It went from hoodie to jacket here all of a sudden. It's almost hoodie in the sun, jacket in the shade but not quite. Winter is knocking. I will answer the door but will only talk with it at the entrance. Not quite "please come in" level yet. Autumn is still hanging out at our place.

There is a drum beat called a Half-Time Shuffle. Lots of drummers crow about the difficulty of this beat. I will pause as you go look it up on Youtube or wherever.

[hold music]

I decided to get my head around this beat. When I stripped away all the ornaments and mythology around it (ghost notes, shuffle, clips of legendary 1970s drummers, etc.), it wasn't so daunting.

Pattern

RLR RLR BLR RLR
K

R = right hand on Hi-Hat
L = left hand on Snare
B = R an L at the same time
K = kick drum

Approach

1. RLR is the easy part. BLR is the tricky part. I worked on those two for a while separately.
2. Looped RLR RLR. Fun to zone out and do that part for a while.
3. Looped BLR RLR. Found it less tricky when you start with the both hands part.
4. Looped RLR RLR BLR RLR. Did this veeeeerrrrrry slowly at first. Let my mind and hands get used to when success sounds and feels like. Then ramped up the tempo.
5. Added the kick.

Tips

• Every L should be a ghost note. Didn't worry about that.
• This should be played with a shuffle feel. Didn't worry about that either.

Getting the beat up in the air is more important than making it shiny. I can polish it up later when the muscle memory is solid.

Beats like these are legendary for a reason. I may never use it for anything but the skills needed to play a beat like this level up my playing forever. Not a lot of chances to use half time shuffles in punk songs, but that "BLR" section in this beat is effing genius. It's one of those patterns that can reset your hands back to normal if you drum yourself into a corner.

Ruminating on what my New Years resolution is going to be for 2025. Usually it is some sort of drum resolution. Last year it was to learn Jazz drumming. Did it for a solid month and it was an incredible feeling when I got a beat off the ground.

This year I was thinking of doing something like "for every album older than X, I have to listen to something that came out in 2025".

This is subject to change but fun to think about.

I have an  Apple Shortcut I run every morning cleverly named "Morning". When it is clicked, it sets me up for a new day. It chooses random dumbbell exercises. It chooses a random drum rudiment to focus on for the day. It chooses a random grammar pattern to study in Japanese for the day. It also prompts me to write one sentence for a One Sentence Journal.

Everyone's routine is different, so yours will be different. The shortcut recipe I lean on for this is this:

1. Add a text file to Shortcuts.
2. Fill the file with a bunch of things you want to randomly select from.
3. Put each thing on a separate line.
   In a new shortcut, add a Get file from folder action and point it to your text file.
4. Add a Split text by new lines action.
5. Add a Get Item From List action and set it to random.

The text files are so light and easy to mess around with. You can create an infinite amount of them. I use this pattern a lot to randomize daily things so notifications don't become monotonous.

Set up a Pomodoro timer called “Mini-Tomato" that is 10 minutes cleaning up files on the laptop and 10 minutes cleaning up the place.

Unnecessary, inefficient, and fun.