Legendary drummer Billy Cobham is launching “Billy Cobham’s Guide to Stress-Free Drumming,” an all-star Zoom masterclass series featuring live coaching, from April 11 to December 19. The series is presented by Stages Music Arts, a Baltimore-based music school and recording studio.
The series will consist of 10 three-hour drumming workshops hosted by Cobham and featuring a group of acclaimed jazz and fusion drummers as guest coaches—including Will Calhoun, Dennis Chambers, Dom Famularo, and Gary Husband.
Each workshop will focus on one Cobham composition as an example of the concepts being discussed in that workshop. Participants will be provided with a PDF transcription of the composition and audio files of the song with and without drums; they will submit recordings of themselves to receive feedback from the course leader and his guests.
Classes are limited to 30 participants.
Visit Stages Music Arts’ website for more information.
Over a professional career that has now lasted more than five decades, Billy Cobham has collaborated with an eclectic range of high-level artists, from Miles Davis, Michael Brecker, and Ron Carter to James Brown, Peter Gabriel, and Carly Simon. In 1971, he co-founded one of fusion’s greatest bands, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, with guitarist John McLaughlin. He has recorded nearly 40 albums as a leader, the most recent being 2019’s Crosswinds: Time Lapse Photos.