??? You don't need no stinkin' DVD's! Everything Levon ever recorded is a "Lesson!" I've been copping stuff from Levon for almost 4 decades. Talk about tasty economical playing where every note really counts, nobody could touch Levon.

Man, just get the Basement Tapes, Music From The Big Pink, Martin Scorceses, The Last Waltz, and then listen and practice. Don't feel like you're missing out on anything because you can't find his 'instructional video' ... Levon left behind 50 years worth of recorded 'instructional material' if you wish to use it that way.

The man was a purely tasty finesse drummer. You won't go too far wrong trying to walk in the tracks he left in the snow. R.I.P.

The 'Key' to Levon is a raw, almost Nee-Awlins style syncopation and 'thinking in triplets'...

John

It's out of print - see this message at Homespun Videos from Happy Traum - Click Here

I have a VHS version I picked up several years ago that I'm starting to work through. Even though I've been listening to and playing the music of ze Band on guitar for a very long time, I'm pretty new to drums and find it helpful. But I don't know where you can find a copy of it - I did the usual searches and didn't see any copies for sale.

AMEN to that!

That's true...I have some of the recordings and the Last Waltz as well.

Oh okay! No wonder I couldn't find it. LOL... I'll continue to listen the recordings!

I don't know if you'll find this helpful... Levon used to leave a lot of 'air' in his licks and fills. He wouldn't play out every note as much as 'suggest' where the groove was by hitting the accents without the ghost notes. New Orleans Street Beat drummers do that kind of thing all the time. It really makes the music swing real hard. Levon would play a triplet run on the toms hitting only the accent notes... leaving out all the intermediate ghost/softer notes. He would tell you where the groove was by either accenting it, or suggesting it by what he was adding in or leaving out. Brilliant musician. His simplicity is deceptive. The man had a profound feel for the groove and he executed it with the power/energy and confidence of a Master.

Not as easy as it at first appears to 'cop' Levon. There's a lot going on in those deceptively simple, but right-on grooves. Lots of subtle stuff happening. The more you listen, the more you'll hear. The more you hear, the more you'll learn.

Levon was one of the best musicians I've ever heard, studied, or encountered.

John

In fact, that's one of the things he talks about in the video. I first saw Ze Band in 1969 and have been a faithful disciple all these years, especially of Levon's drumming, even though I was primarily a guitar player. But even so, I'm finding it very useful to listen to him talk things through.

Here are a few youtube clips from the video:

Anyway - I totally agree that Levon is one of the best musicians I've ever encountered. I hope they reissue this at some point - I think a lot of musicians, regardless of instrument, could get something out of listening to him talk about this. Not everybody gets the idea of 'space in the music'.

I just watched this DVD this morning.

> In fact, that's one of the things he talks about in the video.

I hope you guys don't mind if I ramble a bit, I LOVE talking music with other musicians...

One of the things I started to pick up on early in my own (self-taught) music education was the fact that; all of the greatest players/musicians had all seemed to arrive at a place where they believed, 'Less is more!'

As a young player who always wanted to show off everything I knew every time I played, 'less is more' was a hard concept for me to grok/understand. The longer I played, the more I learned, the more that concept of stripping things down to it's bare-bones components, opening up space in the music, emphasizing in your playing only that which feeds the groove, started to make more and more sense to me. After 50 years of knocking around on the drums, I now can clearly see the genius in the 'less is more' approach to music.

Levon talks about 'half-ing the time' in certain songs in order to 'open up' the music. Making only the hits that support or suggest the groove rather than filling the space with machine gun 32nd notes or pyrotechnic fills that only impress other drummers, playing with economy and taste makes the music stronger, much more powerful sounding... heavier. Less -is- more!

I can go on for hours about this. But if you really want to cop Levon... think; stripped down, swinging syncopation, triplet based approach to fills and accents only licks. Not as easy or simple as it sounds. It takes great musical judgement/experience to know what to add in or what to leave out. If you simply follow Levons licks, like I said earlier, walk in his footsteps, you'll soon 'get it.'

You'll be a better drummer and musician as a direct result of spending time studying Levon's approach to the drums. I know I grew from it.

John