Drumming in Intimate Spaces

A New Clinic

Portland-Native Kurt Deutscher has made a career playing the drumset in intimate spaces, including major retail stores, restaurants, libraries, private homes, children’s hospitals, riverboats, and once on a rolling dinner train. He’s been honing his accessible approach to drumming for over four decades and has logged thousands of individual performances; many of them playing within arm’s reach of his audience.

This…

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Lessons For Jazz Combo

These are lesson ideas for pedagogues teaching jazz combo performance skills. If I were teaching a class to prepare students for the real-world challenges they’ll likely encounter on the bandstand as professionals, these would be some of the lessons.

1. Have the group set up in the middle of the space, in a circle with their backs to each other, and any…

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