Fix Your Funk Drumming, With This "Trick" From Jeff Porcaro and Bernard Purdie 

Clyde is the original ghost note king

Anything by Mike Clark but especially “Actual Proof” is a master class in ghost notes, syncopation and dynamics.

Thank you so much for your incredible content. So many RU-vid drummers just post shorts showing how good they are and tell their audience to "get good." You provide an actual structure and steps one can take to achieve the desired sound and learn the desired techniques. I really appreciate your humble approach to the instrument and pedagogy. No doubt you are encouraging fellow drummers to work to improve rather than discouraging them with unrealistic braggart showmanship.

I feel like the meaning of "Ghost note" has changed over the years. I was trained that a ghost note should be more felt than heard. Today's ghost notes would be considered just soft notes, or P (piano), about the same volume as the HH, and heard even with the band playing. I also remember one of my teachers playing them closer to the rim to make them sound softer and thinner. Music is always evolving.

Thanks for the overview Nate. Porcaro is my favorite. The feel he had is readily identifiable yet difficult to replicate. Garibaldi's influence is underrated/underappreciated, I agree!

13:03 or you lose it... it depends on the gig! here are some anecdotes and a slight opinion; my excuses for the rant beforehand: I play more in rock/pop environments and they strongly dislike anything outside the backbeat because it "makes the band to get lost" and they take it as mistakes instead of "groove and funkiness". I have kinda fought with bandleaders and sound guys live and in studio because I "play the snare (and the bass drum) too busy" and I have lost some gigs because of that (I believe that's the reason they don't called me again). Now, some of the gigs I've got were I had the opportunity to play with bigger cats I made it because those exact reasons, because in their words my language sounds more "groovy, funky, mature" than the other drummers they've auditioned before, but then as the time passed by I fell short because they expected that same "maturity" with my repertoire and reading abilities and I have to say it I'm not a jazz nor funk musician! I play friggn' heavy metal and vallenato (as someone raised in La Guajira, Colombia) but usually in those environments they don't like my style of playing. One "issue" is that at college, in music school, I had to play everything funk! from Rick Latham to David Garibaldi note by note, from the last page to "page one" (see what I did here hehehe) and that sht is friggn' engrained in my "muscle memory" and I can't just unlearn it! the moment I start thinking about "not playing syncopated, grace and ghost notes" I get tense and my playing get sterile with no dynamics or whatsoever and it just sounds worse than an amateur. The situation came to a point that I'm currently "unlearning" those vices by teaching myself to play 100% lefty (but in my righty set up) I mean, leading everything with my left side, open handed, kicks with the slave pedal and basically cancelling any ghosting and gracing my other side wants to perform. Syncopation has been harder to cancel but still harder to perform as a lefty since I'm 700% righty and it takes a little bit more of mental processing to indicate my left side to go out of its way without breaking the "simultaneity of the limbs" with my feet more than anything. I don't know if this lefty experiment will lead me to somewhere out in space but I hope it will open me opportunities to play in places where I need to perform more normal and straight up stuff. Sure it will change my current style of playing, for better or for worse.

congrats on 100k man!

More amazing techniques, great stuff Nate

Great job man. Using this video today. That’s how u get the gig. U nailed it. Thank u.

Awesome Lesson Prudie Favorite Thanks Nate

Brilliant

We love you Clyde

THANK YOU DRILL SERGEANT! MAY I HAVE SOME MORE ! 🥁💪😎

Though I did play them, I became aware of what they were from the Rod Morgenstein instructional video "Putting It All Together".

Gracias

Nice music!

I listened to them since 90s

I must be a weirdo for thinking James Gadson was one of the top OG’s of ghost note seasoning and spices. Like at least state law to give an honorable mention. 😹😅

3:18 Jeff played also a ghost after the backbeat - which makes it even harder cause of the huge difference in dynamics

2:41 ig even the third partial of the triplets on the hats are also ghosts just from a different corner of the kit

ooooh YEAH

🎉🎉🎉

Bonham is king. He can do it all with groove. Maybe not as technically sound as others, but is there a Zep tune that doesn’t have the perfect groove?

Thanks for all of your videos. Really nice job and great selection of these important players. However, it appears that you omitted the very important middle ghosted snare note (the "trip") immediately after each backbeat on the "Rosanna" groove.

Garibaldi gets TONS of credit. He has won the Modern Drummer Best Funk Drummer category a record 9 times which is almost double anyone else. The solo at the end of this video is EPIC ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Wh9BlY4ofzw.htmlsi=gWH7xVJTThrBRB6p

💪🙏⚖️⚙️

Real men play all of the triplets including the one before the back beat ;) Love you anyway

MEET YOU ALL THE WAY

Two things - Has the term "event horizon" ever been used before in relation to a drum technique? 😂 Second, Jeff himself said it's the "Bo Diddley" beat on the bass drum in Roseanna, not a clave, per se. Even though they're essentially the same thing... 🤘😗

Neither of these icons have monster chops. They played for the music.

Ghost notes are rebounds that happen naturally.