drum book

[drumdawg]

Hey all, I've been writing a drum book for a bit now. The majority of the materiel will consist of rudiments applied to the drum set(grooves and fills). Lots of examples/ideas inspired by guys like Vinnie, Weckl, and a bunch more. A section of the book will cover a double drumming concept between 2 drummers. (more on that to come) I've been teaching at MI for many years now and the standard or format has changed dramatically over the past 10 years. Much of today's curriculum is very broken down and walks the student through what ever the topic is step by step. When i studied out of books and MI in the past, I used a few simple books with little text and direction but it was my mentors/teachers who showed me how to use them along with my imagination. My questions: Do you think that with todays student or study prefers lots of broken down text? The material is for intermediate to advanced drummers. I don't want to insult the reader but know more and more is elaborated and spelled out for a lack of better words. What do you think the climate of the youth coming up wants/needs and where do you think its going. At this point, i plan on self publishing and doing it myself (More of a labor of love). Making $ is my last concern. I'm approaching this as i would a band with young blood and green eyes. Just want to put my mind out to the Universe and see what happens. I can upload some examples of multiple approaches if anybody is interested. Thanks for you time/input in advanced. I respect many of your views, opinions, and know there's a wealth of knowledge here.
Peace, Sammy J

[Kurtis]

Love it Sammy. Samples please. Video or PDF stuff? Would love to see you playing some examples. Labor of love. Sometimes you just want to give back what you receive.

[Rhythmatist]

My $0.02 on books in general as they related to my study over these many years (I'm pushing the big 60 and have been doing this since early grade school)...My approach to study materials changed drastically while in college after taking a very few lessons from Gary Chaffee (several years prior to the Patterns series) and Ed Soph. Gary provided the mental while Ed defined the physical for me. With Gary, one thing stuck in my mind when he said, "Always exhaust the possibilities." At that time he challenged me to use minimal visual material but to use my imagination to create something completely different yet grounded to what is seen. His approach was to use something like the exercises in Reed or Stone as a starting point and do as much as you can think of to say, one measure of an 8th note pattern. Play the rhythm in each hand and foot against time patterns in the rest of the limbs to begin. Then start getting creative...fill in the rests, use accent, sticking and dynamic patterns, play it backwards & upsidedown, transpose to other note values etc etc etc....The whole idea was to learn to improvise (or compose spontaneously) by exposing myself to as many combinations and permutations of a particular rhythm as I could come up with. To those who like a lot of structure and organization to their practice routine this might seem a bit alien but this allows one to think in terms of playing "time feels" as opposed to repetitive beats. Of course in the real world we have to be able to do both so my approach has always been to initially work the exercise repetitively and slowly and then move to "exhaust the possibilities." Once you get comfortable doing this with short phrases the next challenge is to start working longer rhythmic phrases...2-4-8-12-16 bars etc.

Soph exposed me to the various techniques...Moeller, Gladstone, finger control. His mantra was something like, "Physical motion determines the character of sound," and "Strokes in time produce sounds in time." I began combining Chaffee's ideas with the various techniques...for instance, playing a rhythm with accents in the RH using Gladstone while filling in triplets with an accent pattern in the LH using Moeller.

As far as the needs of today's players I look to guys like JoJo Mayer...the techniques and rhythms are the same as they have been through the ages just with different applications. I think your question points more to do we need to spell it out in greater detail today more than in the past and my answer would probably be no. I've always been of the minimalist viewpoint where mastering the drum set is concerned mainly because I see drumming as 98% improvisation.

Good luck in your venture. Keep us posted here as to progress.

[drumdawg]

Thanks for the thoughts guys. here's a couple examples to get an idea of the content/format I'm starting with...
sammy j
#1. https://www.dropbox.com/s/wt3hxodzwunchpi/Diddle%20me%205bookedit.pdf
#2. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/wxbvxnohcfjqess/Toss%27n%20it%20upbullshedcanonKNUTE.pdf?token_hash=AAExdQz6hOxq-bXxQBvBK71MpQFkbU0WdsKL-czgWJ0Rqg&dl=1
#3. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/tlwfo6l7o2bynyq/Toss%27n%20it%20upbullshedcanonscopyright.pdf?token_hash=AAG3TFSQi6ayWLOyRx4Feql7G2sD-E8z2yyPpBItkT862w&dl=1

[drumdawg]

btw Kurt, I plan to do some audio/vids after I have the book in a realistic place. Right now i have tons of material/ideas that I'm editing. After I get a consistent direction I will get the rest going. Need to figure out what's the best method to convey the idea's...
sjw

[drumdawg]

Hey Kurt(or others), any thoughts on the material? I think I'm gonna cut out a bunch of the text. Basically do a page of text/example at the top of the chapter and then just list the exercises. I still want to list the credits of all the examples, but don't want to patronize the viewer/reader with the step by step process. I think i'm gonna complete a full chapter and send it to a few people for opinions and critique. Would you have time to look over some material? Is anybody else interested in Kleenex testing?
Thanks, Sammy J

[Steve Holmes]

Good choices for examples, interesting grooves.

I don't think the first link works, the 2nd and 3rd appear to be the same pdf?
Thanks for letting us check it out.

[drumdawg]

The first link works on my computers. the second two are the same transcriptions but with different approaches of text/content to support the idea.
thx man.
sjw

[Frank Briggs]

The first link doesn't work for me either.

The Toss groove is so... Toss.

If you want some feedback Sammy feel free to reach out. I have completed a few myself, it's a shit ton of work.
If I may suggest; get your table of contents together first, a general flow and order of the chapters that make sense to you. Then all you need to do is fill it in with content. That should save you a lot of time.

Put more Toss in there and I will buy it for sure:)

[drumdawg]

Thanks to Frank Appreciate your time. I will PM you in the near future.
I re-uploaded the 1st link that wasn't working for you guys. Can you view it now??
Peace, Sammy J

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wt3hxodzwunch ... okedit.pdf