Thomas Lang bends time ⏱️ · Ludwig's 8x14 brass crack 🔩 · own one sticking, not ten 🔁 · Domino does ABBA 🪩

@Owen Jackson

Session drummer Owen Jackson locks into a Bruno Mars groove on his latest reel, showing off the pocket that's earned him gigs with Carlie Hanson and Social Cig. It's a short, sharp reminder that clean feel travels further than flash. Worth a follow if you like watching session players do the unglamorous work well.

Domino Santantonio takes on ABBA's Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! at Thomann's Drum Bash, and the disco pulse gets a serious upgrade in under a minute. She locks the four-on-the-floor pocket while peppering in ghost notes and hat work that give the track a modern snap without stepping on its Eurodisco DNA. A tight little study in taste over flash.

Terence Higgins pulls up to the Broward Center with Gov't Mule and cuts straight to the metal: yes, that's a brass snare cracking through the jam-rock roar. In this short clip from Modern Drummer's Tour Kit Rundown with David Frangioni, Higgins shows off the shell anchoring his current live sound.

The pick matters because of who's swinging the sticks. Higgins carries New Orleans second-line feel into arena blues-rock, and brass gives him the cut and warmth to translate that touch through a Mule-sized PA. A small window into a bigger conversation about tuning, feel, and how a snare choice shapes your whole approach when the gig is nightly power.

Ludwig's 8x14 Universal Brass in chrome is a deep, fat crack built for punishment. That extra inch of depth over the standard 6.5 pushes it into rock territory: wider tuning range down low, more body under the crack, and a dry authority that sits in a mix without much EQ help. Brass splits the difference between the warmth of bronze and the cut of steel, and Ludwig's 2.3mm triple-flanged hoops keep rimshots musical rather than clangy.

Priced well under most boutique brass options, it's a serious main snare, or a confident second, for anyone chasing more weight from their backbeat.

Thomas Lang solo footage from a recent festival appearance, and the piece is a study in exactly what the title suggests: time. Watch how he sits in the pocket, then nudges it forward, drags it back, and snaps it right back to center while his hands and feet run independent lines underneath. A rare four-limb showcase where the flash is a byproduct, not the point.

Worth sitting with if you're working on your internal clock or genuine independence. Play it once through for the performance, then loop sections and try to sing the pulse against what he's actually doing. That gap between his groove and your counting is where the study begins.

@LEO USINGER

Leo Usinger's latest reel makes a case worth taking seriously: stop hoarding new patterns and start owning one deeply. His pick for the day is a six-stroke-family sticking, RLLRLRLL, and the whole lesson lives inside how you internalize those eight notes.

Say it out loud before you play it: right, left-left, right, left, right, left-left. Loop it as a single continuous phrase, not two halves stitched together. Start slow enough that every note sounds identical, around 70 to 80 bpm as sixteenths, and only push the tempo once the doubles at "LL" match the singles in tone and spacing. From there, move the pattern around the kit. Keep the sticking locked and let your right hand walk from hi-hat to floor tom while the lefts stay on snare. Then flip it: lefts orbit the toms, right anchors the snare. Add a kick under every right, then under every left, and notice how the accent picture changes without you changing a single hand. The common mistake is rushing the doubles and flamming the following single, so if it stops feeling glued, drop the tempo ten bpm and rebuild.

One pattern, endless variations. That's the whole pitch, and it's a better use of a practice hour than skimming ten new licks you'll forget by Friday.

@Pavel Mamonau

Pavel Mamonau's Brazilian batucada breakdown gives you a four-limb framework you can drop into a practice session today and immediately start improvising over. The idea is simple: build a Rio-street-festival pulse on three limbs, then let the snare hand play.

Here is the layout. Bass drum walks four on the floor, steady quarters, no ornamentation. Floor tom lands on 2 and 4, giving the groove its surdo-style downbeat weight. Hi-hat foot moves in unison with the kick, but opens on 2 and 4, so every time the tom hits, the hats splash with it. That leaves your snare hand completely free to improvise. Start slow, maybe 80 to 90 bpm, and get those three ostinato voices locked before you touch the snare. The common trap is rushing the tom hand and letting the hat foot get lazy on the openings, so isolate the left foot first and make sure it truly opens and chicks cleanly on 2 and 4. Once the base is glued, add snare: try sixteenth-note conversations, ghosted buzz strokes, syncopated accents pushing off the "e" and "a." Think call and response against the tom. Apply it over any samba or partido alto track you like, or just loop it against a metronome and see how long you can improvise without repeating a snare phrase.

The takeaway: three limbs hold the party, one hand tells the story.