Survival Guide for the Modern Drummer: A Crash Course in All Musical Styles for Drumset

All great ideas are simple. Here’s a great idea: Tell working drummers exactly what they need to know, and then teach it to them. Simple. If you work through this book, you can confidently go out and gig/record and be assured that you are prepared for whatever comes your way. The book won't make you a true expert in rock, country, blues, pop, swing, metal, etc., but, it will make you proficient enough to go out and actually work. The fatal flaw of many drumming books is that they contain endless variations on a theme. For example, in Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer, there are numerous exercises that help your coordination and independence, but are not applicable in the "real world." Survival Guide for the Modern Drummer only gives you exercises that you can actually use. The book also gives you a clear “blueprint” for the things every working drummer needs to know. The most common fills, ghost notes, funk beats, the half time shuffle, the country train beat, basic swing four bar breaks, heavy metal double bass patterns, blues beats – it’s all here in a concise, user friendly format. The two pages on ghost notes alone are worth the price of the book. This book comes with audio examples and play along tracks for each exercise. With the downloadable software, you can also slow down and speed up the exercises for practice. But, that is just the beginning. There are also numerous YouTube videos with instruction and performance. Also, the book includes charts of the play along tracks using the Nashville Numbering System described in Jim Riley's first book. There is also a Facebook page for the book, where other students trade ideas, videos and tips. Sometimes the author responds too! I recently attended a three-day drum clinic with Jim Riley. He connects well with his students. He is a gifted instructor with a degree in music education. Foremost, he is a working drummer. The exercises and tracks in this book are very similar to real songs. We would play and exercise, and he would say, “Who recognizes that one?” The examples in the book teach the set list that every working drummer needs to know. Only a top country drummer could write this book. Like country music itself, this book is for the workingman. In this case, a working drummer.

I'm having a lot of fun with this book. If you're looking for a drumless tracks for play along, this has plenty in all styles of music. The book itself gives you some basic grooves and fills for each style of music. As far as developing skill and technique, if you're an intermediate or advanced player you are probably already familiar with most of this, but I learned a few interesting groove and fill concepts. The best part was the opportunity to play long with all types of music. Any musician should do this regardless of what type of band you are in or what type of music you like. You can learn so much by playing other types of music that you can then apply to your own playing. And you should make playing along with music part of your daily practice routine. I'm really enjoying this. A ton of value for the price. You get the grooves and fill ideas for each style of music, 124 play along tracks, plus recordings of all of the grooves and fills in the book so you can hear how they sound. There's no charts for the songs, and really only a sentence or two to describe each song, so it's up to you to create the part using the groove and fill concepts in each chapter. So you can get a lot out of this. Even thought there's only 124 songs (which is still A LOT!), I've been spending about a week on each song really listening to the song to write my drum track, and then playing and refining it until I feel it fits well then move along to the next song. Another fun thing to do is experiment with different grooves and fills, different orchestrations on the drum set. You can try out whatever you want in the safety of your practice space. It's a great way to discover new grooves, fills, sounds, etc. Definitely worth the small investment. Have fun with it.

Moving into first position on Amazon... not surprising. My prediction is that this will now stay at #1 in perpetuity. The reason is simple: The play along songs are professional quality and he teaches you how to play to them. The only other person I have seen do that is Peter Erskine with his app. I think the style of teaching drums where you grind on fundamentals and then just hope that that shows up in the students playing somewhere in the future is now dead. This has raised the bar. 99% of drummers play most of the time in their basement. Why can't we actually enjoy that. I don't want to just learn a groove and fills... I want to have a professional song to practice them with. I know that's a lot more work, but now Mr. Riley has done it, and once people see this there will be no going back. Nobody is going to hack away at "Stick Control" when there's a resource like this. Please understand me: I didn't say the book "Stick Control" is not good or not useful. I merely said nobody is going to do it. There's also nothing wrong with horse drawn carriages, but we have cars now. Online drum teachers everywhere should be very worried about this because they don't seem to be able to match it. It took him a few years to put it together, and again, my prediction he will stay at number 1. We aren't going to see any more chart only drum books. That just ended.

A great book that expanded my knowledge on the drums like never before

L'ho trovato molto utile da utilizzare per ripasso e consolidamento di studi già fatti. Utilissimo anche per rinforzo del timing e quando vengono i dubbi "qui che faccio? Quale ritmo è più adatto?"

Ich bin total begeistert. Ein tolles Arbeitsbuch. Jim Riley gibt zu jeder Musikrichtung eine Einleitung und erklärt, wie Lieder in diesem Stil stukturiert sind. Zu jedem Lied gibt es dann die Informationen, wie es aufgebaut ist (z.B. Einleitung, Strophe, Refrain, Strophe, Refrain, Bridge, Solo, Refrain, Ende), und Tips, wie man die Sektionen spielt und sie unterschiededlich klingen lässt (High-Hat vs. Ride, Snare vs. Rim Click etc.), und wie man Übergänge durch Fills gestaltet. Leider ist nicht angegeben, vieviele Takte die jeweiligen Sektionen haben. Man muss sich also erst mal mit dem Lied beschäftigen und einhören, bevor man losspielen kann. Das alleine ist schon eine sehr gute Übung, sich mit der Musik zu beschäftigen und 'musikalisch' zu spielen statt einfach nur 'rumzutrommeln'. Die Play-Alongs sind alle sehr hochwertig und stimmig. Man merkt, dass hier Experten für die jeweilige Stilrichtung gespielt haben, und nicht die selbe Studionband alle Lieder hintereinander runtergedudelt hat. Man ist sofort im richtigen Feeling, und es mach echt Spaß am Schlagzeug mitzugrooven. Mein größter Kritikpunkt ist die Notation des Rim-Shots. Riley benutzt ein X als Notenkopf. Das finde ich sehr unintuitiv. Es sieht "leichter" aus als ein normaler Snareschlag, und ich kenne es aus diesem Grund auch als "Sidestick/Rim-Click". Dabei soll der Rim-Shot ja genau das Gegenteil sein und einen kräftigen Akzent setzen. Da ich persönlich kein "Heavy Hitter" bin und Rim-Shots sehr sparsam einsetze musste ich mich erst ziemlich umgewöhnen die ganzen X-Noten quasi zu ignorieren und einen normalen, starken Backbeat zu spielen. Abgesehen von dieser Kleinigkeit ist es ein rundum gelungenes Buch. Wenn man überlegt, dass für Play-Along-Stücke ohne Schlagzeugspur teilweise 6 Euro pro Lied verlangt werden, wenn man sie einzeln kauft, ist diese Buch mit weit über 100 Play-Alongs ein absoluter Preis-Leistungs-Kracher. In den englischsprachigen Rezessionen hat jemand geschrieben "Es gibt keinen Grund, dieses Buch nicht zu haben." Dem kann ich mir nur anschließen.

Un libro q te acerca al lenguage del swing..muy interesante y recomendable.. Indispensable en la biblioteca de los baterias desde estudiantes a profesores

As faixas de playalong foram desabilitadas, deixando-me sem acesso a uma parte importante do conteúdo.

J'ai acheté plusieurs bouquins de musique, batterie, guitare, basse. Celui-ci est un de mes meilleurs achats si ce n'est le meilleur. Jim Riley propose des tas de plans dans tous les styles (pop, rock, jazz, funk, metal, disco, latin...) , histoire de pouvoir jammer dans tous les styles à la demande, des plus simples au plus complexes. Chaque plan est disponible en audio pour checker l'idée et qu'on le joue conformément à ce qui est proposé par l'auteur. Il propose aussi quelques analyses (en anglais) de styles et des idées qu'il propose. Déjà en soit, rien que pour ça, le bouquin est bien. Le gros gros plus, ce sont les 124 backing tracks enregistrés avec de vrais musiciens. On est loin des musiques redondantes, au son synthétique, qu'on peut parfois trouver sur le net. Les morceaux durent un bon bout de temps, de quoi bien vérifier qu'on sait jouer les plans proposés, mais plus aussi, comme si on jouait en groupe. Les morceaux commencent par un "one, two..." histoire de bien prendre conscience du tempo, puis intro, couplet, ... bref, on y retrouve la structure typique d'un vrai morceau dans le style joué. Vous pouvez acheter les yeux fermés! Attention, le cd n'est pas fourni avec le livre. En lieu et place, un code de téléchargement en ligne.