Among professional musicians the issue of versatility comes up quite often. Especially for freelance musicians, knowing many styles and being able to handle a greater range of requests seems to be the main way to access a potentially greater number of job opportunities.
While this is true, there is a more important, profound, and noble reason for studying many genres and strive for greater versatility, which can be summed up in a single word and which applies to everyone: culture.
Studying the different languages of drumming, understanding every facet and broadening our horizons, can only help make us better musicians, artists and drummers, with more means and skills at our disposal to express ourselves and create something remarkable.
Anyone with a bit of experience knows how fundamental it is, both in a band and in the recording studio, to be able to produce ideas, solutions and suggestions that are often far from complex, but which are based on the vastness of one’s knowledge.
In summary, being versatile guarantees the following advantages:
- Broader culture and greater contribution to the art of music making.
- A richer personal style. The influence due to the study of a genre that perhaps we never actually play, allows us to positively contaminate and color in new and exciting ways something that no one has ever played like that before.
Everything we have studied comes out even if we don’t play it explicitly. It’s inevitable. - More job opportunities. Being able to meet a wider range of demands will naturally make us more sought after musicians. Also, since the music business is made up of so many separate and parallel circuits, being versatile will grant us access to more networks and environments.
- Greater freedom of expression. Just as an eloquent person is able to express their thoughts with greater clarity, precision and ease, studying different languages puts us in a position to never be left with nothing to say and no solutions available. With the consequent side effect of far greater satisfaction.
The course consists of a summary of dozens of other works and materials studied in my formative years, during which I collected and synthesized, for each style, the most recurring and fundamental solutions.
The study program is designed around a very effective method, to work on the many different levels that come into play and the necessary elements in an organized way.
For each genre the following aspects are covered:
- The history.
- The drum sounds.
- The feel and style.
- The main techniques.
- The most important grooves.
- Examples of typical fills.
- A drumless track to study and even record.
- A list of 30 records chosen from the greatest masterpieces of the genre.
- Additional resources for those who wish to go deeper.
My goal was to create quality content that could really help drummers develop a basic but fluid vocabulary in all major genres, to quickly become more complete musicians.
The styles covered are:
- Pop/Rock.
- Blues.
- Funk.
- Hip-Hop.
- Jazz.
- Samba.
- AfroCuban.
- Reggae.
- Electronic.
- Brushes and Beaters.
- Small Percussions.
It goes without saying that, once learned, the same principles and path can be applied universally, to explore styles that are not included in the book.
In total it’s more than 200 pages and 3 hours of video content.
In this free excerpt I’d like to share with you 30 examples picked from the 200+ exercises included in the method, with two grooves and one fill picked from each section.
I wanted to arrange this booklet so that it’s like a mini course, that you can use to start familiarizing with each style and instantly apply the new ideas learned.
You can download it here:
The transcription of all examples, as well as the table of contents of the method, is included in this 16 page PDF.
Each exercise is linked to its video demo, which you can access by clicking on the transcription. If you want to check out the whole 14 minute video demo on YouTube, click HERE.
To find out more and to buy the method you can visit the dedicated page, here:
‘Essential Styles – Expanding Your Versatility On The Drums‘
Share
