Essential Styles for the Drummer and Bassist, Bk 1: A Cross Section of Styles As Played by Today's Top Artists, Book & Online Audio Paperback – September 1, 1996

Bought this for son's college drumming class. He says it is a very good book for aspiring drummers. It was required by the professor.

Positively brilliant! The CD is invaluable, practice time is of course at a premium, makes practice both possible and productive. The music is more principle than excellence. It's simple and inspiring to make you want to innovate.

And she's using it all the time and I've had other musicians tell me that this is an excellent book for percussionists.

great book although there are some typos in the music.

once of the best books i ever had

This book could have easily won a 4 or 5 star rating from me, but there is one serious deficiency in this book --- huge portions of what is actually being played is not transcribed. This may be more of a problem for the bassists who are interested in this book, since the drum parts generally are static most of the time. For the first half of the book the bass transcriptions range from very good (and complete) to partial transcriptions ranging from just a couple bars to several bars transcribed while several bars are just left blank, for you to figure out by ear. For nearly the entire second half of the book, the bass player / transcriber (could be a different person I suppose) just decides to entirely stop transcribing the bass part. That's right, for about half the tunes in this book they do not even bother transcribing the bass part. By today's standards, where any guitar / bass book you purchase will have full transcriptions as well as TAB and recordings.....this just doesn't cut it. Yes, even just listening to the tracks could be educational, but.....if I wanted to just learn by listening, I would actually just go buy some CDs of my favorite artists, and do just that....The entire point of purchasing an instructional book is defeated by this lack of complete transcriptions in this book.The book is more orientated towards blues / funk / jazz styles, which is fine, but there are also many other styles that would make this book more complete and useful as a reference. All of the tracks on the CD are of top quality and true to the styles they represent and are the main reason for the 3 stars in my rating.Another deficiency is the total lack of explanation of what the bass player is thinking or doing when creating the bass lines. What scales are being used, or theoretical tools, etc...Yes for some, just hearing an example and learning it by ear is enough, but for others like myself I do like to know in more depth what is going on with the scales and harmony.If you just want to sample and hear different styles, with minimal instructions on how to reproduce it yourself, then you can't go wrong with this book as all the examples are excellent and the playing and recordings are of top quality. If you like to have a bassline fully transcribed, and some explanation as to why the bassist chose the notes or rhythms he did, then this book will fall short. The small amount that is transcribed is in standard notation only, so for those of you who don't read standard notation that would be another reason not to buy it.

Good buy!

I am a band teacher (11yrs) whose primary instrument is percussion. This is a phenomenal book for young drumset players if you are looking to get a great introduction to non-rock based styles. I have used this book over and over again with my young jazz band drummers when we pull out latin charts and they have no idea what to play. The play along CD puts all the styles into context and makes it fun for students to practice. Had to chime in with a 5 star rating to help the overall review a bit. I know the bass players don't particularly like this book but Steve Houghton is a staple in the percussion world and this book is excellent. Also check out Steve's book "Studio and Big Band Drumming".

Cool

Superbe méthode de 64 pages que je travaille depuis les années 80, sortie à l'époque avec cassette audio au son pas toujours de qualité ( la batterie à gauche et la basse à droite ) ... C'est donc pour cette raison que j'ai acheté cette nouvelle édition avec Cd nettement plus pratique et conviviale pour travailler ! Ne pas se fier au titre " Pour batteur et Bassiste " car tous les musiciens peuvent utiliser ce recueil de 30 morceaux divisés en 3 parties : 1) - Funk / R&B / Pop-Rock / Fusion ... - 2) - Latin : Brazilian / Afro-Cuban ... - 3) - Jazz : Basie groove / Ballad / Up-Tempo ...- Chaque morceau est accompagné d'une partie écrite ( accords, structures, formes ... ) très pratique pour comprendre la musique, les batteurs ne se réduisant pas uniquement à lire une partition de batterie qui n'a de sens qu'avec la mélodie et l'harmonie, contrairement à beaucoup de méthodes françaises qui ne se focalisent que sur l'aspect technique de l'instrument, grave erreur pédagogique !- Les morceaux sont largement inspirés des années 80 : Peter Erskine, John Robinson, Marcus Miller, Robben Ford, David Sanborn, John Scofield ... Chacun y reconnaîtra donc la musique de cette époque formidable !- Quant aux auteurs, Steve Houghton est un batteur très actif ( W. Herman Band, S. Henderson, B. Hutcherson ... ) avec qui j'avais eu l'honneur d'étudier au fameux M.I.T. ( Musicians Institute Of Technology ) de Los Angeles au début des années 80, un régal de professionnalisme et d'éducation musicale et qui enseigne désormais à la célèbre " Groove School Of Music ", il est aussi un membre actif à la direction du P.A.S. ( Percussive Art Society ) - Tom Warrington, très respecté dans le métier ( studio, télévision, scène ... ), est aussi un grand musicien émérite ( B. Rich Band, S. Getz, D. Liebman ... ) venant aussi de Los Angeles.- Attention tout de même, cette méthode ne s'adresse pas aux débutants(es) car il faut déjà avoir quelques bonnes notions de solfège, lecture, technique, une bonne culture musicale et savoir jouer avec un métronome et/ou séquenceur ; A travailler donc avec un prof ( ou seul ) à la curiosité musicale développée, même si les morceaux ne sont pas d'une difficulté insurmontable ...- Et que dire du prix !!! A acheter d'urgence, à posséder dans toute bonne bibliothèque musicale qui se respecte !

Excellent pour travailler ! Pourquoi 4 étoiles et non 5 ? En etant batteur j'aurais bien aimé aprés le duo drums/bass jouer seul avec la basse. Merci pour le bon travail!!! :-)

Ich habe am Conservatorium van Amsterdam E-Bass studiert und dieses Buch gehörte dort zum Standardrepertoire der ganzen Drum/Bass Abteilung, und zwar aus gutem Grund: Es ist umfassend Stilübergreifend und bietet Herausforderungen auf den verschiedensten Ebenen. Die Anmerkungen zu jeder übung bieten künstlerisches Wachstumspotential über Jahre und lernt alles, was man zum Beispiel als professioneller Studio- und Sessionmusiker braucht.