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 most players, but they never get into the technical/reading absurdity we get from some other authors. All together they're cleanest presentation of the core craft of snare drumming I've found. 

Peters is well known in conservatory percussion, but his books are somewhat low profile in the broader drumming world— they're published by the Professional Drum Shop in Los Angeles, which is not super aggressive about promoting them. 

Rudimental Primer seems like a rudimental book for the non-rudimental world— concert percussion and drumset musicians. It covers all 40 of the Percussive Arts Society's list of international drum rudiments. Each rudiment gets two dedicated, very dense pages, with some preparatory studies for learning the the basic movements, and a number of short exercises in different rhythms and meters, plus a few short solo etudes. This is the real format for learning rudiments— not simply playing the through the PAS list. 

The solos are quasi-traditional, not unlike those in Haskell Harr. But these don't have that general stink of tradition. Everything in them is there for a reason. It's a modern book, and he includes solos in non-traditional meters, like 3/4 and 5/8. Peters generally doesn't try to do the teacher's job in the text— this book, like his others, is virtually 100% music. There are no hand movements (upstrokes and downstrokes) or dynamics marked in, apart from the stickings and accents. It's a book for the practice room— you could practice for half an hour without turning a page. Nothing needs to be filtered. 

Haskell Harr's and Charley Wilcoxon's books are my other most frequently used rudimental books, but they each have their drawbacks. The Buddy Rich rudiment book, which I never use, is not terrible, but it's overloaded with extraneous stuff, short on studies preparing for and developing many rudiments. Corps people will want to use a book with drumline-type hand motions written in, like Matt Savage's Rudimental Workshop. 

Rudimental Primer is a serious practice book for mature players and teachers, who know how the fundamentals of do this stuff, and how to teach teach it; and for pretty serious students— teenagers and up— who need to learn the rudiments.  

71 pages. Distributed by Professional Drum Shop, Inc, published by Try Publishing. 

I also recommend: 

Elementary Snare Drum Studies

Intermediate Snare Drum Studies

Advanced Snare Drum Studies (though I don't use it much)

Odd Meter Calisthenics (thanks Ed!)

Odd Meter Rudimental Etudes

All are available from Steve Weiss Music, and from the Pro Drum Shop. 

Best books: Odd Meter Calisthenics by Mitchell Peters

Odd Meter Calisthenics for the Snare Drummer 
by Mitchell Peters - 79 pages

I own several books by Mitchell Peters, and though they're mostly excellent, I approached this one with caution. I was not wild about his other straight technique book I own, Developing Dexterity— which isn't bad, I just do not find myself using it very productively. I blame the book when I don't practice it. But Odd Meter Calisthenics, it turns out, is excellent. I would say that (along with Gary Chaffee's Odd Time Stickings and Ralph Humphrey's Even In The Odds) it's an essential library item for anyone interested in odd meters generally— the odd */8 meters especially.

It's sort of a Stick Control for odd meters, but more performance oriented, and just better and more fun in general. It covers the major technical essentials, mainly accents, singles, doubles, mixed stickings , flams, and rolls in */8 meters— mostly in 5/8 and 7/8, with some 10/8, 11/8, and other meters. The exercises are well organized into one or two page workouts, and the learning curve for any one section is not steep; the emphasis is more on practical dexterity in these meters, rather than demanding technical combinations. Taken as a whole, the book is basically a complete practical language for the hands for improvising in these meters. Highly recommended.

As a companion to this book, I also recommend Peters's Odd Meter Rudimental Etudes, a book of fairly traditional rudimental etudes along the lines of Haskell Harr, mainly in 5/8 and 7/8.

Three Camps round up

I recently picked up a stack of Mitchell Peters books, one of which contains several variations on this classic, and it seemed like a good time to round up the various sources and variations on it. In case anyone doesn't know, Three Camps is a military drumming piece over 200 years old, based on rolls and accents in a triplet rhythm. I've been playing it since drum corps legend Ghost (known to his mother as Bill Linen) taught me an unusual (possibly mis-remembered) version in 1982. Since at least Charles Wilcoxon's day, drummers have been using it as a template for working on other things- accented singles, paradiddles, ratamacues, etc. Here's what I could find online and in my own library: 


Books

The Moeller Book, and Haskell Harr Drum Method, book 2
Each of these has it written out in the archaic notation, with an unusual ending in Harr- two 5-stroke rolls plus release. Due to the notation they're pretty useless to modern users readers.

Rudimental Swing Studies for the Advanced Drummer by Charlie Wilcoxon
In traditional form, paradiddles, and ratamacues. Unfortunately both the original edition and the typo-riddled Sakal edition present it with the old-fashioned notation, though it's marginally more readable than the Moeller version. (To be fair to Mr. Sakal, I think there are many more typos in his edition of Rolling in Rhythm than in RSS. Still looking for an original edition of RIR to confirm that...)

Intermediate Snare Drum Studies by Mitchell Peters
Includes the usual triplet roll form (in modern notation), and in rolls with a 16th note, quintuplet, and sixtuplet pulsation.

Variations on Three Camps by Marvin Dahlgren
This was an unexpected find. I was continuing my so-far-in-vain search for a copy of Dahlgren's Drum Set Control, and came across Really Good Music, which publishes his books- including DSC. According to the site: "The first half of the book is designed primarily for Snare Drum. The second half is designed for use with Drum Set. As usual with Marv Dahlgren books, one can easily spend the rest of your life perfecting these patterns. This 61 page book is in easy to read manuscript with sticking patterns indicated." Naturally I ordered a copy- along with DSC and a book I had never heard of, Complete Text for the Rock & Roll Drummer. I'll let you know when I get them.

Variazioni in Three Camps by Daniele Sabatini
Never seen this before. Ten different variations. No information on what they are, but the preview has it written in flamacues. Available through a German site.

Online versions after the break: