Good sites/books to learn music reading

Drumsarefun

Member
Need to improve my site reading for drums. I have a basic understanding of reading and can read basic grooves/fills.

I'm struggling to find something (if it exists) that can start from the beginning all the way up to reading more advanced stuff.

Anything like this around? Preferably on the internet :)
 
I got a CD by Pat Petrillo that is geared to teach newbies how to read drum music. It's called "How To Read Rhythms Better". It gets advanced too, not solely for newbs.
 
If you have not used this book yet, I recommend "Stick Control." That's a standard that I suspect just about everyone has gone through.

My first drum teacher, John W. McMahan wrote a book, "Readin', Ritin', & Rudiments." It's mainly for beginners [I do not know your level, so apologies if this is below your current level.]

Another good book is "Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer."

As for video, on YouTube there is a good channel called DRUMEO. I like what they have to offer.
 
I, like many here, attended the Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Cant Read Good.

Over the course of my music career, I learned phonetic interpretations of musical notation (think "banana terracotta") and rarely come across something I can't figure out. The down side is that I can't really sight-read while I play.

@OP, if you find something that is a relatively quick-study, and works for you, please post it here as other Zoolander alumni would probably benefit from it.
 
It's not all the same.

Are you after just rhythms?

Snare stuff?

Reading and interpreting charts?


If it's just reading rhythms the Michael Lauren's "Understading Rhythm" is good. It has some ideas of working it into independence, too.
 
You'd be better off investing time with a teacher to be honest.
 
I also went through Syncopation. What was cool about that book was when I got to the end, I flipped it over, and then read it backwards.

Gary Chester's New Breed (the first one, it still kicks my a$$) is really good for reading too.

Actually, they're all good for reading. I knew a guy who has several books, and he's constantly reading through them. He says reading is like a muscle, you have to be doing it all the time or else you lose it. So whatever books are out there (and there are alot), he'll have it and take himself through.

Not sure how many would be published for free on the internet though. You need to invest in the actual paper.
 
Need to improve my site reading for drums. I have a basic understanding of reading and can read basic grooves/fills.

I'm struggling to find something (if it exists) that can start from the beginning all the way up to reading more advanced stuff.

Anything like this around? Preferably on the internet :)

Get some snare drum books and just read a page a day-- there are intermediate books by Mitchell Peters and Garwood Whaley that are good. Or Podemski.

Reading for drum set is really a different thing than reading actual written-out grooves and fills, though. It has more to do with interpreting ensemble and melodic figures and following a roadmap. To work on that see the body of stuff used with Syncopation by Ted Reed-- like Ramsey's Alan Dawson book, and a ton of things on my blog. There's a studio/big band drumming book and a reading anthology by Steve Houghton that are good for actual applied chart reading.
 
You'd be better off investing time with a teacher to be honest.

No doubt, there are clear benefits to having a teacher, especially when it comes to correcting certain techniques that may be unhelpful, or things that will turn into bad habits later on. Plus, there's a bit of a challenge that comes with meeting the expectations of the instructor.
 
I also went through Syncopation. What was cool about that book was when I got to the end, I flipped it over, and then read it backwards.

Gary Chester's New Breed (the first one, it still kicks my a$$) is really good for reading too.

Actually, they're all good for reading. I knew a guy who has several books, and he's constantly reading through them. He says reading is like a muscle, you have to be doing it all the time or else you lose it. So whatever books are out there (and there are alot), he'll have it and take himself through.

Not sure how many would be published for free on the internet though. You need to invest in the actual paper.

No problem, just remembered I bought Syncopation years ago, just found it on my shelf.

I was a beginner then and gave up because I didn't how to use it :)
 
You'd be better off investing time with a teacher to be honest.

It's not all the same.

Are you after just rhythms?

Snare stuff?

Reading and interpreting charts?
.

As Merlin5 put it (and I added acurate comments/questions from Odd-Arne Oseberg too), you can only learn that with a guy that is great reader and can teach it.

I give you an idea about reading from the book on the subject I wrote, I consider this beginner´s reading (almost intermediate), example if you started from absolute from CERO you should be studing THIS LESSON in around 4 months (taking one drum lesson a week), in other words it would be LEVEL: for a 4 month beginner.


full.jpg


Now an easy drum chart would look more like this:

full.jpg
 
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No problem, just remembered I bought Syncopation years ago, just found it on my shelf.

I was a beginner then and gave up because I didn't how to use it :)

I was using it to learn big band horn figures. Play a swing beat and play what's written with either hand or foot.
 
I got a CD by Pat Petrillo that is geared to teach newbies how to read drum music. It's called "How To Read Rhythms Better". It gets advanced too, not solely for newbs.

Ah. YES. Learn to read in easy, bite sized pieces. "Excellent" is a gross understatement.
 
If you can already read the rhythms on a page, then you're already there... Thing is, you have to do a lot more of it. It takes some time and repetition till your brain associates groups of notes and time marks as flowing music. I'm still not there, but I can't really think of any "fast track" for that. Like reading English, it took getting the concepts down, then lots of practice both reading and writing.

Try backwards. Notate stuff you already know as an exercise.
 
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