Snare Studies

[davfrancis]

In my continuing quest to try and become a terrific snare drummer I always enjoy working out of books like:

Portraits in Rhythm, Rudimental Swing Solos and John S Pratts Modern Contest Solos.

I am intending to get some new material to work on and I am considering getting Wilcoxon's All American Drummer.

I thought I would ask if anyone has any other good stuff to recomend....

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

[tombo74]

Vic Firth's 3rd book can be quite challenging:


And this french book from Jacques Delecluse we used in classical percussion. If you're in to develop your orchestral/symphonic/contemporary playing (lots of odds, ppp, rall, cresc, tr~~~~,...)

[davfrancis]

Cool. Thanks

[Vdrummer]

I dislike the Cirone book - I find it very unmusical. Great to challenge your reading, but the stuff doesn't sound good once you learn it. Plus, some of the exercises need to be interpreted correctly, which is why he wrote another book explaining Portraits In Rhythm.

I prefer the Fred Albright book. Similar level, but much more musical. He has cool phrases like the CW stuff. The Wilcoxin are great classic texts, but I like the modern drum corps type stuff too. I just got an exercise book called Slammin' Hybrids, that just has a ton of exercises designed to develop control. Wooten's book, Mazur's two books (very hard to find), Bill Bachman and Jeff Queen's books are all excellent too. Rick Beckham has a solo book that ranges from moderate to impossible (as do Mazur's).

I collect upper grade Pipe Band scores too, and use them for musicality and phrasing work. Good luck, developing better hands is definitely worth the time.

[davfrancis]

I am very interested to get into some of the Drum Corps stuff - especially after seeing a sample that was linked to a while back on here which made me realise how far there is to go!

I may have to check out the Albright book.

Thanks for your sugestions.

[Greaseleg]

I would recommend Jeff Queen's "The Next Level"...very good snare drum book. Its pretty advanced, but a good place to go after the books you mentioned.

[Vdrummer]

I have Jeff Queen's book, and I'm anxiously awaiting the DVD to see some of the techniques in motion. Sometimes it's hard to know heights, force, etc from just the written notation.

[Greaseleg]

I think I'm going to be on that DVD...it should be really helpful. Jeff's got a great way of explaining things.