Jazz drumming in so boring

Hi Drummerworld. I'm a drumkit player and a very serious student of west African percussion. I eat jazz for breakfast, I love it and am drawn to playing it whenever I sit behind the kit, but don't really know how. I've gone through books, played along with all the classic tunes etc.
What I would like to know is how it works in a Jazz school, where do they start you out. What styles, what recordings. If any of you have been through a Jazz BA please let me know what you learn at the start.
Thanks in advance.

Yeah I just started trying to play jazz, Miles Davis and extreme Measures. It is pretty hard, even the simplest thing you hear is hard to play. I find it hard to keep the ride pattern going while also doing ghost notes on the snare. I need to do some serious work if I want to get good.

The problem with the original question here is that if you were to go to school for a BA in jazz performance, it would already be assumed that you know how to play jazz...they will make you better at it, for sure, and give you a deeper understanding and appreciation of it, but to get into a major like that, you have to pass an audition showing that you already know how to play.

So, let's take it back a step. There are three things that you can do to really learn jazz. In order from LEAST important to MOST important, they are: (1)personal study, (2) get a teacher, and (3) play with people.

It sounds like you have the "personal study" part down, or at least going well. Work on books (most notably The Art Of Bop Drumming), listen to recordings, focus on what the drummers do in those recordings, how they interact with the other musicians, etc.

The next two steps are so important, though. Jazz isn't something that you can just read, like other music. Having a teacher helps teach you not only how to play the parts, but what to think about and listen to when you play those parts. Find a teacher who knows jazz, so he can recommend good recordings, and then explain to you what is happening in them.

And, most importantly, PLAY with people! I believe that you can sit down and learn classical snare drum, rock beats on drum set, etc, on your own, then go sit down with musicians for the first time, and play really well. This is not possible with jazz. You have to play with other people to train your ears to listen, and prepare to react. Your teacher will teach you how to handle the drums, but the other musicians that you play with are the only ones who can teach you about group improvisation, listening, and the other unique aspects of jazz.

Thanks for all the feed back. The thing is I play a lot with a lot of people and spend a lot of time studying from books. My real question is in a the courses of Jazz any of you guys have done, what do they tell you to start working on eg. 12 bar blues, bop, swing, big band stuff etc. Truth be told I can't afford a teacher, so while I appriciate that a personal tutor is the best place to start I don't have that option, Boohoo! I was trying to find on the internet the syllabus for any of the big Jazz courses to no avail. I'll hunt down that art of bop drumming book for sure. P.s Garvin if you're in New York check this guy out myspace.com/bodekjanke

i think you can definitely find the books to work with (the art of bop drumming is way intense and the cd you can get with it is very helpful.) but listening to the melody and how the drummer is reacting is most important. for the longest time i cound figure what the drummer was listening to and it all felt so random. until i was hanging out at work ( a drum shop) and was told to check the main melody and it made sense to me. not that i can really handle any of it but i can see where the creativity is coming from.

rob85 said:

Thanks for all the feed back. The thing is I play a lot with a lot of people and spend a lot of time studying from books. My real question is in a the courses of Jazz any of you guys have done, what do they tell you to start working on eg. 12 bar blues, bop, swing, big band stuff etc. Truth be told I can't afford a teacher, so while I appriciate that a personal tutor is the best place to start I don't have that option, Boohoo! I was trying to find on the internet the syllabus for any of the big Jazz courses to no avail. I'll hunt down that art of bop drumming book for sure. P.s Garvin if you're in New York check this guy out myspace.com/bodekjanke

Click to expand...

If you're playing with a lot of people and reading from books, you are on your way.

I would start out looking for the jazz programs and checking bulletins and then calling the departments, City College or Queens of CUNY are good ones. Steve Fidyk has a sticky on Drummers and teaches at the University of Maryland. He just posted here yesterday so you missed your big chance. John Riley, Art of Bop Drumming is at Purchase and Manhattan School of Music. I think Univeristy of Arizona has a jazz drumming program. Check out Berkeley in Boston.

http://www.berklee.edu/departments/percussion.html

Here's what faculty member Mark Walker was doing this week:
http://www.berklee.edu/

Here is a College near me that has a jazz program. You will get a lot of theory, history, improvisation and playing, and go through chart reading, independence and styles. ou will need to know sanre drum: Albright, Firth, Cirone and will probably need to take a third instrument like tympani, mallets or latin. I would take some arranging classes if you are thinking about jazz as a career.

http://www.ftc.edu/Academics/aca_catalogs.php

see pp. 83-85

even with all the skill in the world......you have to have a feeling for the music....
in time you should'nt have to look at music sheets, you should just be able to sit down listen for about 20secs and just play....
an example of how this works for me is that i dont think about what i will do next...(only on a rare occasion)....people might call that stupid, but if your too up in your head you'll be caught off guard while youre thinking! sometimes i even close my eyes while playing.....so all thats in my mind is music

but you have to know your drumkit to do that....ive had bad experiences with rimshots!

Okay so nobody can answer my questions as to what styles are usually studied at the start of a jazz BA. Fair enough. Thanks for all the other tips etc.
Rob
myspace.com/wassawassawassa

You seem to already know your answer. If you have your 12 bar blues and AABA/rhythm changes down - you're on your way. Learn some piano and get a fake book or two and learn the songs that way. It's a great way to build your song library up and strengthen what you're learning from listening to recordings. Learning chord structures and the changes to the songs will make your understanding of each song so much deeper and makes remembering each song's form a more hands-on experience than some sort of brute memory.

This will/would get you a nice head-start in a BA but more importantly - if it's important to you - make you a better musician.