Shame on all you brits for not mentioning this one sooner...
NAME:
The Art Of The Drummer - John Savage (Book with CD) (Spiral Bound)
STAR RATING:
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WORDED RATING:
The best single drumset (general not specialist) book I've come across. Covers the basics very very well.
TARGET AUDIENCE:
Beginners although some intermediate/advanced players may find it worthwhile if they feel there might be any holes in there playing. I cannot recommend it enough for beginners though.
PUBLISHED BY:
John Savage's Music Books
DESCRIPTION:
I bought this book (after it had been recommended to me by a few local drummers) and have not looked back - it has almost single handedly made me the drummer I am today (whether thats a good thing or not I wouldn't be confident enough to say), I do own quite a few books and DVD's which have all helped me a lot in fairness but as one single book, at least to start off with, this is absolutely the way forward.
It takes the beginner right from square one and introduces drum score from the off (a good thing I say) in a very simple and user friendly manner, I'm fortunate in that I could already read a little music already when I started (18 months ago) as I play a couple of other intruments but I'd recommend this even to the complete layman. Of course the CD helps loads too.
It's broken down into lessons (in the order as the author says he would teach them in a private lesson scenario), here being a
very brief overview...
Basic Beats/Rhythms
Snare exercises
Fills using semiquavers
Rock
Swung Rock
Triplets
Jazz Rhythms
Accents
Strengthening the left hand
Rudiments (various rolls, paradiddles, flams etc - plenty here)
Various Time Signatures
Brush Rhythms
Latin American Rhythms
Advanced Rock
Expression markings in music
Tuning
Soloing
I really have only touched on the contents of this book and picked just a few salient points - as a quick look at the index will prove.
It really does seem to cover everything you'd need to touch on in your first year (or years) playing. I have done a lot of research into my drumming, with having had very few lessons and having to rely on myself/books/dvds/web to learn and there is nothing I have come across that isn't already covered in the material.
If you are in your first few months of drumming you SHOULD have this in your collection and be actively working from it IMO, if not I'd recommend you at least give it the time of day and check it out. And when you do and you think bloody hell that lowender's a good lad this is a great book... mine's a pint of the black stuff