Rehearsal today, and I am coming in with a triplet beat to share . I discover a lot of new beats to bring to rehearsal by learning from the past. Not copying the past. Learning from the past.

If I study some old technique, beat, idea, or pattern on drums, the same pattern occurs at practice when I am alone. I try to learn some old beat or fill as is, getting to about 50-75% close to it. Then my style gets antsy and wants some attention. I combine what I am trying to figure out with what I usually do, and it becomes a new thing I can do in my playing.

It happened that way with linear drumming. It happened that way when I tried to learn jazz drumming. It happens that way when I try to learn some legendary old beat.

Not being able to learn a beat completely isn't a fail. Coming out of a rehearsal understanding the idea or concept behind a beat is a huge win.

I can't play the half-time shuffle in the song "Fool in the Rain" note for note. My ghost notes noticeably leveled up from the fifteen minutes I sunk into figuring out the pattern. That's a huge win.

: RLR LRL (RLR is floor tom. LRL is on snare)

This year, I switched from storing individual notes in separate text files to a centralized system using Drafts and Dropbox. It's working so well that I am going to keep going with it for 2025.

The problem with my previous system was that I was spending too much time organizing and became anxious about the ever-growing number of files.

For my new system I need something that was as simple as possible. So I created a folder in Dropbox for each life context and set up a Drafts action to store thoughts with tags, dates, and locations in a single text file.

When I need to find something, using a text editor to search for information in a smaller number of files is so much easier. Using an app like nvAlt or Obsidian was working with the old way but the sheer number of files was making my brain hurt.

The benefits of this year's method is it's easy to find information in a manageable number of files. I've also been allowing myself to fix/tidy one or two things during each search session. That gives me that little jolt you get when you organize but I don't do it for hours like before.

I was hearing a weird voice mumbling something while I was doing some free-writing. For a second, I thought someone was talking loud through the floor, on our veranda or someone was talking on a mic outside.

Finally figured out it was someone on a Jazz album I am listening to is humming on the recording.

Watched a punk band, called Lolita #18, play their 35th anniversary show last night in Hibiya Park. It was around two hours, outside, and about 5°C / 41°F. Totally fun but my nose is paying the price today. I want to see them in a toasty live house next time. I am fancy like that.

It's weird how janky Shortcuts is at getting what you are currently listening to. I've never gotten the actual Music shortcuts to work on desktop. There is an option for getting what is currently playing with a Shazam shortcut but that doesn't give you the album name.

Shortcuts does run Applescript though. I did a little searching and found the script for getting what you are listening to. Very cool how quickly it grabs the result.

tell application "Music"
    if player state is playing then
        set currentTrack to current track
        set albumName to album of currentTrack
        set artistName to artist of currentTrack
        set albumYear to year of currentTrack
        set albumGenre to genre of currentTrack
        return "Currently listening to: \"" & albumName & "\" by " & artistName & " (" & albumYear & ", " & albumGenre & ")"
    else
        return "Music is not currently playing."
    end if
end tell

Getting this working is inspiring me to use Applescript more with Shortcuts in the future.

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.