What Books or DVD's do you consider to be "Bibles" of drumming?

There's nothing really new.

Chaffee's Patterns series
New Breed
Syncopation or similar reading texts (Bellson, Patella, Lauren...............)
The Alan Dawson method is useful.


For snare and beyond:
NARD book
Wilcoxon's AAD and Swing Solos
Portraits in Rhythm (classical)

Then you have old classics:
Stick Control
Accents and Rebounds
Master Studies I & II
4-way coordination
Future Sounds

For double bass Virgil's book is the most complete.


This is it really. The rest is application and whatever in depth style specific material, reading material or whatever that might interest you personally.


The Igoe stuff is good. The Great Hands........... is a nice routine.

Groove Essentials is a nice introduction and play-a-long source along with the Turn It Up & Lay it down series and the Weckl stuff.
 
  • All of Gary Chaffee's books
  • All of John Riley's books
  • Stick Control
  • Syncopation
  • 14 Modern Contest Solos: For Snare Drum
 
Books:
- Syncopation
- Stick Control
- Wilcoxon...pick one, doesn't matter
There are a few others, but after these three, I think most books tend to focus on one genre over another; i.e. Realistic Rock, Art of Bop, etc. Once you've been into these books, you'll be able to handle quite a bit of stuff.


DVD's
- Great Hands for a Lifetime
- Groove Essentials 1.0
 
Hey Eric, these are just some of the books I worked out of.

1.) Left Hand Control for Right Handed Drummers by Joel Rothman
2.) Around The Drums With Rhythm by Paul Capozzoli
3.) Around The Drums With Paradiddles by Paul Capozzoli
4.) Mel Bay’s Fusion Drum Styles by James Morton
5.) Mel Bay’s The Key to Drum Polyrhythms by Chuck Kerrigan
6.) Beats and Variations for Dance Band Drummers by Joel Rothman
7.) 1001 Drum Grooves by Steve Mansfield

The Fusion Drum Styles book has over 400 patters that if you want to work on the kick drum foot work, this is a nice book and also will show ride variation that can be used with them all so.

Beats and Variations book is a must if you are going to do weddings or that sort of gig IMO.

1001 Grooves has a good Blues and Latin sections in the book.

Left Hand, if your left hand is weak and having problems this is a very good book to solve the problem.
 
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One that really resonated with me was Mike Mangini's Rhythm and Knowledge series. Mainly because of the scientific yet holistic approach of working from within yourself with such a vast amount of information.

Note: 4-Way Coordination was seriously ahead of its time, love the way the notation was presented.
 
Mastering the Tables of Time - David Stanoch

that being said ... I don't think any musician should consider any book a "Bible" of anything ... they are simple tools ... our Bibles should come through our ears not via text on a page

Interesting point can you elaborate?
 
... I don't think any musician should consider any book a "Bible" of anything ... they are simple tools ... our Bibles should come through our ears not via text on a page

WhoIsTony, that is a deep and profound statement. Beautifully said.
 
It's not a metaphor I would choose, but to me the closest things to "Bibles of drumming" are certain records. Herbie Hancock/Thrust, Miles Davis/Nefertiti, The Police/Ghost In The Machine, plus maybe 100-200 more like that. I basically treat them like they're the inerrant word of God, sure.

It's a harder question than it seems re: books. I would say Progressive Steps to Syncopation by Ted Reed is the one indispensable book with which I can do everything that really matters-- of course there's a method and oral tradition associated with it which is not actually contained in it.

There are a lot of other books I either use all the time-- or which outline something important about drumming, even if I don't use the actual book much. There's also important written information in books Drum Wisdom by Bob Moses, Peter Erksine's books, John Riley's books, Jack Dejohnette's book, Ed Uribe's books. Probably that would be another 50-75 books that are critical parts of the literature of drumming-- I guess all together those would form "the Bible", the total essential literature of drumming.
 
What Books or DVD's do you consider to be "Bibles" of drumming?

A Funky Thesaurus for the Rock Drummer
Charles Dowd

A Funky Primer for the Rock Drummer
Charles Dowd

Two excellent reference texts.
 
"Big Time" - Billy Ward

A revelation about kit setup ergonomics and internalising tempos to sound more consistent.

Mick
 
A lot of the books mentioned here are obvious must-haves, but I don't think there will ever be one singular drum bible. Rather, I would venture to say that many of the books mentioned on this thread, plus a whole lot more make up a drumming encyclopedia (for those of us who are old enough to remember our parents paying out the ass for an encyclopedia Britannica); a compendium of drumming knowledge.
 
A lot of the books mentioned here are obvious must-haves, but I don't think there will ever be one singular drum bible. Rather, I would venture to say that many of the books mentioned on this thread, plus a whole lot more make up a drumming encyclopedia (for those of us who are old enough to remember our parents paying out the ass for an encyclopedia Britannica); a compendium of drumming knowledge.

Really, there are only so many ways to work on general drumming skills. There are however many ways to approach the same thing. Many of these books represent just tools that are available for the teacher to use, modify or expand upon to fit each student. Many are used in ways that are way deeper and very different from their first intended use.
 
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