Most Essential Drum Books?

[bstocky]

Realistic Rock sucks. Don't use that book anymore. The exercise order doesn't make any sense. It's barely even an instructional book. It's more like a collection of Carmine's favorite (lame) beats. Have a look at Basic Rock Drumming by Joel Rothman. That's easily the best beginner book I've ever seen. Way more information, presented in a logical order with the exercises getting gradually harder. They keep adding new ideas so make sure you get the latest version. Sorry for the rant but Realistic Rock is junk.

Also, once you go through any book you can do it again using Greb's/Bozzio's "letters" and Gavin Harrison's substitutions. That will open a whole new world of ideas and independence.
You don't even need New Breed if you understand Benny Greb's "letters". It's basically the same thing. You just have to use your imagination.

[sejuba]

Realistic Rock sucks. Don't use that book anymore. The exercise order doesn't make any sense. It's barely even an instructional book. It's more like a collection of Carmine's favorite (lame) beats. Have a look at Basic Rock Drumming by Joel Rothman. That's easily the best beginner book I've ever seen. Way more information, presented in a logical order with the exercises getting gradually harder. They keep adding new ideas so make sure you get the latest version. Sorry for the rant but Realistic Rock is junk.

Also, once you go through any book you can do it again using Greb's/Bozzio's "letters" and Gavin Harrison's substitutions. That will open a whole new world of ideas and independence.
You don't even need New Breed if you understand Benny Greb's "letters". It's basically the same thing. You just have to use your imagination.

Hey dude, could you explain what the Benny Greb letters are all about ? I really like his drumming but haven't had a chance to watch his instructional video....
thanx

[bstocky]

Hmmm, I'm not going to do a good job explaining the "letters". Basically the letters are all the normal rhythms we play in North American music. You could play the letters or do a roll and accent the letters or double stroke the letters or flam the letters... you can see this stuff online.

Example - Let's say you want to play Songo. Instead of playing just quarter notes with your right hand you could play Benny's letters. Like just e or andah or 1e& 2e& 3e& 4e& while you play the normal songo left hand and right foot rhythm.

Or just play ANY beat you like but change one limb to play the letters.

Here are the letters.

Benny Greb 1.jpg (253.43 KiB) Viewed 6497 times

Benny Greb 2.jpg (256.94 KiB) Viewed 6497 times

[sejuba]

Hmmm, I'm not going to do a good job explaining the "letters". Basically the letters are all the normal rhythms we play in North American music. You could play the letters or do a roll and accent the letters or double stroke the letters or flam the letters... you can see this stuff online.

Example - Let's say you want to play Songo. Instead of playing just quarter notes with your right hand you could play Benny's letters. Like just e or andah or 1e& 2e& 3e& 4e& while you play the normal songo left hand and right foot rhythm.

Or just play ANY beat you like but change one limb to play the letters.

Here are the letters.

Thanx man. I think I got it. In some ways its similar to what you have to do when studying jazz coordination. You keep the ostinato with one hand and play the other rythms with the remaining limbs...
Is this from The Language of Drumming DVD ?

[Julián Fernández]

Isn´t the whole letters thing a fancy way to say "dotted eight"?!

[chris perra]

The Benny Greb "Alphabet" is breaking rhythm down to all the possible permutations of a quarter note worth of time.

There are only 16 ways to play 1 quarter note worth of 16th notes and8 ways to play 1/4 note wort of 8th note triplets.

It only works in a percussive setting as it's just play or don't play....
The dots mean to play, dashes to not play

A o - - - would be a quarter note or playing on the first of the 4 16th notes each dot or dash represents a 16th note worth of time..
B - o - - would play on the e of 1e+a
C - - o - would play on the + of 1e+a

ect, ect,... From that you can play full alternating 16ths and do accents on the dots, or flams, or doubles, whatever you want..

You can make a system like new breed does from one of the letters and do coordination stuff.

His dvd to me is a must buy,... If you are an intermediate player that wants to get better..
The alphabet is 90% of everything I'll ever play in my life.. And it really makes you think in a different micro vs macro way of things..

Realistic rock has less stuff in it than Basic Drumming.. I teach out of both, but it's not crap in my opinion, it's laid out progressively and the notation is solid.. Basic drumming is a great book lots of styles and covers everything, however I'm not a fan of the drum set notation in it.

[percusski]

Yeah I must say that this Greb letters thing is just reinventing the wheel, it used to be called the triplet code and so on, obviously it's used to sell a book/dvd but from what I've seen there's no value in it. And out of interest what are 'Gavin Harrison's substitutions' ?
Don't get me started on the 'Cobus System' ... now that is real bull****

The books I always recommend are Master Studies Joe Morello, Syncopation Reed, Time Patterns Chaffee, New Breed Chester...I liked Future Sounds Garibaldi too but not as complete a system.

[chris perra]

The value is in being shown a simple all encompassing organization of 1/4 note length rhythms.. covering 1/4's, 1/8ths 1/16ths, 1/8th note triplets, 1/16th note triplets and 32nd notes..

You don't even need to read notes and rests to do it.. It's simple and covers everything...

[bstocky]

Gavin's substitutions is really simple - Where ever you play one stroke change it to two.
I know that seems ridiculous but it will give you all kinds of new ideas.

and Benny's alphabet is probably the most important practice tool I've ever used. It's so simple but covers everything you would ever play in most music. The problem is most people don't know how to use the alphabet.

[bstocky]

Is this from The Language of Drumming DVD ?

Yes, if you buy the dvd it comes with pdf files that you can save on your computer or print off into a book. The dvd sounds and looks incredible. Benny doesn't show you how to play his licks but using his alphabet you can make up your own ideas.
Bozzio's old ostinato dvds also used the same alphabet system but Terry had a few polyrhythms throw in there too.