“As our mental image becomes more precise, we are better able to select muscle movements which will achieve our goals quickly, efficiently, and accurately.” I’m surprised I haven’t written much about this book already— The […]
Category: best books
Freehand sketching
A couple of interesting art books available “free” on Scribd, for anyone interested in art, or in getting into art, and trying some non-music related creativity. … which I highly recommend. I gave myself permission […]
Best books: Rudimental Primer by Mitchell Peters
Mitchell Peters is becoming the guy for snare drum literature, for me— his books form a thorough and complete vocabulary for the snare drum as it is played in the real world. They’re adequately challenging for […]
Delecluse patterns on the drum set
A rare-ish book outside of conservatory percussion circles, that is worth having in your permanent library, is Methode de Caisse-Claire by Jacques Delecluse. It’s an odd-sized book, so to print pages for my students I […]
Louis Bellson reading text in 4/4
Here are CRUISE SHIP DRUMMER! we spend a lot of time with the book Syncopation, and not so much with its more expansive, more serious-seeming companion, Louis Bellson’s Modern Reading Text in 4/4. I use […]
New Joel Rothman book – Ambidexterity
So new I have to use thiscrappy scan I did myself. I just received a new book in the mail: AmbidexterityThe Holy Grail for Total Independence At The Drum Set by Joel Rothman41 pages. Joel Rothman […]
Best books: Jim Payne’s Complete Funk Drumming Book
I’ve long felt there isn’t a truly good basic funk drumming book. There are many bad ones, and a few decent/acceptable ones. I most often use A Funky Primer out of habit, or Joel Rothman’s […]
Three little-known books
For a long time Steve Weiss Music has been my go-to site for unusual and hard to find drum books. Their warehouse must be full of stuff that never quite caught on, that has been […]
Best books: 143 Binary Algorhythms Applied to Paradiddles
This book has been out for a couple of years, but fellow Portland drummer Ed Pierce just brought it to my attention: 143 Binary Algorhythms Applied to Paradiddles. …possibly the worst book title ever, but who […]
Book reviews: Two new Stone books
Two new works by and about George Lawrence Stone have just been released: Technique of Percussion is a compilation of articles Stone wrote for International Musician Magazine in the 1940s-60s. It’s over 400 pages long, […]