What snare drum books are most relevant/applicable to drumset playing in your opinion?

Joffry

Active Member
I’ve been wanting to get into a proper snare drum book for some time now but I’m experiencing choice paralysis due to the daunting number of well-acclaimed books out there…

I’ve heard good things about books by Wilcoxon, Mitchell Peters, garwood Whaley, etc.

but which of these books do you think is most relevant towards drumset playing, particularly jazz and fusion?

i am mainly looking for a book I can work on the pad just to increase my facility in a more engaging and entertaining way than simply playing rudiments for x amount of time.
 
Stone Stick Control <-- the Bible.

After that, I would say:

Tommy Igoe's "Hands For A Lifetime"
Stone's Accents and Rebounds
Bill Bachman's "Rudimental Logic" is great for learning the rudiments as well

a lot of people will mention the Wilcoxin 150 Rudimental Solos, but I don't feel like that is directly applicable to drum set, especially if you are a beginner, and have had no marching drumming training. It is foundational in the drumming world for sure but not directly for drum set.

the Garwood Whaley books have some good things for learning to read, and play different rhythmic variations
 
Stone Stick Control <-- the Bible.

After that, I would say:

Tommy Igoe's "Hands For A Lifetime"
Stone's Accents and Rebounds
Bill Bachman's "Rudimental Logic" is great for learning the rudiments as well

a lot of people will mention the Wilcoxin 150 Rudimental Solos, but I don't feel like that is directly applicable to drum set, especially if you are a beginner, and have had no marching drumming training. It is foundational in the drumming world for sure but not directly for drum set.

the Garwood Whaley books have some good things for learning to read, and play different rhythmic variations
Btw, I’m not really a beginner, I have worked through stick control and I do tommy Igoes advanced warm up every day. I’ve also done a lot of work with bill bachmans book.

i guess I’m looking for something more for the application of rudiments as opposed to just having them listed out like in stick control or bill Bachman’s book.
 
Stick Control
Accents and Rebounds
Master Studies 1 & 2
Modern Rudimental Swing Solos
America's N.A.R.D. Drum Solos
Buddy Rich's Modern Drum Rudiments
 
Btw, I’m not really a beginner, I have worked through stick control and I do tommy Igoes advanced warm up every day. I’ve also done a lot of work with bill bachmans book.

i guess I’m looking for something more for the application of rudiments as opposed to just having them listed out like in stick control or bill Bachman’s book.

sorry...I don't now why I was going down the beginner route; i have answered more beginner based posts recently, so I might have been on auto-pilot.

if you have already done that stuff, then I would 2nd t he stuff that @Swissward Flamtacles suggested
 
I guess Syncopation is supposed to be a snare drum book, and it's practically the only thing I use for drum set. Otherwise:

Gary Chaffee's Stickings books-- Patterns series, or Odd Time Stickings-- and Ron Fink's Chop Busters both have a lot of fusion-type materials.
Charley Wilcoxon's Rudimental Swing Solos is pretty specific to traditional swing/bebop.

Also:
Mitchell Peters's Odd Time Calisthenics
Stick Control
Accents & Rebounds
Dahlgren & Fine's Accent on Accents 1 and 2

Of course you have to know what to do with them— they only apply to drum set if you know how to apply them.
 
I guess Syncopation is supposed to be a snare drum book, and it's practically the only thing I use for drum set. Otherwise:

Gary Chaffee's Stickings books-- Patterns series, or Odd Time Stickings-- and Ron Fink's Chop Busters both have a lot of fusion-type materials.
Charley Wilcoxon's Rudimental Swing Solos is pretty specific to traditional swing/bebop.

Also:
Mitchell Peters's Odd Time Calisthenics
Stick Control
Accents & Rebounds
Dahlgren & Fine's Accent on Accents 1 and 2

Of course you have to know what to do with them— they only apply to drum set if you know how to apply them.

I forgot about those Chaffee books!!

and the last statement is the most important for sure
 
I just bought Sticking Patterns. I was looking through it yesterday. In the beginning I was like "this is super basic and easy, why did I waste money on this?" and then all of a sudden the difficulty jumped from 1 to 100 and I was like "oh, that's why this book is loved."
 
Btw, I’m not really a beginner, I have worked through stick control and I do tommy Igoes advanced warm up every day. I’ve also done a lot of work with bill bachmans book.

i guess I’m looking for something more for the application of rudiments as opposed to just having them listed out like in stick control or bill Bachman’s book.
You make a great point, the community could use material that develops rudiments into vocabulary chunks. I'm on Bill Bachman's drumworkout.com every day lately, and play the zillion exercises on the pad and on the drum set. When I do them on the kit and start moving things around to every surface, useful vocabulary starts to come out of it. But there is probably more that could be published to highlight better dialogue between the rudiments.
For instance, what pairs work great together? What naturally falls together? What rudiments pack well into 2,3,5 and 7 note groupings?
 
sorry...I don't now why I was going down the beginner route; i have answered more beginner based posts recently, so I might have been on auto-pilot.

if you have already done that stuff, then I would 2nd t he stuff that @Swissward Flamtacles suggested
Same here (though on another thread). Sorry about that.

Charley Wilcoxon's Rudimental Swing Solos is probably the closest answer to your post. Steve Smith has some videos on YouTube where he specifically adapts that material to the kit. The end result sounds very "early jazz" -- traditional/bebop -- not fusion.

As others have mentioned, the Chaffee materials are pretty much the keys to the fusion kingdom. Chaffee developed the material in these book while he was teaching Steve Smith and Vinnie Colaiuta (often in the same lesson). The Time Functioning Patterns book is drum set oriented (and you should check it out if you haven't already), but the other books (Rhythm & Meter, Technique, and Sticking) can definitely be practiced on a pad with a metronome. They have exercises, but not "solos". The goal is to give you the tools to express yourself, not tell you what to play. And they are difficult.

The Chaffee books are frequently taught from in many University jazz performance programs. Near me, Wayne State University uses them routinely, and they are listed in the curriculum at Berkley in Boston.

I guess Syncopation is supposed to be a snare drum book, and it's practically the only thing I use for drum set. Otherwise:

And, as TB says, Syncopation is super useful, but you have to know how to apply it to get vocabulary.
 
Steve Smith, Vinnie, GAry Chaffee...can't go wrong there
 
Along with the books already mentioned here, Steve Gadds book Gaddiments lends itself well to orchestrations around the set imo.
 
Same here (though on another thread). Sorry about that.

Charley Wilcoxon's Rudimental Swing Solos is probably the closest answer to your post. Steve Smith has some videos on YouTube where he specifically adapts that material to the kit. The end result sounds very "early jazz" -- traditional/bebop -- not fusion.

As others have mentioned, the Chaffee materials are pretty much the keys to the fusion kingdom. Chaffee developed the material in these book while he was teaching Steve Smith and Vinnie Colaiuta (often in the same lesson). The Time Functioning Patterns book is drum set oriented (and you should check it out if you haven't already), but the other books (Rhythm & Meter, Technique, and Sticking) can definitely be practiced on a pad with a metronome. They have exercises, but not "solos". The goal is to give you the tools to express yourself, not tell you what to play. And they are difficult.

The Chaffee books are frequently taught from in many University jazz performance programs. Near me, Wayne State University uses them routinely, and they are listed in the curriculum at Berkley in Boston.



And, as TB says, Syncopation is super useful, but you have to know how to apply it to get vocabulary.
"the Chaffee materials are pretty much the keys to the fusion kingdom"
Sounds good to me! Is there anything I should know about the Chaffee books as I begin to study them and apply them to the set? You seem to know a bit about them. From the online pdfs* I've looked at, they seem pretty straightforward but any advice would be great.


* I do intend to purchase the books regardless of the fact that they are available online.
 
"the Chaffee materials are pretty much the keys to the fusion kingdom"
Sounds good to me! Is there anything I should know about the Chaffee books as I begin to study them and apply them to the set? You seem to know a bit about them. From the online pdfs* I've looked at, they seem pretty straightforward but any advice would be great.


* I do intend to purchase the books regardless of the fact that they are available online.

Yes: they’re dry.

I came to this stuff late. I was transcribing Colaiuta and Weckl and Steve Smith and becoming frustrated because I couldn’t comprehend what I was hearing. Then someone recommended Time Functioning Patterns and then I bought the rest and it was like some doors opened. But that was my experience.

I would suggest transcribing or at least reading transcriptions of Chaffee’s students: Colaiuta and Smith, of course, but also Jonathan Mover, Tony Williams (I believe Tony studied with Chaffee; it certainly seems/sounds like he did), Cindy Blackman (who copped Tony’s later solo vocabulary in a rather straightforward way), and Chaffee himself (there are some videos on YouTube). It’s important to ground the ideas into what drummers actually did/do with it, because there is very little context in the books.

But, mostly, Chaffee’s materials are an efficient way to explore the vastness of the instrument, and give you the ability to both imitate what you hear, and improvise your own stuff.

Past that, just use a metronome, and don’t be afraid to explore more than one book at a time. They overlap, sort of — it’s hard to explain!
 
Another vote for Chaffee's materials. Once you get the double stroke patterns locked in to your head (e.g., the 3A, 5C, etc., groupings), you can then play them as polyrhythms across different subdivisions, and then later in the book he has many groupings for you to work for fills, grooves, etc., I'm currently working on one or two at a time at the moment for several practice sessions in a row, really just locking it in to my muscle memory and playing it around the kit, moving the accents and doubles around, etc. Highly recommend it. And don't try to rush through it. Take it slowly and internalise it and it will transform your playing.
 
I like Buddy Riches Modern Interpretation of drum rudiments.
Buddy Rich's Modern Drum Rudiments
There is an accompanying book to this I have found that deals with moving rudiments around the kit:


i guess I’m looking for something more for the application of rudiments as opposed to just having them listed out like in stick control or bill Bachman’s book.
The above book may be what you are looking for.
 
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