. – Yeah, and you have a, you
have a drum line background. – I do, I do. – You studied the
technical side, and then you also are a very,
very active player as well.
– Yeah, well, I mean my thing
is I am a player who teaches. I'm not a teacher
who also plays. I've made my whole foundation in playing and performing music. And that's, you
know, that's probably one of the biggest disclaimers
to probably put out. So technique, the
only reason I do single surface practice on a pad is to serve this instrument. Like I don't do anything
to just, you know, work on chops for chops' sake. Everything is built around
moving to the drum set. And phrasing on the drum set. And using your
technique as a way of expression on the instrument. You know. Now, a lot of people say that. But then they,
there's like a lot of, you know, this kind
of like beasty, you know, gladiator-esque,
who's got the fastest, the fastest gun in the West. You know. And that comes, you know,
we're getting to the point on our instrument where the
limits of human endurance, we're starting to
butt up against that.
It's like, when you look at like Rafael Nadal playing tennis, he hits the ball so violently. You might be able to get maybe
another half mile per hour out of it from some other
guy or something like that, but you know, we're
getting to the point now where guys are just, you know,
there's only one thing left and that's to set
the drums on fire. – They're doing that.
– Right, exactly.
You know, so technique has got
to be sort of a musical goal. And usually that has to do with what kind of music
you want to play. So guys who are playing
blast speed metal are going to have a
different set of goals than guys who are
gonna be playing jazz or funk or R and B. – So how do you balance this? And how do you know what
to do, and when to do it? Well you know, the
first thing you have to be able to do is play at all. And the thing I see a lot, especially with the
onslaught of social media coming at everyone
is that there is this kind of race
to outdo everybody. You know, there's a race to
outdo the guy next to you. And this guy can do this,
oh, I have to do that, plus, plus something else.
And that's a very
unmusical way to go about doing anything behind
any instrument. Now that's going on everywhere, but the drums, as
usual, are magnified. You know, we play
a very physical, violent almost
instrument sometimes, and it's very easy to get into
that gladiator-esque mindset. And, you know, for
me, that doesn't do anything for me musically. And music is why I'm here. So I only play with
other musicians. That track you just
heard, every single note was played by a real musician. That was just off
my last record, just took the drums
off, and I tried to not ruin it when I'm playing. But it was all, so
like the time moved.
It wasn't like a click. And it was very organic,
and that's what I am. And I know what I am. And like, so you're not
gonna see me giving lessons on playing double bass
drum, speed, blast beats on a death metal band,
that's not what I do. So you know, I know who I
am, I know what I offer.
And the fundamentals of
great technique I believe are the same for
just about everybody. Now where you want to
take those fundamentals, that's where we, our
paths start to change. But the fundamentals really,
having a healthy start to the instrument
I think is actually the key to being able
to play the instrument for decades healthy,
without injury. – So what are the fundamentals
of good technique. Well, if you, so I'm
assuming a few people have probably seen Great
Hands for a Lifetime. So Great Hands for a
Lifetime starts out, I don't teach Moeller,
or any of that, I'm not a proponent of
any name brand method. And I just gotta tell a
funny story about Moeller.
Now, Sanford Gus
Moeller, you know. So the Moeller technique
was always around, always. And when I was a kid coming up, I took lessons with my dad,
and a bunch of other guys, Dennis DeLucia was
my mentor and stuff. So all these guys in drum
corps, they were all, you know, you'd hear
the name Moeller, it would be like a thing. Oh the Moeller
technique, oh yeah, oh yeah, the Moeller technique. Right, right, you know, lift
and the whip and the thing. And now it's become a fetish amongst drummers who are like, who make it like a way of life. Do you do Moeller? Moeller. – I'm gonna put
that on Instagram. – It's like it's becoming like, well, I do Moeller technique. It's like, what are
you talking about? What is, what happened,
and I know what happened. The internet happened. And branding happened. And a couple of
famous drummers said, well I discovered this thing. And now I discovered
this thing in the 1970s, when I was five years old. And it's like, you
know, and it's like, oh here's the Moeller
technique, it's based on it.
And boom and that was it. Which is like a thing, it
wasn't like a way of life. You know. So the whole name
brand method thing is something I do not use. I use the whole whip
thing, you know, the whip and rebound
and all that good stuff. But there's only three
strokes in my universe. That's it. So I should probably
let everyone know my educational philosophy
is built on simplicity. And if you're trying
to make things simple, you actually take the
handcuffs off your students. Make things simple,
try to take words out.
My thing is based on
subtraction and simplicity. So in my universe, there
are only three strokes. Rebound, taps and
accents, that's it. That's all you need. So for rebounds, right,
if you're just looking, you know, without going
into ultra basic stuff, if you're gonna be
playing match grip, you have a fulcrum
here, three, four, five, stick goes down the palm,
you're over the top.
So if you look like
this, it's wrong. If you look like this,
if you look like this, if you look like
this, it's wrong. If you go like this,
nice, right here. Then you're playing right here. So the most, the biggest
mistake I see most people make when they first start
to physically play. If I said, okay, Jared
give me a drum lesson. You would say okay,
fine, you know. And I say show me
how to hold my stick. And you'd say, like
most people do, well you hold it here,
and you have a fulcrum.
And I'd say what is a fulcrum? All right, now at that point,
I lose 50% of my audience. And they say, a fulcrum is,
you know, it's a fulcrum thing. All right, well it's
an English word, it's a balance point on a lever. So a seesaw is probably the
easiest example of a fulcrum. You know, a teeter-totter. So here's your fulcrum. They say, I have a fulcrum
right here, and then I. (drum music) And then they use their
wrist and they go like this. Well, when you do that,
your wrist is the fulcrum, and you're not using
a fulcrum here.
Okay? So if you have to let this go,
and let the stick get away, the back of the stick has
to move away from the hand. Okay, and then that means
you have a fulcrum here. Okay, now your entire
body is made of fulcrums. Fulcrum, fulcrum,
fulcrum, fulcrum, fulcrum, fulcrum,
fulcrum, fulcrum. Every single one of your digits on your fingers is a fulcrum. You could go crazy
talking about that, but we don't need to do that. The point is that you
want to let things bounce inside this fulcrum here. So we're gonna use a
first class fulcrum, which is a seesaw,
which means you have positive and negative on
either side of the fulcrum. Positive and negative. As opposed to a second class
fulcrum, which is this. That's a door, a door opening
and closing on its hinge. That is a second class fulcrum. The door closes, the door opens. There's no negative, it's
only positive from the hinge. That's what we don't want. So if you're playing like this, and you're just doing rebound
strokes, eight on a hand.
Two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Just that, so that
exercise is literally the very first thing
I teach everybody. I don't do anything
like half up, down or anything like that,
all we do is bounce. Like bouncing a ball,
that's all that we do. (drum music) and we're looking for symmetry using match grip on both sides.
If you go into 12 o'clock,
it goes right here. You're on either side
of your 12 o'clock. (drum music) And you want the sticks
to sound the same. So here's something
that's not good. (drum music) So the left is completely
different than the right. Which is a totally normal thing, 'cause we all,
almost all of us have a dominant side, whether
it's left or right. So you're gonna work on the
side that's not dominant to get it as fluid and as
natural as the other side. (cymbal clanging) So after we do these
beginning exercises, the next thing we learn
is an accent exercise. And that's where the
Moeller group comes. Moeller, (makes
shushing sound) Moeller. All right, and you go, (hums) okay, we're not
gonna do that though.
All right, just
whip, just do a whip. Everybody knows what
a whip is, whip. Okay, boom. All right, now when
you play the whip, you leave the tip
down, you're set up for an unaccented note,
which is called a tap. Okay, that's all
you need to know. And a tap. So the first exercise is. (cymbals clang) Now, all these beautiful
natural things happen without even telling
the students. They start prepping for
their whip on their own. (cymbal clangs) Because the next note is loud.
So if you leave them alone,
and just say look at me. Look at me and look at you. Look at me look at you. And go back and forth. They start to
naturally start to lift on their own without
making an actual physical device
that you have to do. So again, simplicity
and subtraction. We're trying to get, technique
should be transparent. We're trying to
get our technique to be as transparent as we can. So anything you say,
on this instrument, you don't want people
to think wow, technique. Holy technique,
that's some technique.
Drummers think that
way, musicians don't. Drummers think that
way, musicians don't. And you don't want, you
know, that's a problem that we have a lot of times, especially with young
people coming up. And again, with social media,
they have different challenges than we had when
we were coming up. They are getting likes
from other drummers. Other drummers are leaving
very drummer-esque comments, and drummer-esque criticisms. And they're not a lot of
times musical criticisms. They're just more like, you
know, drumming criticisms.
And so drummers are, young
drummers are thinking very drumistically
and not musically. And you want to try to keep
it as rooted in the music. So that simple
exercise right there. So if you went to
the kit and you went, (drum music) It's pretty easy
to see how it goes to a four grouping
R and B thing. The second exercise is this. (cymbal clangs) The classic
push-pull, all right. When you shank, tip,
shank, tip, shank, tip. So we don't need to
overemphasize the
motion in the wrist because the student is
going to naturally see it. (cymbal clangs) So, and Brazilian,
which leads us to, this technique leads
you, if you go through the Groove Essentials, the
last grouping is world music.
And if you're looking
at a Brazilian thing, so I studied with a
Brazilian guy named Porcinio. And this guy, man, he
just kicked my butt, like in terms of like being able to play sambas and
Brazilian stuff. And he just had
this way of playing that was distinctly
not American. And I remember listening to it and being completely
hypnotized by the way. And he would just, you know, it's the same drum
set that I'm playing. But he got a completely
different sound out of it. And it got me so frustrated. I was like how does
he do that, you know. So I bugged him for lessons,
and he took me under his wing, and gave me some
lessons and stuff. And it didn't take very long
to figure out that it was much more mental than it
was anything physical. It's all, it was all mindset. And he plays like
a percussionist.
He plays like, you know,
he can pick up a pandeiro and go (imitates pandeiro), you know, so this
instrument has had all this color and depth. So, and he started, he goes
this kind of thing right here. (cymbal clangs) You notice that you're
doing a push-pull. But the stick is staying
in exactly the same spot. (cymbals clang) So you're not. (cymbals clang) It's a great technique. So in Great Hands we go through dynamic changes
and all that stuff. And you're looking
at stick height. (cymbals clang) So you can see that
it just stays there. (cymbals clang) (drum music) So that sound has gotta
sound shaker-esquey. Or pandeiro-y. (drum music) That sounds great, I know. So the idea of having
transparent technique, which is where we were going with all that stuff
in the beginning, and how does Groove
Essentials start us out, it starts out with simplicity. It starts out with
three strokes. And it starts out with
the idea of technique being transparent
behind the music.
So, there you are. I'm done. – That's it, we're
done for the day. (laughs) So let's go into, before
when you were warming up, you were playing this song,
and the song, you said, this is a song, a great song
for the left hand stuff. – Yeah, it was a shuffle. So that was actually a groove
I wrote for the Lion King. – Oh, really?
– Yeah. So the Lion King was written, some people might have
heard me tell this story. When the Lion King was written, I was kind of brought
on as a last resort. (laughs) Because
they were trying to do it with only percussion. And it didn't work. You know, because it's Elton
John songs with African stuff. It's not African stuff
with Elton John songs. So the backbeat of the
Elton John stuff is first, and then they layer the African
percussion on top of it. So, but with that
said, I couldn't play the drum set like a,
you know, a pop drummer. Every time I'd touch a cymbal,
or did something normal. – Yeah, drumming.
– Yeah, drumming, Drumeo-y, I would, they would stop
and say, hey man, no.
That sounds out of place. So we had all these grooves. And one of them was a shuffle. And it was, you know,
it wasn't really written for the drum set. So I came up with this, I
came up with this thing. And it was based on the drums. It was rideless. And you know, rideless grooves, rideless grooves
are not new, okay, so I want to make
that very clear. The way I'm doing it
on this instrument is a little unique, you
know, for my application. But drumless grooves
have been around forever.
I mean, rideless grooves. I mean the ride cymbal's a
relatively recent invention. You know, all
drummers used to play, that's why drummers used to
have fantastic press rolls. (drum music) They used to have to
play time like that. And then they had a
thing called a lowboy, before they had a high
hat, they had a lowboy. (drum music) And then my tumble blocks
and the whole thing, and the (shrieks) the whistle. – Have you seen that
video online of that guy pulling those chains,
that thing is awesome.
I would love to be
able to play that. Yeah it was like,
you know, those guys, either maybe a drummer
or a piano player for silent movie houses. They would just, you
know, they would have a, this is why it's
called a trap set, because it was a contraption. You know, it was a short
form of contraption. It was a contraption that
had like stuff all around it. First, do you know
what it was called before it was the lowboy? – Lowboy?
– Before the lowboy. It's now called a high hat. Before the high hat, it
was called the lowboy. The thing before that
was called a snowshoe. 'Cause it was two
pieces of metal, two pieces of wood, with
metal things on the inside. And they just used to
stomp on it on the floor. It was called a snowshoe. Snowshoe, lowboy, high hat, that's the evolution
of this device. – There you go.
– I think I'm done. I think I'm done here.
– No. You've said that
three times now.
We have lots of time left. (laughs) I was hoping you'd
play that song with the left hand
stuff, 'cause– – You want to do that?
– Yeah. – All right, sure. Let me show you
the groove first. So, I was playing the kind of
steroid version of it before. But it's a great little groove. And since we were
talking about technique. So the thing that we came
up with to talk about today. You know, so everybody
kind of knows where we're going with this. I hope everybody's having fun. 'Cause I'm having
a hell of a time.
– We have, we have a title. That's all I have.
– Yeah, we have a title. – When you said what
we've come up with today. All we go, this guy could talk
about this stuff for so long. – Yeah, I love
music and the drums. And I'm very
passionate about it. I could do this all day. – You're not passionate at all. – I'm not passionate at all. Well I mean, you know, I wake
up everyday loving what I do. So I'm a lucky, lucky person. And I want, my passion
comes from wanting other people to express
themselves on this instrument. You know, I want people to feel what artistry is like,
personal artistry. Like what it's like, you know. No matter what anyone,
anyone's goal is, it has nothing to
do with playing in
Madison Square Garden, it could be playing at the
pizza parlor down the street. With some friends or
something like that. Or just, you know,
whatever you want.
Just watching people express
themselves on this instrument. And me having any kind
of a positive influence on that really makes me happy. You know, it makes
me very happy. So anyways, so the title
was about how Great Hands meets Groove Essentials, right. So at some point, you're going
to have a technique problem. Everybody does. It could be as simple as this. You know. (drum music) Now, that's very easy
for a lot of people. (drum music) Okay, but some
people can't do that. And they can't go.
(drum music) they can't do that speed. Right, they can't, (drum music) we're gonna start out with, we'll just say one
group of 16th notes. (drum music) So their challenge is
going to be through, I'm not doing a commercial
for Great Hands, you can either get
it or you can't. But I do a thing and that, if
you follow Groove Essentials from the beginning, there's
something I bring in that's called check patterns.
And I didn't invent
those either, I didn't
invent anything. But I share what I've
learned with everyone. So, and I'm a big believer
in people inventing their own check patterns to
solve their own problems. So if you're, say you're a
drummer who can't do that. (drum music) It looks really easy
for some people. But some people lock up. They hear, they feel the
16th notes coming on, and before they even
get a chance to play,
their hands lock. Now that is not
technique, that's mindset. Because I say,
okay, let's do this. Do this with me. (drum music) See? Well, you can do it
with me too if you want. Everybody do this with me. Do this with your right hand. (drum thuds) Ready, go. And everybody can do that. (drum thuds) I've never had a student
yet once who didn't do that.
All right, and 'cause the
reason I'm telling this story is because this just happened. Literally just happened
before I left for the road. This student just was, like
they would be playing along, everything would
be fine, and then, whenever a fill came, the
wheels just came off the bus, and they, you know, were
weeping practically. Well not really, but
they were pretty upset. So I said, okay. And they said, I can't do it,
it's too fast, it's too fast. And the technique, my
hands, it's too fast! And I'm like, all
right, okay, well, you know what, let's take a
look at this, let's make sure. And in my head I'm like,
this is not too fast. But he thinks it's too fast. So I said, just do this with me. (drum thuds) Like this, right? And I said, do it
with your other hand. (drum thuds) Now you do it with that. (drum thuds) And then he stopped. And I didn't say anything. And he's just looking
at the snare drum.
And he went, oh my God. I went, uh-huh. I said, it's not your
chops, it's not your chops. And I said. And I didn't tell him,
but I took a video of him. When he was screwing
up really bad. And by the way, if
you have a phone, look at your phone and
hold your phone up. You probably think
it's a phone, right? It's not a phone. It's the greatest
single musical education device ever created by man.
– Yeah, because you
can get Drumeo on it. – Yeah, because you
can get Drumeo on it. That's really why. And you can actually make
videos of your realtime crappy performances
and analyze them. So the super slo-mo
is great for, I had one student who
could not play a left flam. Not a joke. He could do a right flam. (cymbal clinks) Right flam.
(cymbal clinks) And every time he
did a left flam, he could not get the grace
note down before the primary. – Really?
– He kept doing. (cymbal clinks) I've seen it all. There's not, anyone who
comes to study with me, you will never faze me. I have seen everything,
anything that you can do behind a drum set, and
there's nothing I can't fix.
Nothing. And so I was like,
and this is a very, this kid who was
having this trouble, he was a very visual kid. I think he had a
little ADD or whatever. Maybe a little dyslexia,
I don't even know. But I could tell
he was very visual. But he was obsessing
about himself. In real time, he couldn't
parse the information in his head to understand to get this hand to go down
before the primary. So I did super slo-mo. And I had him play
his right hand flams. And they were beautiful. And he saw the raised stroke, and in the super slow-mo
it was like, whack. And then he saw what
happened with this coming down before this one,
and it clicked in his head. And he never did it again. It was just a matter of
him making the connection. And it was up to
me as the teacher to speak the language
of the student. Not the language of the teacher. It is, the reason I'm
pretty good at this is because I am flexible enough to go inside the
mind of the person I'm trying to have a
positive influence on.
I do not have this, you
know, I don't wear a big T on my shirt when you
come in, and say, this is Tommy's room, and
you're gonna do it Tommy's way. I look at what I
have to work with. And I'll do anything
to solve the problem of the person sitting in
front of me at that moment. And using that super slo-mo was
what he needed at that time. So anyway, the kid
who couldn't do the, (drum music) he couldn't do that, right? So I showed him a
video of himself. And now this is why
I'm telling you guys this out there in Drumeo land. This is a really common
thing that happens, especially when people
are just starting to play, and they want to play
a little bit faster, and getting frisky with
their tempo on the thing, and they're trying to
get a little faster.
And they gotta play a fill. All right? (drum music) I'm already cooked, I'm done. This ship has sailed. Look at my shoulders. I'm done, that's what
this guy was doing. (sighs) In through your nose,
out through your mouth. (sighs) Shoulders centered, sitting
with your chest out, calm. And you do a drill. (drum music) The drill is when
you play the fill, the shoulders stay down and
you exhale through the fill. (drum music) In, out. Now for some people,
that is second nature. Now that's the last
time I ever want to have to say that again. For some people,
that's second nature.
Because that's why some
people can just sit down behind a drum set
and play really fast. Because they have really
fast hands naturally. All right, and you may not. They do, but that does not make
them great musicians at all. So everyone has
their weaknesses, everyone has their
problems to solve. So never look at the
other person and compare. And say, uh-oh,
they can, I can't. You have to take care
of your own house and do your own forensic
analysis, solve those problems. You'll be a much
happier musician. – Yeah, I totally agree. Every student is so unique. – Everybody, every human who's, anytime you express
yourself on an instrument, we are, we can make a line
right now of all the hundreds of people who are watching
this online right now. Everyone who's watching. If we made a line, right
now, behind this drum set. And we had people, every single person come up and play this. (drum music) We would have 100 different
interpretations of that groove. That's just the way it is.
Because everybody
has their own voice. Okay?
– Great, okay. You've gotta show
us that groove now. – All right, so the groove
is a left hand thing. And it's a shuffle thing
with the left hand. (drum music) So that groove, the
feet are really easy. It's just. (drum music) All right, and the
backbeat is over here, on the and of two. It's a syncopated one, two, and. And then the other
backbeats are over here. All right. (drum music) Now that looks, maybe it looks
easy, maybe it looks hard. I'm not sure what it looks like. But that sound. (drum music) So off center.
(drum thuds) And that's a shuffle, right? And so you have to, the
most beautiful thing about that is it has
to be consistent. (drum music) Now, it's in the middle. It's between swung and
it's between straight. So here's a dotted 16th. (drum music) (imitates drum sounds) And heres a triplet. (drum music) And here's an eighth. (drum music) So you have the two
spectrums right there. 16ths, the eighths,
triplets in the center. And then you move your
dial with your left hand. (drum music) and it gets that kind of swampy
New Orleans kind of thing. (drum music) You know what I mean?
– That's cool. So this is like, you
wrote this groove, and then you needed to have
the technique to do it.
And so then, and that's
when you determined what the problem is,
the forensic analysis– – Right, well I
didn't, and again, guys who come up with
stuff on their own, a lot of times don't
realize if it's tricky until some other
drummer has to learn it. So I wrote these grooves. And I didn't realize it was
gonna be such a pain in the ass, until I had drummers,
other drummers come in and learn Lion King. And they couldn't play it. And then we had, we
came up with variations and stuff like that,
and it was fine. And all the guys just
worked on their left hand, they took it as a challenge,
and then worked it up. But I didn't realize,
I was like, oh wow, like wow, that is kind of fast. But I didn't realize
it until it was actually happening at that time. But yeah, that groove came right out of the
Lion King experience. – So can you play that song? – Sure, it's the 87th groove. (laughs) The 87th groove in
Groove Essentials.
– How many grooves are there
in Groove Essentials again? – In the entire Groove
Essentials universe, between books one and books two, so Groove Essentials One
is groove one through 47. Groove Essentials Two
is 48 through 100. And there's hundreds of
play-alongs and all that stuff. And this is the 87th groove, and this is the first one
of the rideless grooves. And like I said, I didn't
invent rideless grooves, like. (drum music) You know, rideless grooves have
been around for a long time. But this is kind of cool,
because it's a different way to put it in a shuffle
with a backbeat in a pop song with
African stuff. How many times are you gonna
do that at the pizza parlor? I don't know.
(smooth jazz music) – Man, that was great. That was really cool. – It's a good workout for
your left hand, you know? – Very good, yeah. So, the other day,
we were talking, you said, and I think
we talked a little bit about technique now, right, let's talk a little
bit about the grooves. So we talked a little
bit about hands, talk about the grooves. So you said like,
Groove Essentials is like a make pretend book. What exactly did
you mean by that? – Well, in that it's
not a method book. It doesn't start at
page one and say, okay, this is how we're
gonna play jazz today.
And we're going to
split triplets up, and we're gonna do this, and you're gonna
follow this method. There's no method in
Groove Essentials. Groove Essentials is, you know, every page
is a full lesson. And it's written
in, there's a couple breakthrough ideas
in Groove Essentials, and all of them are
basically right on the page. And the fact that
it's a main groove with a couple variations,
a chart, and a song. So the entire thing is built on, and the play-alongs
were designed, and this is very,
very, very important.
Were designed to be
explored by musicians behind the drum set who
wish to be musicians. So there's nothing,
they're all real musicians playing on all the tracks. And it's, they're not quantized. So, like if you
listen to that track, if we just listen to that song, there's a lot of loose
things going on in there. And like so, just for example, let's just do that together. Let's just listen to this
music without me playing along. Okay, and we'll just hear it. (smooth jazz music) (imitates piano music) That is, (imitates drum sounds) and the guitar is,
(imitates guitar sounds) like, I don't even know what
the hell he's doing up there. He's playing. (imitates sounds) You know, and it's,
it's like what is that? You know what that is? That's glorious. For a drummer to come in
and be the unifying force. It takes this soup,
and just goes zap. And you put it
right in the pocket. 'Cause that was
recorded with me. So those guys were there,
so everything was cool.
But when you take
the drums away, you realize like,
they were interpreting where the beat was and stuff. So Groove Essentials
is a make believe book in the sense that you make
believe you are in a band. And it forces you out
of your comfort zone. Because nobody's
good at everything. We might have some guys
who are great at rock. Killing at rock. They can't play a bossanova
to save their life. They can't swing. They have a pretty
good funk beat though. They play a little
funk, a little R and B. They can't swing, they
swing like a rusty gate. – You pretty much
just described me. (laughs) – Well that's what you gotta do. – I'm not joking though.
– Well, you know what,
what I just described is most modern players. You know, we live in
a eighth note world. Everyone who's been born,
if you're listening to this, if you're under the age of 75, you've been raised in
an eighth note world. And what I mean by that is
you've had straight eighth notes shoved at you your entire life. Walking up the aisle
in a supermarket, you're hearing, (hums) you're hearing eighth
notes your entire life. And it's like that
around the whole world. It didn't used to be. You know, some of the world
that didn't have Western influences coming at them
had, like African music, or Indian music,
and stuff like that.
But you know, pop music
has kind of infiltrated everywhere now, no matter where
you go, you're hearing it. And with that
said, that is okay. Because we all, and this
is another big thing of mine educationally,
we all bring to the instrument our
gifts and our baggage. We all have gifts,
we all have baggage. We all have things
that we need to unload to play this instrument better. – What is your baggage then? – My baggage is probably
I have a too fertile mind. My baggage is I'm always
reaching for subtraction. Because even as I'm playing,
I have 52 amazing ideas, and I don't know
which one to pick, and I'm gonna play
them all, baby! (laughs) So that's my baggage. My brain is like,
it's quick, it's fast, and I have to be the
master of my brain.
I have to be in control
of what is going on. And I can't play
everything all the time. I have to just take one,
just take one, just one, those other ideas
will be there later. And when you're younger,
you think, holy crap, I'm gonna forget
this great idea, and it's never gonna come back, and I've gotta
play it right now. – My son, the other
day, he was trying to say something to me,
and I was doing something, and I said, wait, and he
said, well now I forgot it. Well, if you forgot it,
it was never important, right, don't worry about it. – Right.
– Okay. So you've got all these,
you've got all these grooves, you know, 100
grooves or whatever. Where do we, where do we start? And how do we know which ones, should we work on
what we're weak at, or should we work on, should
we make our strengths stronger? – Well, you start with,
I always recommend that everyone be humble.
Now this is a great,
this is a great question. – The first one.
– So, it was a great, listen, ladies and gentlemen,
Jared asked a great question. (audience cheers) – Insert all the laugh tracks. – It has happened. So no, that's a great question. So I'll give you an analogy. I have been into martial arts
for a very, very long time. And I studied for a
really, really long time. And I studied and got to
right underneath black belt. And then I stopped. In this traditional
Okinawan style. And then, I went away for
several years, didn't train. And I came back. And the sensei
offered me, he said, well, you know, we could put
a couple of white stripes on the end of your
belt, and basically, as you remember
what you used to do, and get yourself back in shape, we'll take the white tabs off.
And I said no, I want to
start over again at white. I want to start all the
way at the beginning again. And that was after literally
11 years of training. I started again at
white, at white. And he looked at me and
didn't say anything. He said, that's why I like you. And I think that, so when
somebody gets Groove Essentials, and they get Groove
Essentials One, that's what I've got right here.
But if get Groove Essentials
One, and starts at groove one. And groove one is this. (drum music) Okay? And some, and I've had
some people come in to me, and I've had like
professional drummers who come to me
for, well you know, they book a lesson
six months in advance, they're gonna be coming
through for some tour. I want to take a lesson. And we book three or four hours. And they come in,
and they can play. They can play, like
there's no doubt about it. They're professional
drummers and they can play. You know, they're
playing on a pop gig. It's some guy with a, you know, mega monster pop
person coming in. And this guy can play.
And he wanted to,
like, he wanted to dive into the deep end of the pool and learn my stuff
and everything. And I was just like,
all right, here we go. Groove one. And he was like, what? And he said, man,
I'm way past that. And I said, you just
showed me you're not. I said, you just
showed me you're not. And I said, I said,
I'm not past that. I said, I'm not, I am never
past groove one, ever. I said, groove one is where
everything comes from. Everything else comes from that. So I told a story
yesterday of Manny Ramirez, one of the greatest
baseball hitters ever. He hit off a tee, he hit off
a little league tee every day. To reinforce his stroke. Reinforce his swing,
to have center, so he knew where center was. So he always knew where his
absolute, his sweet spot. And he never outgrew it, ever. I had never outgrown. (drum music) There are guys who have
made millions of dollars because they play
that beat better than anyone else in the world. And there is a reason
why, there's a feel, there's a flavor for that.
So I recommend everybody
start with groove one. And that progresses through. And don't try to, like
play it and knock it down. You know, you record yourself. So you play groove one. So groove one slow. (funk music) And that's all it is. And it's like that for
four phrases of 16 bars. And when you put that up,
and I put it on Pro Tools. I put the track on the
bottom of Pro Tools, and I record their
kick and their snare. And then they see,
they see it goes, the lineups are like,
here's the track, and here's their kick,
it's like way early.
And it's supposed to
be right underneath it. And just that alone,
you're getting that, (drum music) you're getting that
weight on the one. It takes a lifetime, a lifetime, to be able to master
that, you know. So I always recommend
starting at groove one. And then as you progress
through the grooves, the first one that starts to get a little bit interesting
is groove 11. And groove 11,
it's a funk groove that has the first
syncopated off beat that's written constructionally from the actual
groove composition. (drum music) Two, three, four. (drum music) One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. So just that simple move
of moving the backbeat to the and the four throws
people into a complete tizz. Okay, right, and now,
right now at this moment, but there are people
who are thinking like, well, that's easy,
I don't know why anybody would have
trouble with that.
You are missing the point. You are missing the point. That may not be hard for you, but what's hard for you
may not be hard for them. So have sympathy for the
person who's having trouble with something
that's easy for you. And then hopefully
will have mercy on you when you screw up
in front of them. – Yeah.
– Okay? You have to be generous with
your, with your patience. Yeah, 'cause people have trouble on certain things,
and stuff, you know. So I recommend going
through each one. And then you go through the
funk and R and B grooves, those are always a lot of fun. You get the one-handed
16th notes going, and groove 17 is a
half time shuffle. And then, the wheels
come really off the bus when we get to groove 18,
which is the first jazz groove.
Okay, all right, and
there's five jazz grooves, they're slow and fast. And I'll be talking about those with Dave tomorrow,
and stuff like that. – Right, yeah, so Tommy's
doing a whole course inside of Drumeo for
Drumeo Edge students. So if you're not a member,
maybe now's the time. – Yeah, if you're not a
member, now's the time, because I'm gonna give
some of the inner secrets of Groove Essentials that
I've never told anyone before. The hidden–
– The hidden gems. – The hidden trap doors
that are inside the book. It's the best book ever written, and it's the most evil
book ever written. – Tommy, man, we are
already at an hour. – Get, what?
– I told you, I told you. Just like this. So what I'd like to do, can we, 'cause you have so many tunes
that you've been playing here.
I would love it if
you would just play like two songs in
a row or something. – Two, come on, come on.
– You can do it. – Come on, why don't
we talk some more, and then I'll do one. All right, all right, all
right, all right, all right. And really, there are so many. – [Jared] Well just
keep going, man, just keep playing.
– Stop it. Stop it, you're terrible. I could do two tunes, you know, we've been talking
about Groove Essentials. I could do two tunes
off Groove Essentials. – Yeah, whatever. – Or I could just save
those for tomorrow. I know what I'll do. I'm gonna do the five today. I'll do the five,
and I'll end with one of the monster clinic tunes. So this is it right here,
groove 93, there it is. So this is a great groove, and, I gotta give it up
for the musicians who play on Groove Essentials. Because those, Ted Baker,
VoShawn Johnson on bass, Kevin McKeon on guitar, Allan
Farnham on more keyboards, and Rolando Morales
Matos on percussion. These guys, the way we
wrote Groove Essentials, and again, this is another story I haven't really told anybody, is I wrote all the grooves
that I wanted to talk about.
And I basically wrote the book. And I had everything down,
but I didn't have the tracks. I wrote the grooves
and the variations. And I brought those guys in,
and we sat in a semicircle, and I pre-recorded the grooves. So I'd like play them down,
and I could loop them. And then these guys, we would
just come up with a bassline, and we'd come up with riffs,
you know, and stuff like that.
And before you know
it, like we did, they recorded
everything in a day. That's how fertile
their minds are. And I play piano too,
so I was playing piano along with them, or
I'd sing a bassline, or he would just come
up with something. So this, this is actually,
this bassline is all VoShawn. He just like, he's, he's bad. So he just came up
with this thing, and it's one of my favorite
tracks off of the two records. It's really, really cool. And we're in the process
of actually blowing it out for the Conspiracy, the Groove
Conspiracy is gonna play it. Yeah, it's really cool.
So I'll try to play this,
and if I make it to the end, you can say goodbye. – If you fall over and
just pass out, then. (laughs)
I call the ambulance. (funk music) Nice work, you did it. You're still sitting, awesome. Tommy, thank you so
much for this lesson. It's so great to
finally have you out. And you know, from
my perspective, I've been teaching online
for around 15 years. Teaching five years
before privately. So for me, just from an
educational standpoint, as an educator, getting to see
how you roll is pretty cool. – Thank you Jared, thanks. It's an honor to be here. And without blowing
any smoke at all, you've created something
really special here, and it's really great to see, and it's an honor to be invited. – Thanks man. So, just another
thank you to Yamaha. I see Ryan back there. You know, Cam, Shawn,
Omar, all the people at Yamaha Canada, Yamaha
US and Yamaha everywhere.
You guys are great. Remo, Zildjian, Vic
Firth, thank you so much. Make sure you check out
Tommy online, tommyigoe.com, follow him on Instagram, he
posts a lot on Instagram, which is really, 'cause
you kinda get to see behind the scenes,
and what's going on. – From the band, yeah, a
lot of stuff from the band. You know, live views
of what's happening, you know, behind the scenes when we do gigs,
and stuff like that.
– Yeah, so give him a
follow and check him out. And like I said, if you
want to check out Drumeo, we would absolutely
love to have you. There's a free seven day
trial, go to drumeo.com/trial. We're filming a bunch more
stuff with Tommy tomorrow, which you can check out. Especially if you have
Groove Essentials already, you know, it's something
you added to that book, you'd probably
want to go through. And it's free, it's a
free seven day trial. – Hey, it's free,
you can't beat free. – Well, it's for seven days. Then it's gonna cost you
a little bit of cheddar. Hey, thanks man. – Thanks for having me out, man. – I'm gonna step out
and, so just wait, just wait on playing that
song until I get out there.
(jazz music) (saxophone music).