Best books about percussion instruments according to redditors
We found 463 Reddit comments discussing the best books about percussion instruments. We ranked the 119 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 463 Reddit comments discussing the best books about percussion instruments. We ranked the 119 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
You could try checking out a book like Drum Programming (Music Instruction): A Complete Guide to Program and Think Like a Drummer by Ray F. Badness https://www.amazon.com/Drum-Programming-Complete-Program-Drummer/dp/0931759544
Hey there! I'd like to consider myself a pretty experienced drummer, so hopefully I can be of some help to get you started.
If you aren't too familiar with reading music, I would highly recommend getting Syncopation for the Modern Drummer . It's a great starting book for reading music and familiarizing yourself with common snare & bass drum patterns that can be applied to the drum set.
If you want to learn more how to play the complete drum set, which I'm guessing you'd like to do, check out The Drumset Musician . It provides a basic intro to coordination and ability to use all your limbs separately. (One of my biggest struggles when starting out was forcing my hands and feet to not do the same thing at the same time on the drum set)
Other than those books, YouTube will definitely be your best friend, so don't be afraid to use it!
Best of luck to you, and I hope you end up enjoying the drums as much as I do!
I think he has a fantastic set to learn on as is. Learning on a simpler setup like this will reinforce his understanding of the basics and the roll of the drummer as a time and rhythm keeper, but that's just my opinion, and my opinions are sometimes stupid. As far as upgrades go, if he likes rock and metal, a china cymbal would be fun, and bigger crashes never hurt. He'll eventually want a double pedal, but I recommend getting a single pedal down first. My biggest piece of advice though is to get him a copy of Stick Control for the Snare Drummer. I "taught" myself how to play for 9 years, neglecting the rudiments, and it really, really hampered my progression as a drummer and a musician. Stick Control is a must-have if you're asking me. I hope he has fun playing!
Edit: typo
You need to start counting rhythms. You don't need a guitar to do this necessarily. There are a number of books with written out rhythms to practice, such as Louis Bellson's Modern Reading Text in 4/4 For All Instruments, Ted Reed's Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer, and Gary Hess's Encyclopedia of Reading Rhythms. There are numerous ways to practice the rhythms in these books - counting the rhythm while clapping a steady pulse, counting a steady pulse while clapping the rhythm, tapping a steady pulse with your left hand while clapping the rhythm with your right while also counting, and so on. When I say "count" I mean count out loud. Your goal is to learn to keep your place in measures while accurately executing and eventually feeling rhythms.
You can also do these steps with a guitar in your hand. Just pick a chord - maybe one you're trying to work into your repertoire - and play the written rhythm with that chord while you're counting.
This will probably seem awkward and "unmusical" when you first start, but trust me when I tell you this is going to radically improve your rhythmic vocabulary and time feel over the long haul. This is the kind of thing band and orchestra kids learn as a matter of course and most guitarists don't get because we don't learn to read in ensembles.
Have a go at some Latin beats such as samba. Plenty of ride and Tom work and a real step away from what you've been doing.
If you are into sheet music, I've found some of Maria martinez's books such as below a good intro( includes cd) http://www.amazon.com/Afro-Cuban-Coordination-Drumset-Essential-Workbook/dp/0793597498/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1407509881&sr=1-8
Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer - Ted Reed
This is still THE book for drummers on all levels.
Try playing through this book, it's pretty difficult.
If you can spare the money I most definitely recommend finding a teacher. You will want to start with rudiments (they can be boring, but you'll be glad you did them in the long haul) and while you can pick them up from books, having a teacher giving feedback helps a lot. You don't have to stay with a teacher on the long-term, if you make it clear that you just want a solid base most teachers know what you mean and want.
If you don't have that money, these are three books I highly recommend to anybody who wants to play any percussion instrument:
http://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-For-Snare-Drummer/dp/1892764040/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
Description: This book is full of rudiments. Like ctrocks said: This book is evil. You will most likely both grow to hate and love it. Hate it for both how boring rudiments can get (to me, at least) and how hard they get. But love it for the results and seeing how all those rudiments advance your playing immensely. I suggest picking this up as soon as possible.
http://www.amazon.com/Accents-Rebounds-For-Snare-Drummer/dp/1892764067/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343162586&sr=8-1&keywords=Accents+and+Rebounds
Description: The 'sequel' to Stick Control. This book adds accents and even more difficult rhythms. I would suggest picking this up at an intermediate level.
http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Steps-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer/dp/0882847953/ref=cm_lmf_tit_5
Description: Don't let this book fool you. It all starts out really simple. But this is one of those books that really lays down a foundation you will be very grateful for. And when you're getting to a more advanced level, you will see how you can translate a lot of these syncopated rhythms to the entire drumkit. I suggest picking this up as soon as possible.
http://www.amazon.com/4-Way-Coordination-Development-Complete-Independence/dp/0769233708/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_c
Description: This book is very well named. You will want to grab this book after you got the basics down, imo. You want to work on the independence of your limbs as soon as possible, but not too soon. Yet again: rudiments. But now rudiments that require all limbs.
http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Techniques-For-Modern-Drummer/dp/0757995403
Description: We're starting to get into the bigger leagues with this book. I honestly don't quite know how to describe this book except for the word: challenging. Challenging in a very, very good way. I recommend picking this up once you're starting to get into a more advanced stage.
These books are for the basics, imo and in the opinion of many fellow drummers as far as I know. But don't forget: the books are merely tools. You don't want to be only playing rudiments, you'll go crazy. I tended to go for a trade: every half out of rudiments rewards me with a half our of putting on tracks and rocking out. Resulting in one-hour sessions a day. Hope this helps!
Edit: Feeling bored so added more books and descriptions.
Breakbeat Bible
This book takes breaks used in popular songs and breaks them down. A lot more in depth than a single sheet drum grid.
Reading rhythm is very simple and doesn't take long to learn. It will let you use drum books easily.
Transcribing takes time but is a valuable skill too. So many ideas have come from being at a show, counting out the beat with my hands and mind and writing it down and using it later on. There are many aural transcription programs available just for rhythm
Cheat sheets are great, writing cheat sheets is better
Do you have cymbals? Do you want lessons? Honestly I would go to craigslist and search up a full kit (look for decently kept pearl forums, tama swingstars, pacific x7, yamaha stage custom). If it comes with everything for $500 then great. You might have to spend around $100 for some new heads but that's okay. Then take that extra cash and get some lessons, stick control and a metronome.
John Riley: The Art of Bop Drumming
I would recommend reading.
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The Dance Music Manual. The producer (Rick Snowman) who wrote it has some solid credentials. Its presents the knowledge in a very approachable format and will give you a whole overview from construction of drums/melody/harmony to mixing to mastering.
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For drums you'll want Drum Programming by Ray F Badness. This book will teach you how to create drum progressions that catch attention and don't get boring.
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For synthesis, read SOS's Synth Secrets. Its free, and if you read it and try it out on a synth in your daw, you'll be well on your way to synthetic mastery.
If you can find a place, this is a great option because it is a low cost, low risk (like you said, what if you learn drums aren't for you and lose motivation - you don't want to be stuck with a bunch of expensive drum stuff) way to play on a decent kit. This is what I did for a long time before buying my first kit.
If you can't find a place or if you're insistent on buying you're own, I would look for a cheap used starter kit (high hats, snare drum, bass drum, maybe one tom, and a cymbal - should be able to get a decent kit for <$200) on craigslist or your local music store. I would not recommend a new kit, those will be significantly more expensive and you won't really even know what you're looking for in a kit anyway. I'm not personally a fan of electronic kits, but if you want to, try one out at a music store and if you'd like to learn drums that way, by all means do so.
Even with all this, I would still recommend that you get a couple of lessons. Even if it's just 1 or 2 lessons, it will really help you a lot to have someone to help you get started. The first time you sit down at the kit will be the hardest, and having someone to talk to and converse with will do wonders. If you can't get lessons, it will be harder but certainly not impossible. Remember that it's only going to get easier as you play more, so don't get discouraged.
This
If anyone is looking for more things like this. I bought this book a while back and it really helped me --- [260 Drum Machine Patterns] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0881888877/ref=oh_details_o06_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1)
OH, I'm an idiot. Sorry. Here are some good books -
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0692284087/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_3?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/089898890X/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_7?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1576236099/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_6?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
Also maybe just ask your band teacher to give you the basics in some off time?
> I'm teaching myself how to use a drum machine
Check out Hydrogen (I know it says for Linux, but it also works on Windows and OSX), which is the best free computer-based drum machine I know of. LMMS is pretty cool, too, but it's more geared towards techno. Still, if you want to make chiptune punk, worth checking out.
Drum Programming: A Complete Guide to Program and Think Like a Drummer is also an awesome book to program beatboxes (or Hydrogen) to sound natural. I used that, back when I had a guitar.
Coordination and timing are big obstacles to overcome, but the more you play, the more naturally it comes. I never took lessons until I could get college credit for them (roughly 5 years after I started playing), and most of that was so I could learn to read music and maybe pick up on a few things. The biggest help for me was the fact that I could learn by ear, so if I heard it enough and tried it enough, I could figure out pretty much any song I wanted to play.
I would definitely invest in Stick Control, even if you can't read music. It's easy enough to read and it's really helpful in breaking habits when you have to think about what hand you're supposed to be striking with.
Really, the most important thing is just keep playing. Tap along to the radio. Tap along to everything. The more you play, the faster you'll break yourself from coordination/timing issues and the better you'll be. /u/crabjuice23 suggested trying different genres of music. I 100% agree. Play along to anything you can. If you hear something you like but can't quite stick it, slow it down in your head and keep playing it until it's comfortable and you'll have it full speed at no time. Patience is huge.
Rudiments are a good place to start learning drums, as well as some notation / music theory. Here's some free websites that I use:
http://vicfirth.com/40-essential-rudiments/
http://www.snarescience.com/index.php
Around here, every one recommends Stick Control and Jojo Mayer's Secret Weapons for the Modern Drummer DVD, but I have never used them.
Music wise, I'm sure there's something you like that is approachable. A lot of Alt-rock like The Strokes, the White Stripes, Black Keys has pretty straightforward drum parts.
As for lessons, it isn't a bad idea to take even just a month of lessons to assist you in basic hand / foot technique as well as musical notation.
Good luck on your drumming journey!
I definitely recommend drum lessons if you can. Especially since you have no real knowledge of drumming, this will help immensely. Someone to tell him "No, hold the stick like this" will help in the long run and save him from making habits out of bad technique. This doesn't mean that he can't learn by himself, it just means he will learn quicker, and hopefully have good technique.
Yes. As soon as he starts lessons I'm sure the teacher will recommend a few good books. They aren't really textbooks, though, as much as drumming exercises. I don't know a whole lot about different books, but I have heard good things about Stick Control for the Snare Drummer. Other than that, any basic rudiments book will be fine something like this.
Interesting question. I'm not really sure how to answer this. Does he want to play hand drums or a drumset? I know when I first started I thought hand drums were dumb (My only experience was playing a djembe in a drum circle in 6th grade music class with a bunch of rhythmically challenged idiots). There was something about all the drums and cymbals put together that just made it so powerful and awesome to me. I'd say whatever he likes to play, let him play. If he falls in love with the bongos, so be it.
This is a tough one too. I've never really messed with kid's drums, but I'd say take him to guitar center and let him play the full size kits. If he can play it comfortably and is able to hit all the cymbals with a little adjusting, I'd say get a full size kit. I just wouldn't be a fan of getting a kid's kit that he'll grow out of in a couple years. If you have the extra cash, though, it'd probably be more beneficial to get the kid size drumset.
Vic Firth's rudiment videos are great, though the site is a bit difficult to use these days.
All American Drummer (the Wilcoxen book) is a great way to get your chops back up to snuff. Even the first solo has challenges if you don't have your hands together.
Stick Control - I don't even have to tell you why. Do read through the introduction and practice it in the way that Stone specified.
For inspiration watch Thomas Pridgen show how he practices rudiments around the kit.
stick control if you don't have already have it
To echo what others have said, I couldn't have played drums to save my life when I first played Rock Band. I would fail songs on medium. Now I'm actually a pretty decent drummer, at least for someone who has never owned an acoustic kit.
The key is not to expect Rock Band to teach you everything, which you seem to have figured out already. Rock Band combined with independent research on actual playing techniques (grip, sticking, the parts of the kit, etc.) will absolutely turn you into a passable drummer, just as it did for me.
A couple suggestions: first, get some new sticks. Even the better Rock Band sticks are okay at best. You're not tearing them up on tour every night; you can splurge on something nicer like these. The dip is really nice if you're prone to dropping them, and the nylon tips won't wear the way wooden ones sometimes do.
Second, get a practice pad. A book on sticking patterns like this one can be valuable too but isn't crucial. A practice pad lets you practice sticking patterns. A few minutes a day playing to a metronome will make a big difference. As you improve, you can gradually raise the BPM of the metronome and train yourself to be faster.
This, these, and one of these will get you started for $53.10
Or if you want to go nuts, one of these.
https://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-George-Lawrence-Stone/dp/1892764040
$10.79 @ Amazon. You can probably get it for $6-7 from random book resellers on Google. If you approach this book with discipline, the return for your $ will be immense.
https://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-George-Lawrence-Stone/dp/1892764040
I don't play double bass much so I haven't tried it, but I would imagine that stick control would work just as good with your feet as it does with your hands
I'm a newish drummer- been taking lessons and working books for about 3 years now. I still only have an electronic drum kit, I don't gig or anything, but I do jam with some guys from time to time.
My practice routine is as follows- and I do this 3-4 times a week (note, this changes as I master certain lessons):
All in all, it lasts about an hour and a half, after which I'll play some, or get on a song, or do some pro-mode Rock Band 3.
The Art of Bop Dumming by Jon Riley
Progressive Steps to Syncopation by Ted Reed
Jazz Drum Studio by John Pickering
Buy any or all three of these. Perfect place to start. And start listening to a lot of jazz. Good luck, dude. Jazz is great.
I've been going through Syncopation for the Modern Drummer to come up with melodies that use syncoption. It has like every permutation of syncopation you could imagine. I think it was written with a jazz drummer in mind, but you can use the ideas for type of music.
Stick control is a great book. another good one for developing Independence in your hands and feet is this one
http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Steps-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer/dp/0882847953/ref=sr_1_cc_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1293738221&amp;sr=1-3-catcorr
Very basic beginner tips:
You're spot on with picking up sticks and a pad first (I should also mention a metronome because drumming is ALL about keeping time, but this is bare basics so for the sake of my bad typing skills and your wallet I'm going to omit it, but know this HAS TO BE YOUR NEXT PURCHASE (also there's dozens of free metronome apps FYI)).
This is all you will need to begin drumming and it shouldn't cost you more than $30. As far as for what kinds/brands, just buy two matching sticks that feel comfortable in your hands and a pad that's 'bouncy'. (Don't worry about wood types or tips for the drum sticks yet, you're still a far ways away from that being a concern)
Now that you have sticks and a pad, the next move is to learn how to hold them. This is going to be hard without any visuals, so bear with me here lol. Hold your right hand forward as if you were to accept a handshake. With your left hand, place the stick in the center your palm so that the blunt end of the stick is facing the ground. Now close your fingers around it to create a fist. Adjust the height of the stick in your fist so that only 1 inch of the blunt end is protruding(sp?) from the bottom of your fist. At this point, it should seem like your holding the drum stick the same way that you might hold a hammer; you're close but there's two more VERY IMPORTANT steps. Next, adjust your thumb so that it rests on the shaft of the stick. (Imagine that with your fist you're trying to now give someone a thumbs-up and that your stick is just a big extension of that thumbs-up, that what this should all look like) Finally, while maintaining this hand position, turn your wrist 90 degrees so that your palm and stick are both facing the ground.
Now repeat with your left hand.
If done correctly, you should be making a 'V' shape with your sticks. As well, if done correctly, you should be able to hold both stick with only your thumb and fore-finger. (Just to cover all bases, your middle, ring and pinky fingers are simply there for minor support, most grip strength and stick control comes from finding the fulcrum (or balancing sweet spot) of the stick and pinching it with your thumb and fore finger)
Confused yet? Good! Just a few more things and I'll feel like I'm really doing you justice here lol:
Just start off at first by trying to get your sticks to hit the pad and bounce back at you. Don't 'bury' them into the pad; make them work for you, not against you. Don't worry about speed, intensity or consistency just yet, it will all come in time.
Obviously, alternate your hands. You'll find that you have a dominant hand (99.99% chance it's your writing hand) but don't forget that, unless you plan on starting a Def Lepard cover band, your going to need both hands, so give them both the appropriate amounts of attention they deserve!
Once you got both hands hitting with equal confidence, just go back and forth with your right and left hand and try to focus on making them both sound, look, and feel as even as possible.
New drummer LPT's:
-Buy a metronome ASAP.
-Forget about speed, it WILL come naturally.
-Buy, download, torrent, steal, GET this book and go through it. It is the golden standard for pre-drumkit drumming. If you master this book, you have mastered the concept of drumming.
-Hold off on a drumkit. They're big and expensive; you'll really want to make sure that you REALLY want to commit to drumming first.
-Finally, YOUTUBE will teach you all this and more for FREE!
Good luck, sorry for the novel but I really hope this helps.
Sources: drumming 12 years, currently professional touring drummer, tried to teach a friend how-to a while ago and he's... not terrible :P
This is a fantastic book, but I don't think it's necessarily a good starting place for Afro-Cuban rhythms. Work through the Malabe book and at least get started in the Uribe book first.
rudimentary technique book, one of the standards.
another rudimentary book, another one of the standards.
first metronome i pulled up under 20$. essential.
DVD by Jojo Mayer, who has (imo) one of the best stick techniques in the business. Really great video examples of proper stick grip, and various techniques regarding rebound and bounce.
edit: me not word good. changed #4 around for redundancies.
The only thing you really need in the beginning is a practice pad like that one, this book and a pair of sticks.
If you can bear practicing like this without giving up because of the boredom that is learning the fundamentals, a second-hand e-drum kit is an inexpensive and space-saving way of getting into playing on a whole set. It also means you won't annoy your neighbors too much.
How about spending some time working through a book?
I have been working through both and am enjoying them! Another thing that has really helped me is transcribing drum parts and learning to play them that way. I did this with a Tool song and it was unbelievably illuminating. Really makes you think about what the drummer is doing.
PS: Nice username :P
I would recommend Garibaldi's Future Sounds.
https://www.amazon.com/Future-Sounds-Contemporary-Drumset-Concepts/dp/0739019120
Advanced Funk Studies: Creative Patterns for the Advanced Drummer by Rick Latham is really good for changing things up. It move things around like the accent and brings in a lot of syncopation. I'm not a funk drummer so don't think of the book like that, it's exercises to move you out of the square if you know what I mean.
Future Sounds: A Book of Contemporary Drumset Concepts by David Garibaldi is also excellent
I get a lot from Mike Johnson and Steven Taylor off youtube. Both of them have extensive and varying levels of fills and grooves. Taylor I think has more available for free, especially a list of drum fills. But I've used Mike's site and paid for a few months and it was worth it to me.
There's also a book that I can find in many places outside of my old hometown of Buffalo, NY called Groovezilla. The concept of the book is pretty neat. It's got hundreds of grooves but all the right hand work (HH/Ride) ostanatos are on transparencies. You then take those transparecncies and lay them over the pages in the book you're working on. So one might be a HH upbeat ostinato and another is a 16th HH ostinato. My former drum teacher was a student of his (Jim Lesner, author) so he helped beta test the book for him on a lot of things. It's a great book and a secret weapon in my learning. He'll ship the book if you order it from the website, I got mine in under a week. Great guy, even put a post it not with his email address in case I had any questions or wanted to chat with him.
Good luck
Marching snare player here!
I would recommend learning the 40 P.A.S. Rudiments
By Matt Savages Book (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0757902251?pc_redir=1412330082&amp;robot_redir=1)
I know Matt Savage personally and he's a great guy with a lot of experience in marching percussion.
Also buy the book stick control (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1892764040?pc_redir=1413605838&amp;robot_redir=1)
Those two books should get you started with marching percussion because they lay down the basics for everything that you will end up doing.
Watch this video to see how crazy Marco Minnemann's Independence is. He also has a book, though I haven't read it so I don't know how good it is or isn't.
Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer. Seriously this book will help you greatly. Just push yourself, and you'll see results. There is even PDF files for you to download so you don't even need to buy the book I'm not sure how trust-worthy the links are, but seriously, use to book.
I recommend "Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer: Coordinated Independence as Applied to Jazz and Bebop" by Jim Chapin for a jazz practice method.
my favorite book was "Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer"
It's been probably 10+ years since I bought that book, and I'll still pull it off the shelf and play through pages.
Another really fun thing to do is to go through the Syncopation book and play the quarter note and eighth note pages with just your left hand and kick drum while playing jazz time with your right hand and hi hat
i'm a beginner too, self-teaching. do you have a metronome?
i bought this 4 way coordination book. its straight forward and you can do it on or off the kit. these are exercises to get your limbs on time and independent. they are extremely challenging, especially as you build speed.
http://www.vicfirth.com/education/ has some interesting stuff to check out, i am working off "Beginning Snare Video Lessons" to build my actual stick/bounce/finger technique. it's all about perfecting technique slowly if you want to get blinding fast.
i've had experience with music my whole life though (can already read music, understand time signatures, etc), and this is the path that i am sure i want to take to get where i want to be. you might find it very dull and want to just dive into playing along to songs?
As they told u, start simple and slow. Also, check this book: https://www.amazon.com/4-Way-Coordination-Development-Complete-Independence/dp/0769233708 .
"4-Way Coordination: A Method Book for the Development of Complete Independence on the Drum Set". It sounds overwhelming but the exercises are very simple (think stick control from gls and add left and right feet). Most importantly do each one slow! don't go up on the metronome until you are comfortable with an exercise.
I'd say limb independence. I spent some time working through this book and it's very challenging.
Two great Afro-cuban books are Afro-Cuban Rhythms for Drumset by Frank Malabe and Afro-Cuban Coordination for Drumset by Maria Martinez.
Malabe's book is a great place to start as it has lots of explanation and history of what you're doing.
Martinez's book has a lot of ways to expand on the stuff you'll learn in Malabe's book. It has much less commentary but many more exercises and ways to pratice the material.
The was one of the first books my teacher gave me: Jazz Drum Cookbook
I spent hours and hours working through it. You can start off with rock to get the interdependence, then swing/jazz, then use it for Latin if you want. Highly versatile and effective book, I can't recommend it enough!
Rudiments, and a metronome are great suggestions.
Id recommend getting going on some sight reading too.
Here are a couple great books I used starting out:
Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer -I still use this one regularly 20 years later. It's a classic.
The Art of Bop Drumming
Here's a great list from Modern Drummer of some other good instructional books. YouTube is great, but don't forget the basics.
https://www.moderndrummer.com/2013/04/25-timeless-drum-books/
Unfortunately it's not very cash-valuable, especially if you're in the US. Maybe $75-$100 to the right buyer. If you're after a cheap kit, get this cleaned up (Outside with a rag and some Steelo/whatever metal cleaner you can get your hands on) and go to a music shop, and buy a batter and a resonant head, snare wires and a snare stand. Look up how to put on heads and tune a snare drum online, or ask any other drummers you know. It'll be a great beginner snare - much better than what you'd get with a normal budget kit - and honestly, it's not valuable enough to worry about ruining it.
EDIT: Also, for a beginner percussionist, a snare is really all you need to start out. Look into books like Syncopation and Stick Control, they're just big sets of different snare drum exercises to teach you basic stick control.
Syncopation and Stick Control are books you will never grow out of and are a must have for any drummer in my opinion. You can use these exercises around the kit as well as implementing feet.
If you want something like drum set notes it very much depends on what genre you are interested in.
For (3), I'd also say this.
Definitely something used, don’t buy new. You can get a decent used set with stands/cymbals for probably $300-500 that will be fine for a first kit for someone with little-to-no drumming experience. Maybe even cheaper.
Edit: a good book
One of the cool things about the book Stick Control is you can play the exercises with your kick drums. You could even mix it up and split the patterns between your hands and feet to build limb independence. As far as books specifically geared towards building double kick chops Double Bass Drumming by Joe Franco is an excellent pick. https://www.amazon.com/Double-Bass-Drumming-Joe-Franco/dp/0897233662
Any reason why your teacher is telling you that you have no chance??
For my audition I just played a few drum set grooves (swing, bossa nova, samba, 3/4 swing, and a ballad), sight read a snare drum solo, and sight read a marimba piece. I had already spent a semester in the percussion ensemble (because I originally wanted to be an English major, but after meeting the faculty of both departments I settled on music) so my teacher already knew me and had a good idea of my skill level.
My first semester was mainly rudiments and solos from Cirone's portraits in rhythm. Pretty much snare drum only focusing on building my technique. My next semester I got started on Frank Malabe's Afro-Cuban book and John Riley's Art of Bop Drumming. Beyond that I worked through Riley's Beyond Bop Drumming, Ed Uribe's book on Afro-Cuban drumming, and his book on Brazilian drumming. After that I spent a lot of time working on solo transcriptions, playing pieces that my instructor and I picked out for drums and vibes, jamming with my instructor on vibes or on drum set, and working on pieces that I was writing. By the end at lot of what I was doing was driven by my interests and what I wanted to work on to improve.
As far as the music department as a whole I took your standard history, theory, aural skills, and piano classes, along with tons and tons of ensembles.
My teacher, back in the day, got me into this book right before my parents cut of my lessons due to financial issues. I wish I had a few more lessons with him on the book. Maybe I should just dust it off and do it myself now.
Maschine tutorial (sample based hip-hop). This is the first of the series and he gives you the sample used in the tutorial.
I recommend The Breakbeat Bible because it's a great foundation for making beats.
Music theory.
Learn your tools.
Also, get this rudiment book according to my drum teacher. It is called "Stick Control: For The Snare Drummer" and teaches you essential rudiments ($10 shipped). https://www.amazon.com/dp/1892764040 and watch rudiment videos online. I am just learning rudiments but he showed me how important they are to learn.
Stick Control is probably the best book for building up chops and, well, stick control. https://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-George-Lawrence-Stone/dp/1892764040
Practice pad, metronome, sticks and "Stick Control" by George Stone. That's where you should start.
http://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-For-Snare-Drummer/dp/1892764040
Play through Stick Control ^you ^own ^Stick ^Control ^right?
with your feet. After you get that down try left foot-right hand or left hand-right foot while keeping a quarter (or half or etc...) pulse with the unused hand. Play with a metronome, start slow and have fun.
I'm a self taught drummer also, but I think the main thing to remember is you never want to stop learning new stuff. Start with the basics and move up from there. Like others said YouTube has great tuts. Every new drummer wants to play fast, but speed is nothing without control. Your job is to keep time, that's the main thing to remember, I sometimes forget that! This is probably one of the best books to help you: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1892764040/ref=yo_ii_img?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
keep it up dude! Seeing as you are a young drummer, I want to offer some advice for you to improve. You seem to lose some stick control throughout the song . I would highly recommend you work on improving your technique by going through books such as Stick Control for the Modern Drummer. You can use this as a warm up and play like 4 lines perfectly multiple times or something similar. This book is only a suggestion, there are many ways to improve technique. You just have to make a conscious effort to work on it. A good mixture of practice vs playing will keep you engaged and feel great about improving at the same time.
When I was your age, I spent a lot of time focusing on different patterns and independence and didn't really work on technique until a bit later, and I can say from experience that even though I was practicing a lot, I wasn't practicing near max efficiency because I didn't make technique a priority early on. Working on your rudiments and having great technique makes basically anything easier to learn and makes it sound 1000 times better.
I hope you find this helpful. I use to teach mainly beginners and intermediate players and if you ever want some advice or guidance feel free to shoot me a pm. Keep drumming!
edit- I looked through some of your other videos. I think your stick control was a lot better in some of them. You definitely have talent and I hope you keep at it and keep improving!
My advice is don't use more force than you have to and play pick closer to the bridge, there's more tension there and the resistance of strumming the string is more consistent when you start.
I personally recommend starting with pretty thin picks, but try different thicknesses to find if there is a gauge that feels better.
One of the big aspects is that you have get very good at muting strings with your left, or fretting hand when playing since you can't really mute strings while holding a pick.
For dexterity take some exercises from a drumming a booking like this one, but instead of alternating right and left hands alternate down strokes and upstrokes at low speeds and then slowly speed up. Then start to incorporate plucking string next to each doing down strokes on one and up strokes on the other. The best one to start with is paradidle (RLRRLRLL), or Down-Up-Down-Down-Up-Down-Up-Up. The goal when doing this type of practice is to make each stroke even and full.
http://eric.frap.net/sa/bible/profsound.shtml - drum tuning bible
http://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-For-Snare-Drummer/dp/1892764040 - classic book, endless applications
remember to stay loose and relaxed.
www.vicfirth.com has technique videos
https://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-George-Lawrence-Stone/dp/1892764040
Lawrence Stone's Stick Control & Master Studies by Joe Morello
Great books to utilize while simultaneously working your sheet music skills. Good luck
This book is great for better stick control http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1892764040/ref=redir_mdp_mobile
You can learn from books if you the type of person that likes to
You should buy Stick Control.
It'll help you with the basics. The first page in the book is one of the most useful pages in any drum book ever.
The guy who suggested rudiments is absolutely correct.
Proper technique is hugely important, so reading up on or watching some videos about that will help you immensely, if you haven't already.
I would also suggest finding and practicing some stick control exercises. Stick Control by George Lawrence Stone is a great book filled with really helpful exercises.
Listening to, watching, and playing jazz can be a great help as well.
Source: percussionist for ten years
If you own stick control I would recommend going through that while doing quarter notes with your left foot and hitting 1 with your kick.
There are many ways to do this, but this is how I started and I thought it worked well. You can also just incorporate your left foot into any rudimental stuff you are playing on the snare or around the kit. For example, try playing a paradiddle. If you can do that, then try to keep time with your left foot on 2 and 4 while doing it. Then try hitting all the downbeats with your left foot. Then try eighth notes, etc. . . .
If you practice this enough, eventually you will forget about your left foot entirely and it will just be second nature!
So far everyone has replied with an incorrect answer.
The correct answer is
STICK CONTROLLLLLLLLLLL
Daily practice- never forget it! Also, Syncopation as mentioned below is very good, and I would also recommend this. They're both great books.
First you're going to want to start by focusing on your stick grip. Learn how to hold the sticks and whenever you play always pay attention to your form and grip. At least at the start.
Next, go for rudiments. they can help you get your chops up while get you better at reading snare music.
After that, get some snare solos and try them out. Remember to concentrate on your grip and form.
Also this is a great book. One of the best snare books out there:
http://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-George-Lawrence-Stone/dp/1892764040
And remember, practice makes permanent, so make sure you're holding your sticks in a way that won't hinder your playing and make you have to relearn it all later on. Have fun!
I've been a drummer since I was 8. Quite rusty right now as a lot of things have kept me from practicing (moving to apartments for years, etc.). Honestly, it's never too late to start. Are you going to be playing Carnegie Hall in a year? Wildly unlikely. But as long as your expectations are grounded in reality, that learning anything takes time and practice, you should be good.
As for practice and sense of tempo/timing: it is imperative that you buy a good metronome and practice with it regularly. You don't necessarily need a Dr. Beat, though I have one, and it is useful at times. But you do need some kind of click to play off of.
Can you read music? If so, there are some really good technique books out there that I'd recommend that are classics. Most people hate grinding technique, but I find it oddly relaxing. Here's some good books:
The first two books are probably where you should start. With all of these, start the metronome at molasses level slow - like 60 bpm or maybe even slower if you're not accurate at that speed. Get comfortable with that speed - maybe 15-30 mins at that speed without any mistakes. Then bump the timing up slightly 2-4 bpm and repeat. At no point should you be tensing up. If you are, you need to stop immediately, shake out your arms, and back down the tempo a bit.
Make sure that you're making more use of your fingers than your wrists. Wrists can be good to start the stroke, but your fingers should be doing a lot of the work.
There's a lot of other technique stuff that you can do, but the above alone could take you 5-10 years of solid daily practice if you're being thorough.
Good luck!
Get lessons if at all possible. You'll progress much more efficiently that way.
Also get Stick Control and practice the patterns to a metronome.
YouTube lessons can be helpful, but almost certainly never as helpful as an instructor. YouTube lessons can't see you making mistakes and can't correct them. You can't talk to YouTube lessons. They're alright for beginners but I would definitely recommend getting some one-on-one advice, even from people who aren't professional teachers.
There's this amazing book called Stick Control: For the Snare Drummer (https://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-George-Lawrence-Stone/dp/1892764040 ) and it's full of great practice exercises that can help both you and your son. It's not a full kit book, but it's meant to strengthen your sense of rhythm and technique, and can help with speed aswell if you use a metronome. If you don't want to buy the book, I'm sure there's a .pdf somewhere, but the book is always better in my opinion.
Don't waste your money on Drumeo and Drumeo Edge. The whole Drumeo program is basically watching somebody else play drums and trying to mimic it. I can't speak for other online drum lesson services as I don't have much experience with them.
Find some music you like on YouTube, and use the speed feature to slow it down and really listen to what the drummer is playing. You can start slow and break it down and slowly increase the speed until you're playing it just as fast as the drummer in the song. It's a great way to teach yourself how to learn songs.
Learning drums takes a lot of patience (and can be quite expensive!) so I'd advise you to take great care in how you hit your drums. Drumsticks aren't very expensive and neither are drum heads, but when you're nailing them so hard you break one a day, it adds up quickly. Same goes for cymbals, but those are quite expensive aswell.
When you buy the second kit, I'd advise you to invest in a mid-range kit, not too great, but not garbage either. When you listen to songs and then your drums sound crappy, it's quite discourage. Get some mid-range cymbals as well, Paiste offers some pretty good beginner's cymbals.
Not OP, but check out Stick Control by George Lawrence and The New Breed by Gary Chester.
These two books helped me get over the hump of knowing what I wanted to play, and actually being able to play it effortlessly and cleanly.
My advice would be to pick up a copy of ‘Stick Control for the snare drummer’, and practice the exercises in the book for half an hour each day. When I was in my highschool marching band, this was THE book for improving speed and control.
Edit: you will also want to work on practicing the exercises at different speeds and volumes.
https://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-George-Lawrence-Stone/dp/1892764040/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=for+the+modern+snare+drummer&amp;qid=1570196885&amp;sr=8-3
One half of drumming is the learning to control 4 limbs at once thing. I guess some might call it coordination.
One of my favorite ways to practice or work something out is to sit in a chair and play on my legs with my hands. Pick some songs that have grooves that you like and try to work out the parts for each limb and tap away.
Costs $0 and you can play anywhere all the time...
If you want to build speed and practice rudiments there is no better place to start than Stick Control: For the Snare Drummer. If you can make it through this book, you are well on your way!
Here's my disclaimer: if you don't have access to a drum and at least one other person to practice playing clean with, you're already at a disadvantage. No pad feels exactly like a drum and when it comes down to the wire in an audition, what determines who makes the line is usually who can play clean consistently no matter where he is in the line.
Buy this:
http://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-For-Snare-Drummer/dp/1892764040
No matter where you want to march, it will be your ultimate tool. It will lay the foundation of your playing, and it will give you amazing facility on the drum. Play through all of it. Play through it at every dynamic. Play five lines and crescendo the whole thing. Do whatever you can to essentially turn the thing inside out on itself so that you get as much experience playing things your hands have never felt. The key here is repetition. You want to shed layers so that your hands become so refined that anything you're asked to play is practically second nature.
Once you've played through the entire book ten times, buy this:
http://www.amazon.com/Accents-Rebounds-For-Snare-Drummer/dp/1892764067
Repetition, repetition, repetition. Variation, variation, variation. If something sounds disgusting, practice it until it's beautiful. You need to dedicate substantial time to practicing, and you need to always practice with a metronome. I advise against most phone metronomes, because they tend to be inconsistent. I recommend practicing for 90 minutes and then taking a 30 minute break. Practice consistently. Don't do eight hours one day and then take a week off. Two or three hours a day is ample practice time. You've got to be deliberate and take your practice time seriously if you want to make it. If you're unsure about whether or not you want to march, I'd advise against auditioning because the people who really want it are usually the ones who make the line.
Get on YouTube and check out some different lines from the past maybe three seasons. Listen to as many as you can and see which lines really pique your interest. Then get on Google and look for audition materials (either from past years or current materials). A lot of corps require you to buy their audition materials so if that's an issue for you, you could try another corps. Or you could step up your game, get back on YouTube, try to find some videos of the drumline warming up, and figure out their exercises on your own. Be wary though; that's a pretty significant undertaking.
My best advice is to take initiative, and to try harder than you want to. You'll have to do both of those things if you spend a summer with a corps anyway, so it's better to start now. Best of luck to you.
https://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-George-Lawrence-Stone/dp/1892764040
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Most drummers forget about the rudiments that make up the grooves. These will give you patterns to go off of and tighten up everything you do around the drum set. Doesn't need to just be done on a snare. Practice on the snare, snare+tom, Hi-hat + snare, etc. Come up with some cool stuff, and help you understand the building blocks that make the groove.
Non-mobile: book
^That's ^why ^I'm ^here, ^I ^don't ^judge ^you. ^PM ^/u/xl0 ^if ^I'm ^causing ^any ^trouble.
that kind of stuff is all feel. the best advice i can give you is to go back and work on some old 70's funk. all this stuff is rooted in that.
also, buy this book and study it every day.
http://www.amazon.com/Funky-Primer-Rock-Drummer-Charles/dp/0739006630
I think a better book would be Garibaldi's "Future Sounds": https://www.amazon.com/Future-Sounds-Contemporary-Drumset-Concepts/dp/0739019120
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He shows how you can get some wonderfully funky grooves simply by incorporating what he calls the '2 level technique' which is just varying the velocity by two different levels.
An example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdHFJZo0S5g
I studied this book back when I was wanting to learn to play drums and was delighted at how easily I could sound much more funky than I otherwise could.
Hi,
I´ll recommend to keep your "main focus" on comping, fills will come out easily & naturally, even those tasty ones, when you have good control over technique .
But to your question. I highly recommend -Future Sounds-
by David Garibaldi. (Tower of Power drummer)
Check these out
https://youtu.be/pGWBqGa44ZU?t=4m5s
https://youtu.be/TsiYKOTmv1I
And here´s the book:
https://www.amazon.com/Future-Sounds-Contemporary-Drumset-Concepts/dp/0739019120
https://www.scribd.com/doc/258774093/PDF-Drum-Book-Drum-Lesson-David-Garibaldi-Future-Sounds
for example those permutation studies most likely challenges even more advanced drummers.
Good Luck!
Ah memories. Yep I started with How to Play rock'n'roll drums, Syncopation and this book way back in the early 90's. Then later on went to Advanced Techniques, Future Sounds and The New Breed for different permutations and limb independence. And 'trying' to pick apart and play Dave Weckl's Island Magic.
Does anyone else remember those drum solos like calypso eclipsed and aint it rich?
You're going to hear a bunch of mentions about Stick Control, which is fair. That book is awesome and will totally get you where you want to be.
If you really want to dig a bit further into rudiments though, I'd highly recommend spending a bit of time with the Savage Rudimental Workshop. There are a lot of exercises that expose the basic skeletons of the rudiments as well as a lot of rudimental solos that show how rudiments work in context. Solos are broken up into section by difficulty, so if you're new to that side of things you can work on the easy/intermediate sections and leave the advanced corps style stuff for later. I never hear anyone else talk about it, but I can't recommend this book enough.
Good luck! Conditioning your hands will unlock seemingly unrelated things on the kit and elevate your playing.
Have a look at this.
I'm really into independence and coordination (of which polyrhythms and polymeters often come into play) so my drumming canon is primarily composed of Gary Chester's New Breed and New Breed II.
Marco Minnemann's Extreme Interdependence is also a spectacular book. It's kind of like applying Stick Control to all of your limbs and pitting them against each other.
That's a pretty clever use of that book, thanks for sharing.
I was doing exercises from Jim Chapin's "Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer" with a similar mentality, rotating which limb got which part. Butch Norton has a similar series of articles on independence and limb rotation. Really really cool stuff.
Here are the books you may be looking for.
4-Way Coordination: A Method Book for the Development of Complete Independence on the Drum Set or Advanced Techniques For The Modern Drummer: Coordinating Independence As Applied To Jazz And Be-bop
Both focus on independence, though this is the one I just order today for myself, The New Breed
Jim Chapin's Advanced Technique for the Modern Drummer is a must have for learning independence. Also, learn your rudiments. Get a copy of Alan Dawson's Rudimental Ritual and work the hell out of it. Charley Wilcoxon's Advanced Swing Solos is a great practical application of rudiments as well. These books are tough but if you take them slow at first, little by little you will figure them out and build up your chops. Finally, listen to and watch a lot of jazz drummers. Find your favorites and get your hands on everything they ever recorded. Play with the records to help develop your musical sense.
This is all great advice- the Riley book has been open on my music stand for years and I am still a long way from 'finishing' the exercises. I also recommend 4 Way Coordination,playing exercises in that book is very humbling and eye opening.
That is awesome. I just found this book on 4-way coordination while drumming that sounds like the kind of thing redditors have shown interest in in other threads. I threw it in my Amazon shopping list.
https://www.amazon.com/4-Way-Coordination-Development-Complete-Independence/dp/0769233708/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1521491430&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=independence+drums&amp;dpID=51jflAn474L&amp;preST=_SY344_BO1,204,203,200_QL70_&amp;dpSrc=srch
I built it so I could practice from http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0769233708 using actual pedals and sticks instead of just hands and feet. I need a snare stand still for my practice pad but until then ill just keep beating up my thighs
Also, you might want to check out Louis Bellson's book-https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Reading-Text-All-Instruments/dp/0769233775. There are lots of exercises with over the bar rhythms and half-note triplets.
Don't be surprised if the unis don't respond. You're basically asking them for help without paying the astronomical fees that now come hand in hand with degree level study in england ;)
Here's a few books that I had that are really good:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Modern-Reading-Text-All-Instruments/dp/0769233775 - We were told to use this book by clapping the 4 beats, and vocalising the rhythms in the book. It starts off simple but gets hard real fast. Full of deliberately obscure notation that smears beats to prepare you for some bad writing as well!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hearing-Writing-Music-Professional-Training/dp/0962949671/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1539085026&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=hearing+and+writing+music
This book is basically the bible of ear training. You could study this book for 5 years standalone, if you wanted to be secure in all the stuff in it.
Aside from that, other stuff was more about production and bass guitar specifically. Those two though, seriously a good combo I think.
Modern Reading Text in 4/4 by Louis Bellson and Gil Breines
It's dry, but it will improve your playing. It has no pitch, just rhythm and is written by a drummer and frequently used to instruct drummers, but because it doesn't have pitch is perfect everyone to study pure rhythm. Playing it, reading it, everything about it.
Take a page every week or so and work through it. Play to a metronome to be sure you're getting it evenly. Work up in tempo and when you're doing that well start having your metronome click on only the 2 and 4 so you have to take responsibility for laying down a solid 1. Loop through a couple of bars and start to play with the articulation, making certain notes legato and other staccato and see how it affects the feel and phrasing. Take that loop and start adding pitches over it, using the bare rhythm as a tool to explore purely melodic improvisation, figuring out what works with the rhythm and what doesn't.
The other good suggestion is to try to find a teacher. They'll help you find your weak points and suggest how to work on them. They'll drive you into new areas that you haven't yet considered. Even if it's just another bassist mentoring you rather than a formal instructor you're at the point where feedback from others will really help you to keep growing.
I found my instructor on Craigslist. which meant there was going to be a good chance I was going to find someone shitty. That wasn't the case though, my instructor graduated with his bachelors of music and he has a great curriculum. Perhaps you could look for a local drum instructor for him?
If it helps, the books I use (I started 6 or so months ago) are: Ultimate Realistic Rock: Drum Method, Fundamental Studies for Snare Drum, and Modern Reading Text in 4/4 For All Instruments. My instructor also prints off rudiments and other drills for me.
The Louis Bellson Book
This is for jazz syncopation. Can practice this without the bass. Just tapping your foot and tapping your hand on your knee or whatever.
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The Applebaum Book
This is for more modern/contemporary pit band / session type of stuff, but still valuable.
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There are also smartphone apps like "Read Rhythm" and sites like "SightReadingFactory.com" but I prefer the books above for rhythm-only stuff.
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Best way to learn two-feel is to transcribe a ton of two-feel. Transcribe the all the two-feel choruses Bob Cranshaw plays on this tune. That should add some variety to your lines. Or what Don Bagley does on this tune. (Or anything that Ray Brown, Scott Lafaro and Eddie Gomez ever did in two feel).
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Are you both talking about this? I'm just a beginner drummer so I'm taking notes based on recommendations here too.
http://www.amazon.com/Mel-Bay-Studio-Jazz-Cookbook/dp/0871666820
I'd recommend this book as well to the other suggestions. This goes through the jazz basics in a very easy to digest form. Starts with 8th note comping on snare, then bass drum, then hit hat and lastly all together. Then it moves to triplet comping. It's very fluid in its presentation. Highly recommended.
260 Drum Machine Patterns is really dated but sounds more or less what you're looking for. It takes about 20 styles (things like afro-cuban, funk , charleston, disco etc) and gives 5-10 typical patterns, then 5-10 break/fills for each. Cheesy, but genuine helpful.
Firstly, get used to playing swing with the right hand while keeping 2's and 4's steady with your left foot. Once you've got that down, grab a book like Syncopation and practice playing the rhythms on the snare while keeping your right hand and left foot as solid as a rock doing the same thing as before.
I used an Erskine book that does exactly this, but also goes into hand-foot combos, taking it to the next level. It also goes into triplets and such, but that's for when you're good with the basic patterns.
This sets you up for being able to comp using any rhythms you want but keeping your left foot steady on the up beats, essentially the core of jazz drumming.
This is a really condensed explanation, but I hope it helps.
Good Resources to Use
Buy this book and a metronome. It will help you with reading rhythm. Afterwards, then you can try to tackle the staff.
Marching or Concert Snare?
Either way, buy this book and work through it, varying the stickings and tempos. Also, learn these rudiments. The absolute best thing you could do is get a teacher.
As far as concert vs. marching. They are very similar, but concert snare is much more subtle. Concert snare utilizes a lot more buzz rolls whereas marching snare uses open rolls or diddles.
You want to build a base of knowledge when it comes to creating rhythm? Start with this book. Order it now. https://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer-Publications/dp/0882847953
I would highly recommend the book "Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer" by Ted Reed. Phenomenal book that can teach you a lot and can be done with just a practice pad and sticks. It's easy to find at any music store and there may be some PDFs on the interwebs somewhere...
If you aren't looking to join a band or take it too seriously browse through some YouTube videos, pick up a book or two and just have fun with it! Once you find out if it's something you really love doing then you can invest in lessons/a drumkit.
https://www.amazon.ca/Progressive-Steps-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer/dp/0882847953
I don’t have this one but people seem to bring it up often.
Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer (Ted Reed Publications) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0882847953/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_rrb3DbBMXZRVW
You can work on your syncopation while your at it.
Grab this book. It's a book for drummers, but literally just tap the rhythms on different knees. It's basically the exact isolation of what you're asking for.
I guess a great place to start would be the Vic Firth website. For each of the 40 basic rudiment it has a bronze, silver, and gold challenge. Treat it like a game, where you're trying to get that third star for each level.
I like to stick some tunes on and play (for example) 16 bars of paradiddles, then doubles, then singles in time with the music.. It's important you be able to seamlessly move between rudiments while keeping tempo and dynamic constant.
My book of the moment is Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer by Ted Reed. For £1.50 it's a steal, and really can help you get started.
double bass drumming
After setting up your DW practice kit, drive your practice Rolls Royce to the music store and buy Realistic Rock.
ahh! I'm sorry. Here are the two books and some general tips.
I can offer more tips about playing set, snare, mallet instruments, hand drums, buying a set, reading music etc. Send me a PM.
Sorry this took so long, I had my drum books stashed away (recently moved) and I needed to remember the names.
edit: formatting
http://www.amazon.com/Drumming-Book-Manhattan-Music-Publications/dp/089898890X
For beginner-level jazz drumming, John Riley's The Art of Bop Drumming is a fantastic resource to get you going. It builds from the basics by starting you with just the hi-hat/ride ostinato, then adds in comping ideas that you can use with the snare or kick, then starts to combine them. Later it has a nice selection of 1-bar phrases and soloing ideas as well as brush techniques. Riley does a good job of explaining his notation and how to play through the exercises.
In between the exercises are high-level descriptions of jazz playing (explaining the framework of a jazz tune, the drummer's role in a jazz combo, how your playing can influence the other musicians). The CD includes some tunes, and there are lead sheets in the back of the book, so you can get a feel for what the musicians are basing the songs on.
For rock/funk drumming, I've gotten a lot of mileage out of Gary Chaffee's Patterns series. I started my formal lessons by working through the Fatback Exercises in his Time Functioning Patterns, and they are incredible. You play a fixed cymbal pattern (eighth notes, for example) and a fixed snare pattern (strictly on 2 & 4), then go through every iteration of bass drum 16th note phrasing that can accompany your snare drum without kicking on 2 & 4. It works out to 128 different patterns (2^7) contained in 3 pages. It took several months before I could play through all of them consecutively, but I was blown away by how much more flexible my playing around that 2 & 4 snare framework became in such a short time.
If your coordination is already good enough to breeze through those exercises, you can change the cymbal ostinato, and then it's a whole new game. You can add in a tricky pattern with your left foot if you're really feeling adventurous. There's a tremendous amount of work to be done with just 3 pages, and there's a lot of other material in the book - his jazz section provides a similar resource for improving your flexibility when playing swing time (triplet-based), and the linear section provides a very cool system for developing fills, solo ideas, or full linear grooves. For a beginner, I think the Fatbacks are where it's at, but here's a video of a guy looking at some of the other exercises (a different 3-page section) in a more advanced context.
There are some cons to the Chaffee book. Notation is weird, and he doesn't do a great job of explaining it himself. To save space, he frequently notes his exercises as single beat or two-beat phrases rather than full measures, so you have to repeat them to get a full measure. He also uses a minimal staff, so a snare-kick exercise like the Fatbacks only gets 1 staff line (two spaces). If I hadn't had a teacher explaining the exercises to me, I would have found them very confusing. Since the ideas here are so flexible, it can be hard to sense how they'd be used in a more musical context. Compared to the Riley book, which has some really nice, musical comping phrases, the Chaffee stuff is broken down into such small blocks that it doesn't flow on its own. That makes it incredibly powerful for building your flexibility as a player, but it can be frustrating sometimes to work through exercises that don't sound good when repeated as a half- or quarter-bar phrase, even if they'll be interesting once you've incorporated them into your arsenal.
TL;DR: Riley's Art of Bop Drumming, Chaffee's Time Functioning Patterns as beginner resources with advanced potential
The Art of Bop Drumming by John Riley
Stumbled across this today: http://www.amazon.com/Drum-Programming-Complete-Program-Drummer/dp/0931759544/
There's a pretty ancient book about programming drum machines by one Ray F. Badness called "Drum Programming: A Complete Guide to Program and Think Like a Drummer" http://www.amazon.com/Drum-Programming-Complete-Program-Drummer/dp/0931759544/
While it obviously doesn't go into the specifics of modern EDM genres (it's a little dated), it is a pretty solid grounding on the basics of beat programming which should leave you in a better position to analyze the kinds of beats you're looking to replicate.
In case you really want to buy it it is much cheaper than that.
USB sends midi information to the computer, hun!
https://www.plogue.com/products/sforzando/
this soundfont player has a nice standalone player!
https://www.plogue.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=7090
there are lots of free soundfonts, but the garritan jazz piano that comes with this is really, really nice and I highly recommend it.
Use the soundcard you have, friend! If you're not recording 1/4" or XLR in, you don't need an external soundcard.
http://www.reaper.fm/
here's a DAW I'd highly recommend! Record your piano in midi clips on there to a metronome (or simple drum loop), you can load sforzando in Reaper as a VST
https://www.amazon.com/Drum-Programming-Complete-Program-Drummer/dp/0931759544
here's a book on drum programming! You can easily find a pdf of it on the internet, download some drum samples, n get going with composition.
Youtube is a really good resource for you also!!! Find yourself piano, theory, and composition lessons n give em your all
Good luck friend
This book has helped me immensely with my drum loops. I highly recommend it.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0931759544?pc_redir=1407362375&amp;robot_redir=1
I have a Launchpad S and a Mini, and I use the Launchpad95 script with both. It takes some time to learn; I would recommend going through the documentation and getting used to each of the different modes at a time, instead of trying to do everything at once.
The way I've been working is like this: I use the drum sequencer mode to create a few drum clips that I like, mostly based on what I learned from the book Drum Programming: A Complete Guide to Program and Think Like a Drummer.
For other instruments I use the melodic step sequencer. I usually chose a scale depending on my mood, and then I use the random button to create a few patterns, until I find a few that I like. In addition, I also add some chords using the melodic step sequencer, creating some pads for the song.
Once I have enough clips for drums, bass, pads and leads I record an arrangement by using the Launchpad in session mode to launch clips. And when I have an arrangement that I'm happy with I'll record the automation of volume and filter parameters on top of it, using a Launch Control.
Mastering the Tables of Time (great for most modern styles of drumming)
The Breakbeat Bible (great foundation for solid timing and dynamics)
Jazz Solos and Fill-ins (combine what you learned from syncopation with this for jazz)
A Funky Primer (practice with shuffled or swung eigths on cymbals)
Syncopation and Stick Control have already been mentioned. With syncopation try adding hats on two and four with your feet and a basic jazz pattern on the ride. There are a million ways to practice stick control (and all of these books for that matter).
The classic book is George Stone's "Stick Control".
Some web resources:
http://www.freedrumlessons.com/articles/drum-rudiments.php
http://www.rudimentaldrumming.com/
Stick Control. Most drummers will say it's best to start with this book but I'll be honest- it's not fun. Don't expect to be wowed by drumming with this book. It's meant to build good form/technique and other solid fundamentals that are very important to drumming.
Either way, if you're looking for something a bit more exciting, I'd say search youtube for beginner lessons on the kit and/or your pad.
Good luck!
Just want to echo that 30 minutes a day is more than enough. Of that time, I would spend 10 minutes on rudiments and the rest on whatever you want.
>What all will I need to get started? Practice pad, sticks, kit, metronome?
If you buy an electronic kit, I wouldn't worry about practice pads. I'd recommend picking up Stick Control, learning the rudiments, and an introductory book such as Fast Track or Tommy Igoe's beginner DVD. Once you feel more comfortable, I'd recommend picking up Groove Essentials and New Breed.
For stick, I generally recommend starting with Vic Firth 5B hickory sticks. Of all the sticks I've tried, those are the most absolutely average. Weight, balance, size, etc. From there you can move into thinner (5A, 7A) or thicker (2B) as you want, but 5B is a good starting place, hickory is the best wood to learn with (and play with forever, imo, but that's debatable), and Vic Firth is fairly consistent.
Vic Firth's stick size comparisons. The standard sizes used by the majority of drummers, from smallest to largest, are 7A, 5A, 5B, 2B. Everything else is just incredibly minor tweaking that some people like.
https://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-George-Lawrence-Stone/dp/1892764040/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1472953106&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=stick+control
A Funky Primer for the Rock Drummer (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Funky-Primer-Rock-Drummer/dp/0739006630/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1318357665&amp;sr=1-1) is a good one.
Also worth a look are the video lessons on mikeslessons.com I find him very helpful!
A Funky Primer full of great beats/rudiments is a book i highly recommend.
Start slowly, and repetitiously.
&#x200B;
I learned by getting a teacher who recommended a book called A Funky Primer. Start with the most basic exercises as slow as it takes for you to play them right. Once you master that slowly speed it up. Learn new exercises as you master older ones, rinse & repeat (so to speak). It takes patience. Lots and lots of patience. Best of luck to you, slow & steady wins the race here.
Practice hitting these at the same time to build up muscle memory until it registers to you as a single motion:
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For hands (right/left multitasking) learn flam drills.
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That should get you started.
well i assume if you play guitar and keys then you already have a metronome. if not get one, it's the most important thing. also it's good to practice rudiments in the mirror so you can see you're hands. it helps with height consistency.
funky primer is a great book with lots of simple beats to learn that. fun with accents around the drums is also a pretty good one.
https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Rhythm-Manhattan-Publications-Collective/dp/0769220223/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?
https://www.amazon.com/Future-Sounds-Contemporary-Drumset-Concepts/dp/0739019120/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?
https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Interdependence-Drumming-Independence-Percussion/dp/0757980546
That book will get you thinking outside the box. And it may fry your brain.
Yes although it's obviously a different movement. And you have to put in the practice time, but if you can play something with your hands, your brain knows how to play it with your feet, you just have to exercise the muscles so that you can play with speed and control.
If you're struggling (I initially typed that as snuggling) with a rhythm, try playing with your hands and feet at the same time. But be sure to take your hands away at some point to be sure you're still doing the correct movements with your feet and not just covering up your mistakes with your hands.
With the proper practice you can also learn to take the basic principles of independence seen in the Chapin Book and apply them to more complex licks and fills. I know that Marco Minneman's Extreme Interdependence: Drumming Beyond Independence is a great method book for advanced interdependence work.
Practicing rudiments like flam-taps, flam accents, paradiddles, and paradiddlediddles is immensely good for your footwork. You'll see dramatic increases in your speed, technique, and endurance, and you'll be given many more creative options around the set thanks to your new abilities. It will also help you out with mastering more basic double bass stuff like single stroke rolls of varying length or even double stroke rolls (I'm currently working on a weak attempt at triple strokes, but it's still shaky).
I'm pretty sure this is the book I'm referring to.
http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Techniques-Modern-Drummer-Independence/dp/0757995403/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1394506238&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=advanced+techniques+for+the+modern+drummer
Thanks for calling that other one out though, I'm going to go check that out! Chapin writes some good stuff.
Don't mention it! My pleasure. What helps with the feet in keeping swing time is, learning how to feather the bass drum. It's extremely common in jazz, especially with cats like Joe Morello, Max Roach, and Jimmy Cobb. Even at the faster tempos, they feathered the bass drum a lot of times. Feathering, if you're not familiar, is pretty much keeping time on the downbeats very, very quietly. Make the pulse be more "felt, not heard".
They actually have bass drum pedal beaters that are designed for this sort of purpose. Check out the Vater Vintage Bomber beater. Here it is:
http://drums-percussion.musiciansfriend.com/product/Vater-Vintage-Bomber-Bass-Drum-Beater?sku=446667
Also, if you want a couple of GREAT books to check out, I recommend these:
John Riley - The Art of Bop Drumming
http://www.amazon.com/Drumming-Book-Manhattan-Music-Publications/dp/089898890X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1301166520&amp;sr=8-3
Jim Chapin - Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer (basically, this will be your best friend)
http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Techniques-Modern-Drummer-Coordinating/dp/0757995403/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1301166610&amp;sr=1-1
Keep swingin', man! Listen, learn, and absorb. The world of jazz is a wonderful one. Just keep loose, relax, and swing your ass off.
Cheers!
https://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Techniques-Modern-Drummer-Independence/dp/0757995403/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1487494311&amp;sr=8-1
Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer by Jim Chapin and Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer by Ted Reed
When I was younger my teacher was all about Jim Chapins book. It helped so much and I still check it out from time to time.
https://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Techniques-Modern-Drummer-Independence/dp/0757995403
http://www.amazon.com/Haskell-Harr-Drum-Method-Orchestra/dp/1423420268
http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Techniques-For-Modern-Drummer/dp/0757995403
http://www.amazon.com/International-Drum-Rudiments-Book-CD/dp/0739013106
http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Realistic-Rock-Drum-Method/dp/0897244869
get these books and read them and you will truly learn to beat smith. starts with the hands first then the feet, then the hands and the feet. i live by these books and remember that slower and more accurate practicing is 1000 times more important that fast and sloppy. get solid and have fun swingin.
http://www.amazon.com/Drum-Tuning-comprehensive-guide-tuning/dp/0964465817
this is a stand by too my man
And 4-Way Coordination!
https://www.amazon.com/4-Way-Coordination-Development-Complete-Independence/dp/0769233708
Start by learning some basic rudaments and slowly improve your speed doing them. http://www.vicfirth.com/education/rudiments.php is pretty good and had videos on each rudament. I also invested in This, and this which I found were really helpfull.
Edit: I invented a book instead of buying one
Another guitarist learning drums here! And yeah, drums are a bit on the physically exhausting side (admittedly I'm out of shape though), wow I knew I was uncoordinated, but I didn't really realize how uncoordinated I was until I started trying to play drums. I bought copies of 4 Way Coordination and The New Breed.
I'd call New Breed a 'difficult but worth it' workbook for actually getting your hands and feet working together. And 4 Way Coordination more of a 'learn to control them separately' (little tip: make sure that your hands are on different drums for the melodic exercises).
https://www.amazon.com/4-Way-Coordination-Development-Complete-Independence/dp/0769233708
For drum set books, I really like Mel Bay's Complete Modern Drum Set
It will give you at least a working idea of a wide variety of styles.
If you're looking to build strength and independence in your limbs, 4-way coordination
My old college professor actually studied under Marvin Dahlgren.
And finally, Gavin Harrison's books have been blowing my mind lately:
Rhythmic Illusions
Rhythmic Perspectives
This one right? That's awesome. I may have to invest in this book. Thanks!
4-Way Coordination, so you can do what you want when you want.
All American Drummer, so you can swing that snare like Philly Joe. Also move around the set.
Modern Reading Text in 4/4, because Louie Bellson knows his big band rhythms. Play them across the entire set and sing along. Use rests and busy rhythms to set up the big hits.
Syncopation for All and Syncopated Big Band Figures. More of the big band rhythm stuffs.
Get really used to 4s and 8s before moving on to longer solos. Try starting with a simple idea and develop it; don't play a bunch of different, random crap for 4 bars: 2-3 beats of a rhythm, and keep working with it. You'll find you can express yourself much better after some practice.
Also, metronome. Always, always the metronome.
I found the book 4-way coordination helped me with unisons - https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Way-Coordination-Method-Development-Complete-Independence-Drum/0769233708
Check out this book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0769233708/ref=redir_mdp_mobile
Even just working through the beginner exercises really opens you up on your kit. Some of them can be used as sick fills too and maybe even a beat (it would be kinda busy though)
There are many people here telling you to use the metronome, and they are right. Unfortunately not much advice is given on how to start using one.
Start really simple, start the metronome really slow ( 60 clicks per minute) and just fret play frets 1 then 2 then 3 then 4 on one string all with down strokes. count out loud or in your head "1 2 3 4" as you play those frets in sync with the clicks. You can pluck the "1" harder to remind your self that you are starting a new bar. So go ONE two three four, ONE two three four.
Then try playing 11 22 33 44. Same metronome speed, except now say in your head "One and Two and three and four and One and two, etc. " you will still pluck down on the one two three four, but on the "and"s you will pluck up, going up, down up, down.
This will get you started. to start learning basic rhythms try something like this: Modern reading in 4/4
Also, before you start tapping your foot as you play, try tapping the beat to songs you listen to, as if you are the metronome. the vast majority of songs will easily fall into "One two three four" rhythm. Try the intro to "Sweet child of mine" you can count along with the guitar "One-and-two-and-three-and-four-and" and you will notice it repeats. Then when you go to play these songs your self, you will not only hear the song in your head, but also the "beat", which will tell you exactly when to play the next note, even if the notes are not played one after another.
Go very slowly and evenly and you will get better.
The most challenging thing for me to learn I think was always sight reading. However, my guitar teacher showed me a good methodology for this, basically he split it up into the different skills you needed to sight read. One skill was reading the rhythms, which was covered by http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Reading-Text-All-Instruments/dp/0769233775 this book, Modern Reading text in 4/4 time. Which is basically a book full to the brim with rhythms. The idea is then that you tap your feet in 4/4 time on the floor and clap and vocalise what ever rhythms are written down. I used to do this for hours, and the rhythms contained in that book went from simple to just insane.
Actual note reading was covered by reading studies for guitar...
http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Studies-Guitar-William-Leavitt/dp/0634013351/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1311235782&amp;sr=1-3
and advanced reading studies for guitar
http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Studies-Guitar-William-Leavitt/dp/0634013351/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1311235782&amp;sr=1-3
The methodology for learning was to start ridiculously slowly, with a click at about 30bpm, and to do one note per click. This may seem insanely slow, but it helps you to become relaxed about sight reading, and also trains you to read ahead because you get bored.
This was part of the sight reading task, then after a while of doing this we moved onto sight reading notation from tunes from real books. I learned a few tips from doing this, I'll list the ones I can remember here.
2.Work out the structure for the piece, AABA ABAB etc, this will help you to minimize the amount of other analysis you need to do.
If you follow these tips, then sight reading will eventually become easy for you, but it takes quite a lot of work to achieve this.
Of course you can. I'd highly recommend working with some music that is not written for guitar as well. Try and get copies of some simple violin music (great to play on guitar) and if it helps, maybe also a book of drum rhythms. I have used this book a lot to help me over the years with rhythms: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Modern-Reading-Text-All-Instruments/dp/0769233775/ref=sr_1_1?adgrpid=60016439504&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjvX9_OKT5AIVCLrtCh2vTQroEAAYASAAEgKadfD_BwE&hvadid=259063575552&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=1007072&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=e&hvrand=11601031072553266974&hvtargid=kwd-299782540779&hydadcr=24433_1816114&keywords=modern+reading+text+in+4+4&qid=1566383964&s=books&sr=1-1
You mean you're weak at reading rhythms? Or you're weak at keeping a rhythm while you play?
If it's the latter, just be disciplined and use a metronome for everything.
If it's the former, I'd recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Reading-Text-All-Instruments/dp/0769233775
Learned about this in music school-- it's a ton of fun to just clap or drum thru the different patterns and really helps you to visually recognize common rhythms and get them in your fingers.
Modern Reading Text in 4/4 for All Instruments by Louis Bellson has been pretty good to me. Starts simple, gets rough.
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Reading-Text-For-Instruments/dp/0769233775
+1 for
http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Reading-Text-For-Instruments/dp/0769233775
persistence/patience is a golden when it comes to establishing internal time ...
& never feel stupid: it is all a question of time ...
a piece of advice that was given to me was to take bars from drum workbooks such as this and incorporate it into your playing while being utilized as a fill.
these books are reading exercises so the notes given are more for time value than anything else.
People gush about this book.
Since this post hasn't gotten any responses, I'll do my best
You've covered a TON of ground in one post, it comes of as a bit scattered, and therefore pretty hard to respond to, but I'll do my best.
>Are there any recommended books with or without accompaniment (I need recordings since he isn't here)? I bought this book, https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0769233775/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1 .
I have no experience with that particular book. There's a frequently referenced book, Klose's 25 daily exercises for saxophone, that I'm fond of and is held in high regard. Also look on the sidebar on that top link for some ideas.
> I think that I've adopted a double lip embrouchre; when I try putting my teeth on the mouthpiece pads the vibrations sometimes kind of hurt my teeth.
Okay. Some people do better with that, I hear, just be sure that you are staying in tune with all your notes and that your tone is good across the range of the horn. I've always found that I sound best with the standard embouchure, and people I've played with tend to have the same experience, but there are people out there that do the double lip embouchure and sound good.
> So right now I'm trying the 2.5 orange box reeds on my Yamaha YAS62. I just recently bought Hemke 2 reeds because I wondered if it was the reed.
I also own a YAS-275 which is sharing this problem.
I'm assuming this is about your lip hurting. A common problem that this sounds related to could be that you are using too much pressure on the lower lip and pushing on the reed. A symptom of this is that your upper range will sound sharp and the lower range comparatively flat. If that's the case, push in your mouthpiece and try to use less pressure from your jaw on the reed.
> When I play the notes don't sound smooth they sound a little bit abrupt. They sound a little bit restricted like the notes are singular or alone with the other notes around. Am I playing too staccato?
I have no idea what you're saying. You could be dampening the reed by pressing on it with your lip like I've mentioned above. Without hearing your sound, I won't know. "playing too staccato" doesn't make sense to me. Typically, you're maintaining air pressure when you're playing, and staccato is tonguing in such a way as to stop your tone put space between your notes. Given that tonguing in such a way is deliberate, I don't think that you're doing that?
> I can play the C Major scale and it sounds fine legato. When I play the arpeggios it sounds really bad at the top going back down. I play the lowest C, E, G, C, E, G, C going up. The problem is going down from the C when you are pressing your middle finger with the octave key then transitioning to the G. It almost sounds like a little bit of vibration or it is going inbetween the notes. I tried looking up online and it says that I should increase the speed of my air stream. I did this and the problem largely went but was still slightly there. It just made this kind of fluctuation shorter and less obvious basically. I think this thread means what I mean: https://www.saxontheweb.net/SOTW_Archive/alto/08-04-02/boardset-saxweb-boardid-alto-thread-83-spec-4558793.html
Also I left it on the stand for like a month last year when I was thinking of getting back into it and my mum hit it off the stand a while ago which I was wondering if that would ever need to be checked again (the other suggested solution to the weird st I found online was taking it to a tech). I'm thinking that I'm just out of practice but I do remember the YAS-62 used to sound really good.
Work on your intervals. If you can hit the note just fine on a scale but you're having issues with arpeggios, then there's a couple of things that can go wrong. Things that could go wrong include:
> Also if I do have to take it to a tech, I'm in London what is the best value one (not priced, best value)? I really hope I'm just shit and I don't need to take it to a tech but tell me what you think thanks.
Sorry, can't help here.
> Also my mum is only paying for half of my lessons since she would only pay for every other week and I think that I probably should have weekly lessons. What is a fair price for lessons (I'm guessing half an hour)? I don't know if I could get a discount since I'm paying for half of it; is that a reasonable reason to ask for less?
Respect the people that are trying to teach you. If you can't afford their rate, then either find someone else or explain that you can't afford their rate. Not sure how old you are, but if you're in middle or early high school, you might be able to get someone a few years ahead of you to give you lessons, and that should be somewhat cheaper.
> Thanks for reading and getting back to me (if you do)
Not sure if it is the reed hardness since I can play the low Bb and B okay.
Edit: Oh wow the PDF links for the real book in the FAQ are actually legible Another dumb question, when sheet music has chords like Bb7 or whatever is that transposed? If someone was trying to play guitar accompaniment could they just play those chords?
If the real book does not specify what key it is written in, it's likely C. You'll have to transpose the chord if you want to read it as a saxophone. For instance, a Bb7 would be played as a G7 on alto or a C7 on tenor. A guitar could just play them.
> Also does the dent in the neck matter?
Probably not if it's small. I'm assuming it's small because you didn't mention it till now.
The Drummer's Complete Vocabulary As Taught by Alan Dawson: Go through as much as you can while staring both on right and left hand.
Also, Gary Chester's The New Breed: This is a lifetime lesson type of book. You'll get out of it what you put into it.
This one is great as well - http://www.amazon.com/Afro-Cuban-Coordination-Drumset-Essential-Workbook/dp/0793597498/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1452782028&amp;sr=1-1
I've never heard of that site but it immediately blew my mind, thank you for sharing.
As for myself I've been working out of Benny Greb's Language of Drumming and also Afro-Cuban Coordination for Drumset by Maria Martinez. Both books are designed for increasing four-way independence but in very contrasting styles.
I'll second this. This should be at the top of your list of books to get.
You can spend the rest of your life mastering the first few pages only. You will see dramatic improvement if you open a practice session with 20 minutes or more of this every day.
Also don't limit the exercises to just your hands. Turn them into linear exchanges between feet and hands.
I also recommend the book Advanced Funk Studies.
Nice, man! Sounds like you have an affinity for linear playing. Carter Beauford of Dave Matthews Band is a brilliant linear player. If you are interested, check out the advanced funk studies book on amazon. It's got some gold in it! https://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Funk-Studies-Creative-Patterns/dp/0825825539/ref=pd_sim_74_4?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=0825825539&amp;pd_rd_r=GPWW0EYHE6PMA739CSF8&amp;pd_rd_w=gugi2&amp;pd_rd_wg=zC3Kr&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=GPWW0EYHE6PMA739CSF8
The Sound of Brushes - Thigpen
http://www.amazon.com/The-Sound-Brushes-Book-CDs/dp/0769294316
Creative Coordination - Copeland
http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Coordination-Performing-Drummer-Copeland/dp/0825803861
Advanced Funk Studies - Latham
http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Funk-Studies-Creative-Patterns/dp/0825825539
Big Band Drumming Fill-osophy - http://www.alfred.com/Products/Big-Band-Drumming-Fill-osophy--00-42309.aspx
You try this one yet?
http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Funk-Studies-Creative-Patterns/dp/0825825539
Use this book https://www.amazon.com/Mel-Bay-Studio-Jazz-Cookbook/dp/0871666820/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1469548861&amp;sr=8-8&amp;keywords=jazz+drumming
Friend of mine has these, they're pretty interesting and in-depth:
https://www.amazon.com/Drum-Machine-Patterns-Leonard-Corp/dp/0881888877
https://www.amazon.com/Drum-Machine-Patterns-Rene-Pierre-Bardet/dp/0881886327
One of the things that first drew me to computers and music was finding ways of dealing with drummers. All of the jokes and stereotypes about drummers are true!
But seriously folks...
Anyway, this book:
(http://www.amazon.com/Drum-Machine-Patterns-Leonard-Corp/dp/0881888877)
was super helpful for me. It's basic, visual and useful. So my suggestion is finding something like that. Start with the basics. Build on them, and learn about what human drummers do and learn.
Also, just listening was useful as well. It wasn't long before I realized that pretty much all rock beats are the basic boom-tat-boom-boom-tat ride, for example.
And my explorations helped me to have a better appreciation for drummers.
Good luck!
Blue
Just get this book and memorize it.
https://www.amazon.com/Drum-Machine-Patterns-Leonard-Corp/dp/0881888877
Can second the 'beat dissected' section in Attackmagazine that someone wrote below.
This is a decent guide that came up after my first google search:
The Ultimate Guide to Drum Programming
I'd look into this book too:
260 Drum Machine Patterns
I'm not sure about your skill level so it's hard to make a general suggestion, but I've found that Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer is great set of exercises for all skill levels
http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Steps-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer/dp/0882847953
Ted Reed's Syncopation is a classic book:
https://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer-Publications/dp/0882847953/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=TMB5JKB4B4EBBBSM4QX7
You can play with your palms on your lap and tap your foot to learn these rhythms and it will help your playing. Download a free metronome for your phone or go to metronome online.
Read rhythms everyday, it doesn't matter what they are or what book they're from, just read them. Take it slow and sync up with a metronome so you can learn what notes line up and what don't. This a great book by Ted Reed called 'Syncopation' (jazz drummers will know what I'm talking about). There's a section near the back that is considered the bible for learning coordination, but I think it will also help your situation. I think it starts on page thirty-eight or forty and it goes through lessons one until eight. Put a metronome on and shed that stuff everyday and you'll develop some great rhythmic vocabulary as well as better yourself at reading and performing more complex rhythms. Check out this [link]http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Steps-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer/dp/0882847953/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1410966323&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=Ted+Reed%27s+syncopation) for the book!
Happy shedding!
Edit: Well... the link thing didn't work out, but you get what I mean.
Yep, that's the stick control book. I believe the Syncopation book refers to this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Progressive-Steps-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer/dp/0882847953
2 practice pads and 2 sets of sticks (so you can play with him)
http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Steps-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer/dp/0882847953.
The standard recommendation is to find an instructor. I would see if you can find a local high-school kid who is a good drummer and would give lessons. Lessons through a music store can be hard on the wallet. You'll be able to pay for those a little later.
I'm playing guitar, but my teacher recommended this for rhythm work:
http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Steps-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer/dp/0882847953
There’s a legendary book about this exact subject, it’s essential for any drummer to spend time with it. What a lot of people like to do is take the rhythms from the book and orchestrate them around the drums for some really fun sounding licks and exercises.
Burn it in. This book is key:
http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Steps-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer/dp/0882847953
I started out playing drums and this book is one of the most useful tools I was ever given. Since I started playing guitar I have used it to help build my strumming and picking dexterity. It might help you.
https://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer-Publications/dp/0882847953
Stick Control and Syncopation for the Modern Drummer
Two of the greatest.
Get this book, and never stop learning
Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer (Ted Reed Publications) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0882847953/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_K4FDCb9D1W7YC
read from this and set it to scales, or anything you'd like
https://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer-Publications/dp/0882847953
Don't be too worried about it. In 8th grade they're not expecting you to be some kind of master.
If this is something you're serious about, pick up this book: http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Steps-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer/dp/0882847953/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1377065599&amp;sr=8-6&amp;keywords=snare+drumming
It's a fantastic introduction once you get the basics of how to read notes. It starts off fairly simple and gradually moves into more intense exercises but with some imagination and possibly a good teacher's guidance it can take you very far.
Also, get a metronome and use it! Start practicing with good habits now and they won't be a hinderance to change later on. Look up lessons on youtube, check out drumming sites online, it's an amazing time to learn music with so many free resources online.
The biggest thing I can think of is for you is to practice musically and not just straight forward notes. Throw accents in, change up the dynamics.
Here is a prime example from Jojo Mayer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTM7khtBeXc
I can also suggest to you some books.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1892764040/temancom
This is possibly the best drum instruction book on the market, it will do wonders for your playing.
http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Steps-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer/dp/0882847953
And this book too, work your way through these books and you can do anything.
That should read Stick Control and Syncopation for the modern drummer. I believe these are what the OP was referring to.
http://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-For-Snare-Drummer/dp/1892764040/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1344616777&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=stick+control
http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Steps-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer/dp/0882847953/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1344616777&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=stick+control
Your welcome. This one as well is awesome. Gotta love the turn of the century black and white but that's where all the bad asses came from.
http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Steps-Syncopation-Modern-Drummer/dp/0882847953/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_y
Buy this and a metronome.
Read it.
Breathe it.
Sleep it.
Buy this book.http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0882847953/ref=redir_mdp_mobile?pc_redir=T1
I'm a drummer learning guitar and this book is an excellent source for rhythmic variations.
get this and work through it (https://www.amazon.com/Double-Bass-Drumming-Joe-Franco/dp/0897233662)
Have you ever heard of the book - "Realistic Rock"? It's got Carmine Appice's name on it. It's actually a really good book just for getting into reading basic rock grooves. I use it for beginner students, but the book does quickly progress into challenging stuff. There are multiple "ways" you can practice the grooves, so you can really use the book for a while. Here's an Amazon link:
https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Realistic-Rock-Book-CDs/dp/0897244869/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1506711392&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=realistic+rock+by+carmine+appice
I see what you mean.
If you find a particular style you are enjoying and want to dive deep in, looking for books on that particular style could be helpful. You'll also find a lot of "[X] world music applied to drum set" books (see below) that you might be able to mine for ideas.
Also, think about taking some percussion lessons! If you post the general area you live in, we could probably point you towards some good teachers to approach for further study.
World Styles on Drumset
Afro-Cuban
Brazilian
West-Africa
The Art of Bop Drumming
The Art of Bop Drumming is a great place to start http://www.amazon.com/Art-Bop-Drumming-Manhattan-Publications/dp/089898890X
learning jazz is the same as learning pop punk is the same as learning any other style you can think of. Think of how you learned to play stuff like Coheed (not exactly simple music), you can take a similar path to learning jazz. Here's what I would suggest,
Listen to lot's and lot's of jazz. Miles Davis' Kind of Blue, as well as Workin with the Miles Quintet, Steamin' with the Miles Quintet, Cookin with the Miles Quintet and Relaxin with the Miles Quintet are great places to start. (check out the musician's that played on those records and check out their records)
Learn how to write drum music and write down the things you hear on those records. Listen to what the other musicians play and think about how the drummer reacts to those things.
Play lot's and lot's of jazz. Put some head phones on and play the ride cymbal pattern along with your favorite records. Play the things you write down while listening.
These things alone will give you a ton of stuff to work on and will improve your playing a ton.
If you want to work with a book I suggest this one buy John Riley, http://www.amazon.com/Drumming-Book-Manhattan-Music-Publications/dp/089898890X
good luck and have fun!
Sure. Check out The Art of Bop Drumming.
The Art of Bop Drumming: Book & CD (Manhattan Music Publications) https://www.amazon.com/dp/089898890X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_E9xPzbQTHZFZS
Try this publication: http://www.amazon.com/Drumming-Book-Manhattan-Music-Publications/dp/089898890X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1333522711&amp;sr=8-2
Jazz is where it's at, especially when it comes to training your non-dominant hand. In the book, you'll learn keeping time with your dominant hand, and developing independence with your non-dominant hand.. along with jazz beats.
Worked for me. Now able to apply the independence gained from studying the book to all kinds of music that I want to play
Also, rudiments.
Drum Programming by Ray Badness!
Music Theory for Dummies is great if you're just starting, and continues to be a good reference, especially if you don't have a musical background. Also, this might help with drums.
You may find this book to be helpful. There is a free PDF of it on the internet as well, I believe.
You may also want to have a look at Renoise, which is what Venetian Snares uses to program his music. Aphex Twin has also used tracker programs for years, and I'm certain that is one of the many secrets to his complex drum patterns.
Ableton and FL Studio especially have a large following, and YouTube tutorials are plentiful (and often very specific to the style of music you're trying to make), so take advantage of those if you end up going with either of those software packages. Also, it seems a lot of USB midi controllers come with lite versions of Ableton, so it might be a good entry point.
You said below you were a drummer, so I'm not sure if this will be as beneficial to you as it was to me, but there's an excellent book on drum programming that I learned several techniques from which apply to pretty much any DAW or hard/soft drum machine you may choose:
http://www.amazon.com/Drum-Programming-Complete-Program-Drummer/dp/0931759544/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1324166524&amp;sr=8-1
It's dated but it's still very applicable to most software you'll end up working with for techno, dubstep, or hip-hop.
If you're into Linux at all, I'd also like to plug one of my favorite compositional tools, the Hydrogen drum machine:
http://www.hydrogen-music.org/hcms/
You should read this book by Ray Badness. It helps tremendously, regardless of genre.
(if you DM me, i may or may not know someone with a .pdf copy ;)
https://www.amazon.com/Drum-Programming-Complete-Program-Drummer/dp/0931759544
Recommended:
http://www.amazon.com/Drum-Programming-Complete-Program-Drummer/dp/0931759544
When I was first starting out I bought a little cheap book on laying drums. It was actually helpful, I kept some techniques and use them from time to time.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0931759544/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
Polyrhythms are tough stuff. I also like prog alot, but haven't gotten to the point where I can play it very well. Starting off attempting prog would probably be discouraging. If you're looking for a nice starter book that won't be nearly as dry as sitting down with a practice pad and a metronome, I highly recommend the breakbeat bible. Are there any prog grooves in there? No. Will you be able to work on some of the fundamentals of drumming while still enjoying making music? Yeah. You might even find that you appreciate the grooviness and simplicity of some of the funk tunes more than you would've thought.
Couple things that'll help you overcome some barriers you are facing with moving forward.
Practice by sight reading and playing stick control books, like the infamous SCV Stick Control or the classic George Lawrence Stone's "Stick Control" book.
You can purchase GLSSCB it here, https://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-George-Lawrence-Stone/dp/1892764040/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=George+Lawrence+Stone%C2%B4s+%22Stick+Control%22+book.&amp;qid=1565023832&amp;s=gateway&amp;sr=8-1
The book itself has very basic, to intermediate, to high level rudiments.
Practice with the first few pages of the book. Master the movements, and you will pick up with speed. It's the basic rudiment patterns that will help you succed in playing the rest of the book.
The key is controlling your arm movements, stick, height, as well as tempo and fulcrum placements. Always practice with a metronome.
You will get better, it takes time. Set your frustrations aside and simply just start over.
If you want to lower the tone of the criticism you receive, invest 10 bucks into that book and you'll see praises then.
Happy drumming!
> Is taking on a drum student and saying something like "This means I need to learn to play kit!" really fair to the student?
Maybe not... but I've played kit before in bands (when the drummer takes a break from his throne for a pit stop at the porcelain throne...) and always been complimented on my timing. I just don't have the rudiments across different drums, so I feel like I should learn that. I've no aspirations to become a percussion instructor or put it on my business card, but it is music, and that one has always been on my card :-)
___
&nbsp;
> How you teach little techniques (holding the stick, hitting cymbals, foot technique) will affect the student for the rest of their playing career.
Yes, and I've seen people learn technique on a variety of instruments that hindered their playing forever. Even (especially?) if they learned from a teacher with a music-ed degree. Seems that's always a risk, particularly when people don't shop around for teachers. But I totally get where you're coming from, esp as a trained musician yourself. I will say a couple of things to that, and I will avoid being defensive. If any of this reads as such, try to find a different voice in it.
First, even to my cello students, I don't just teach cello; I teach music, and I tell them this. For other students I teach music, theory, and composition. For this student, I told his parents that I'm not a kit drummer, but I can teach him music; and if he can play music, he can play music on drums [insert list of self-taught drummers here?]. I have experience with hand percussion (professional, if you count using a cello as a cajon... ¡kek!), but I don't call myself a percussionist or drum teacher. I do say I have a drum student, though, which gets a laugh from some colleagues. I've coached for other instruments and ensembles, all the way up to conservatory level especially for audition prep. I wish I auditioned for Curtis and Julliard when I was a teenager, but no, I had to feel cool and go to Berklee instead. (Big mistake; hindsight is 20/20, right?)
Secondly, this student was taking lessons with a teacher at a store last year and quit. His parents encouraged him to try a different teacher and I'm working on getting him excited about music. I can't force anyone to learn who doesn't want to... but I can show him good music, watch his reaction to find what music actually moves him, then get him to stop "practicing" and start "playing!" I always say that doctors practice for a living; musicians get to play :-) When he started with me he brought Stick Control: For the Snare Drummer and explained why he hated it. Fair. I hate it too! So we work on other stuff. Should I teach him traditional grip or match? French grip? Open handed instead of cross? Open handed traditional so the right hand holds the stick underhanded?? I'm gonna find what works best for me and teach him that way. Gotta be careful because I'm ambidextrous & do some things left handed (golf, soccer, snow and skateboard goofy-footed, use tools in either hand, etc). More likely I'll find a way that works for him and teach him that way. He'll be self-taught with a coach. Does that sit any better with you? ^(this isn't personal, but I genuinely appreciate this feedback, it's useful self-reflection!)
Depends how deep you want to go.
First of all, always use a metronome. Your rudiments will sound exponentially more clean and solid if you develop a solid time feel.
If you really want to create a strong foundation, start with Stick Control. As the book says, practice each line 20 times with a metronome. Play only on the snare drum and make sure all of your strokes are perfectly even. Start practicing at 80bpm, then work you way up to you highest tempo in increments of 5bpm (play each line 20 times for each tempo). If you have any issues with timing or evenness, practice the line another 20 times at the same tempo. This method will give you an incredibly solid sense of rudiments, but it is fairly boring and quite time consuming.
If you just want to jump straight into the kit, then watch the Thomas Pridgen video mentioned by /u/flavenstein. There are tons of Youtube videos out there about applying rudiments, so really just find the ones that sound the coolest to you and learn them.
If you're able to have a book with your pad; this book is and/or should be a staple in every percussionist's diet. Such a good daily routine for every skill level. It's pretty much accepted as the best option to keep up your chops and versatility!
I just received this book in the mail yesterday:
https://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-George-Lawrence-Stone/dp/1892764040
I just went through the first 9 exercises last night before my usual practice session that consists of me rocking out to some random song list on spotify.
Hoooooly crap was I doing the thing. Only after one session I already felt more "on" than I have ever been.
I should note that I was in School band in 6th and 7th grades on snare, quit for 8th after I got a set, then stopped playing drums altogether when I went to college for lack of playing space. Saved up and bought an electric kit for my apartment this January, and have been slowly trying to get to "Where I was" since then. Yesterday was the first day I actually felt like I was playing stuff I'd always had trouble with before. Again, after ONE session.
Good luck dude. And don't let your girlfriend guilt you into selling your Jet Black 96 Pearl Export series with drum rack and double bass pedal for 500 bucks when you're 25. Even if you haven't played in years. God I miss that set.
Do you teach with stick control?
These for if your school doesn't have gauntlets (whole line will need them).
These are pretty handy if you don't have one, they do everything drumline related.
These are great for practicing, they're heavier than your average sticks.
People say this is the best book ever in terms of learning.
Everyone should use a metronome when practicing.
The bible - http://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-George-Lawrence-Stone/dp/1892764040/
Work them up to - http://www.amazon.com/Accents-Rebounds-For-Snare-Drummer/dp/0984329315/
For your more advanced students, this will also help you with your reading. - http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Breed-Development-Creativity/dp/1423418123/
Of course you don't have to keep them doing everything on the snare, get them to move the exercises around the kit.
George Lawrence Stone's Stick Control
I use that book daily, along with a good drum pad like this
Stick Control was written by George Stone. One of the most influential rudimental books every written.
For this stuff I would start with stick control ( http://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-George-Lawrence-Stone/dp/1892764040) but apply techniques as seen in Jojo Mayer's Secret Weapons for the Modern Drummer. He has the definitive insight into how a stick can be held and controlled. Coupled with Stone's book there are infinite ways to build your technique and maximize speed and comfort without injury.
I would suggest buying the Jojo DVD and the Stone book, but there are bits and pieces of both all over the google / YouTubes.
I would pick up a copy of Stick Control: For the Snare Drummer. Even working on just the first page with a metronome for a few minutes a day will make a huge difference.
https://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-George-Lawrence-Stone/dp/1892764040
Get it
I'd say get the book Stick Control, maybe a cheap metronome and do exactly what it says. Buy a good drum pad. These things will improve your playing to a new level, not to mention decrease fatigue. Drumming behind a drumset isn't all there is to playing drums. Dig it.
Stick Control George Lawrence Stone
http://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-For-Snare-Drummer/dp/1892764040
Exercises as in technique exercises? That's a very broad question. Working on the rudiments to a metronome is a tried and true method, you could also get yourself a copy of stick control and work through that to a metronome.
Hope this helps somewhat.
http://www.amazon.com/Stick-Control-For-Snare-Drummer/dp/1892764040
it's this book.
Check out this book: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0897245741/ref=mp_s_a_1_7?qid=1372842123&amp;sr=1-7&amp;pi=SL75
I haven't got my copy with me, but the source of the half-time shuffle for Fool in the Rain is in it.