If you want to have more fun on the drums, improve your skills faster, and play along to real music, then you need to build a solid foundation. The Best Beginner Drum Book gives you a clear path for getting started on the drums and skipping the frustrating obstacles that most new drummers face: setting up your kit, holding the drumsticks, learning notation, creating catchy beats and fills, learning musical styles, and playing your favorite songs.

Alan Dawson was a legendary drummer and educator, known for his work with the top artists in jazz as well as for his 18-year association with Berklee College of Music. This new text and online audio combination was put together by John Ramsay, a prominent drummer in his own right and a former student of Dawson's. The book contains all the important techniques and concepts that Alan Dawson embraced in his own playing and subsequently taught to his students. The recordings include some remastered audio examples from actual lessons taught by Dawson himself over the years. This is a highly comprehensive textbook from a jazz master.

Despite their central role in many forms of music-making, drummers have been largely neglected in the scholarly literature on music and education. Drawing on data collected from in-depth interviews and questionnaires, Gareth Dylan Smith explores the identities, practices and learning of teenage and adult kit drummers in and around London. As a London-based drummer and teacher of drummers, Smith uses his own identity as participant-researcher to inform and interpret other drummers' accounts of their experiences. Drummers drum; therefore they are, they do, and they learn - in a rich tapestry of means and contexts.

For millennia, the sacred drummers of pre-Christian Mediterranean and western Asia were women. In this inspiring book, Layne Redmond, herself a renowned drummer, tells their history. Artistic representations reveal that female frame drummers carried the spiritual traditions of many of the earliest recorded civilizations. During those ancient times, the drummer-priestesses held the keys to experience of the divine through rhythm. They were at the center of the goddess worship of matriarchal societies until the ascendance of patriarchal cultures and the loss of drumming as a spiritual technology. With wisdom and passion, Redmond chronicles our species’ deep connection to the drum, our rich heritage of inseparable spirituality and music, and the modern-day women reclaiming it. This book encourages readers—both women and men—to reestablish rhythmic links with themselves, nature, and other people through the power of drumming. Redmond illustrates her message with an extensive collection of images gathered during ten years of research and travel. Woven throughout the book are strands of ancient ritual and mythology, personal stories, and scientific evidence of the benefits of drumming. It is at once a history, a memoir, and a resounding call for spiritual and social renewal.

The ultimate guide to drumming styles by the co-author of the best-selling instructional book The Best Beginner Drum Book. Brandon Toews and Drumeo present... THE DRUMMER'S TOOLBOX! The Drummer's Toolbox presents drummers of all skill levels with the most comprehensive introduction to 100 different drumming styles from the past century. This ultimate guide includes more than 900 groove examples, as well as listening suggestions for 1000 recommended recordings. Throughout the book, drummers will also learn about the history of each drumming style, effective techniques for playing them, and how to break down different grooves limb-by-limb. The Drummer's Toolbox is for any drummer who's serious about expanding their musical vocabulary and becoming more versatile behind the drum-set. You will learn how to play: - Rock: Surf Rock, Progressive Rock, Punk Rock... - Jazz: 4/4 Swing, Up-Tempo Swing, Contemporary Jazz... - Blues: Texas Blues, Chicago Blues, Flat Tire Shuffle... - Country: Train Beat, Two-Step, Rockabilly... - Soul & Funk: Motown, Neo-Soul, New Orleans Funk... - Metal: Death Metal, Progressive Metal, Metalcore... - Electronic: Hip-Hop, Drum and Bass, Trap... - Afro-Cuban: Mambo, Nanigo, Songo... - Afro-Brazilian: Samba, Marcha, Bossa Nova... - Afro-Caribbean: Merengue, Reggae, Zouk... - And many more!

If you are a drummer looking to expand your knowledge of musical styles, Survival Guide for the Modern Drummer is the book for you. From pop to country, metal to jazz, and Latin to Motown, Jim Riley (drummer and musical director for Rascal Flatts) has crammed his considerable stage and studio experience into this amazing resource. The book includes 124 play-along tracks which were meticulously recorded with just the right musicians for each recording, creating an authentic and inspiring library. Tempo software and audio performance of each of the 318 grooves are also included making learning these grooves even easier. From beginner to advanced, this book truly has something for everyone. If you dream of taking your drumming to the next level, Survival Guide for the Modern Drummer is the book that can help you make that a reality. For the first time, groove tracks are now downloadable, so you'll have everything you need in one place.

Drummers are athletes. Playing the drums well requires the skilled use of the entire body. Unfortunately, most books on drumming focus exclusively on what notes should be played, and give little or no attention to how they should be played. This leaves drummers with the problem. When you miss understand technique, you will experience frustration when new techniques aren't as easy to learn as they should be, limitation in what you can do because the techniques don't work like they should, and injury when the extra wear and tear caused by bad technique builds up. The solution is simple: Anatomy of Drumming is your guide to moving well, learning faster and avoiding injury. When you understand the mechanics of moving and how they apply to the drums, you will know for yourself how techniques work, so you can use them effectively. Anatomy of Drumming is both a description of how the body works and a prescription for how to move better. Starting with the mechanics of movement, Anatomy of Drumming takes you through what you need to know about the body and how to use it effectively. It covers the basics of anatomy and the physics of drums; how to set up the drums for your body, Moeller technique, matched grip versus traditional grip, and many other important topics. Through learning about the proper use of the body at the drum set, you will be able to learn faster, play with better facility and reduce injury. - Back cover.