An autoethnographic experiment in learning

A new blog: http://jazzdrumtranscriptions.blogspot.com/​

This blog hosts transcriptions, charts, and drumbeats that I'm learning. It is part of an autoethnographic experiment in learning: learning by ear verses learning from instruction books. The notation is a record of this process. I still work from Syncopation and Stick control. I still take lessons. But I'm working a lot less from "how to drum books".

My thesis is this: that which we struggle by ear to learn will "stick better" and be easier to recall in performance because it engages our auditory, kinetical, and visual senses differently. From ear to hands, not eyes to hands is a different cognitive path. The finer points of musical interpretation cannot be notated. How would you notate quarter notes as played by Tony Williams or Terry Clarke and capture all the nuances of execution? You can’t. I will spend the next year on this project and see what happens.

Best regards,

David​