WELCOME TO FOUR ON THE FOUR: A BLOG ABOUT JAZZ DRUMMING AND ALL THINGS UNRELATED, BROUGHT TO YOU BY JON McCASLIN

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Mark's Blues














This little ditty is a simple and catchy snare drum cadence that I learned and played while marching with the Pride of Lions drumline back during the early 1990s in Regina, Saskatchewan. We would use this 4-bar phrase (or 8-bars if you are thinking in 2/4….and not actually a "blues" incidentally!) as a street beat during parades and as a stock, catch-all drum pattern that fit perfectly when accompanying band pieces for football games, etc. ("Green is Colour" and "On Roughriders" immediately come to mind!)

Lately I've been using this as a quick and easy warm-up, with sort of a funky and quick-and-dirty Wilcoxin vibe to it:






Unless otherwise notated, play this with natural, hand-to-hand stickings.

Btw - does anybody know who "Mark" was or why he had the blues?

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