Jeff Strong - Drums For Dummies

Drums For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

Copyright 2020 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2020939548

ISBN 978-1-119-69551-6 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-69553-0 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-69556-1 (ebk)

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14
15. Chapter 15
16. Chapter 16
17. Chapter 17
18. Chapter 18

All the drummers Ive ever met (and Ive met quite a few) started out by tapping or pounding on just about anything they could get their hands on. Chances are that if you picked up this book, you fit into this category as well. So, even if youve never played an actual drum or studied drumming in any formal sense, youre a drummer.

With drumming, youve chosen the worlds oldest and most popular musical instrument. There isnt a place on this planet that doesnt have some sort of drumming tradition. In fact, as youll discover in the following pages, playing drums is a universal pastime that anyone can enjoy, regardless of his or her taste in music.

My purpose with this book is to introduce you to as many types of drums and drumming styles as I can in 384 pages. If youre like me, you can find joy in each of them. And by knowing a variety of playing techniques, you can end up being a much better and more versatile drummer.

This book allows the drumset player to develop all the skills needed to play a variety of drumming styles from rock to Latin and jazz to R&B. I also expose you to traditional techniques that you can easily incorporate into your drumset playing.

Unlike most drum books, Drums For Dummies, 2nd Edition goes beyond the modern drumset and also includes a variety of traditional drums and percussion instruments. For the traditionalist or drum circle enthusiast, Drums For Dummies, 2nd Edition includes descriptions of how to play a variety of traditional hand and stick-played drums as well as some common percussion instruments. So, whether youre interested in playing a drumset in popular music or being involved in drumming ensembles using traditional drums and percussion instruments, this book is for you.

Drums For Dummies, 2nd Edition is able to contain all this information because you wont find any exercises that you cant use in real-world situations. The result: You can learn how to actually play the drums much sooner and without learning unnecessary stuff.

This book is also a handy reference for drumming. You can find a variety of drums from around the world that you may not have ever seen or heard of before now. I explain each of these drums, and I describe their technique so that you can play them in the traditional way using traditional rhythms. I also discuss how you can use each of these drums in a musical situation today.

By no means does this book cover all the different drums and percussion instruments played today, but it does cover more than a dozen of the drums that I see most often. And, with the techniques that I describe, you can easily play any drum that I dont present in this book. Just find a drum that looks similar to yours and start there.

I use a few conventions in this book to make it easier for you to understand and navigate. Heres a list of those conventions:

• Youll see many of the rhythms in this book marked with a track bar that tells you where to find that rhythm on the books companion website when you play it as standard music. The website and book together allow you to hear as well as see how to play each rhythm, making the learning process that much quicker. All the rhythms are now available as audio files.
• All the drumset grooves are written for the right-handed player. Well, not exactly right-handed people, but rather people who set up and play their drums in a right-handed way. I do this because its the most common way to play a drum. Lefties take heart playing right-handed can actually be better for you. You end up having an advantage because your left hand is as strong as your right (trust me on this one Im a lefty who plays right-handed, and so are a lot of other great drummers).