For months I've been looking for an excuse to do a lesson on Nate Wood. Medium-term fans of the channel will remember Nate was my interview guest last fall - another drummer who atomized me in a "shed" by appearing to think and play in four dimensions and making me feel repetitive and dynamically limited by comparison. But it was difficult to find a subject on which to base a Nate lesson - do I cover a demanding Tigran Hamasyan tune like Serpentine? Or do I break down his solo from Kneebody's Trite, which requires probably six months of training in cross-handed break-beat hi hat technique out-of-the-gate. The problem with Nate's playing is the "difficulty level" is so high, and it's so whimsical. There aren't really any "licks" to latch onto.
But I found something - Nate's penchant for expanding the barline on odd meters, and Ben Wendel's tune Backbou from his excellent record Frame seemed like the perfect canvas upon which to demonstrate.
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