Exposition
Swinging On The Shoulders Of Giants (2025)
Jacob J JohnsonAbout this exposition
This work is intended for those who want to learn more about the methods and arranging techniques that can be used to play the same composition in different ways and how to arrange one's drumming within jazz music. This work is not only aimed at drummers. All the concepts, methods, and analyses I present in this work are also applicable to other instruments.
The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between transcription and creative improvisation in jazz drumming. In order to fulfill this aim the following research questions where formulated:
In what ways does transcribing and analyzing my favorite drummers' playing enhance my musicality and personal musical voice?
What characterizes the idiolect of these four drummers?
How does an established jazz drummer accompany a soloist, and is it possible to hear a clear interaction in their playing with each other?
How does my comping and solo playing develop through the process of transcribing and emulating the performance of these iconic drummers?
In this master's thesis, I have chosen to analyze how four different jazz drummers play the same composition. The song I have selected is one of my favorite jazz standards, titled You & The Night & The Music. This is a fairly well-played jazz standard with several different versions and arrangements.
The drummers I have chosen for this thesis are Gary Novak, Niclas Campagnol, Philly Joe Jones, and Jukkis Uotila, who, in my opinion, are some of the best drummers in the world. I have transcribed these drummers’ comping and solo playing, and I have also learned to play the transcriptions myself.
I have done this to analyze what I can learn from it and to absorb the knowledge and skills of these drummers so that I can apply them to my own playing. I have also recorded myself imitating and replicating my transcriptions. This was done to observe what I can come up with spontaneously when improvising and how I interpret and perform the same composition and arrangement as they do.
In this work, I have also analyzed the equipment that drummers use. I have done this to understand what equipment I need to achieve a certain sound or feel in a song. As a final step, I have recorded my own version of this song together with a jazzband to demonstrate my hopefully newly acquired knowledge and interpretation.
This work has developed my musicianship and has also expanded my personal musical toolbox, enhancing and improving my bag of licks. I have also gained a deeper understanding of how interaction works between different instruments in a jazz band, as well as how improvisation and interplay function between a soloist and accompaniment.
The transcriptions have also improved my technical ability in both my hands and feet, and I have had to practice intensely to be able to play some of the drum grooves and solo phrases that they are playing. My sight-reading ability has also improved, and I have become much faster at reading advanced drum notation. The work has also given me an expanded knowledge of the equipment drummers use and why they choose their drums, cymbals, drumheads, and drumsticks.
| type | research exposition |
|---|---|
| keywords | jazz, improvisation, transcriptions, drums, drum solo, drummer, notation, recording |
| date | 11/05/2025 |
| published | 11/05/2025 |
| last modified | 11/05/2025 |
| status | published |
| share status | private |
| affiliation | Luleå University Of Technology, School Of Music |
| copyright | © Jacob Johnson |
| license | CC BY-NC-ND |
| language | English |
| url | https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/3651928/3651929 |
| doi | https://doi.org/10.22501/rc.3651928 |
| published in | Research Catalogue |
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