Indian Rhythms for Drumset

Goodness, where to begin. I bought this book to get a feel of transferring tabla/Indian music to the drumkit and have decided to leave well alone, it's not that I can't do it, I just don't see the point of doing it when I don't really need to.There is just so much information in this book, it's impossible to criticise, it's a close to perfect as any drum book could be. The explanations are detailed, sometimes to the point of being unfathomable but the basic introduction to playing tabla, the background, descriptions of techniques etc etc is fantastic so I'm going to stick with playing the tabla and only venture into the tranfer to drum kit when I have to.As usual with Pete Lockett, he's done this, on a lighter touch of teaching, elsewhere but this really gets into the nuts and bolts of tabla and the cross-over to western notation and playing. Pete is a fantastic teacher - I did one of his day schools many years back and still talk to other musicians about it - and his absolute passion for percussion just comes through in this book.Again, this would be great to use in conjunction with Rough Guide/ARC Music CDs to get a better feel of the music, especially those tracks where the drummers use their voices to drum, using the 'boles' from the tabla as vocal exercises. For those of the readers familiar with Sheila Chandra or Rough Guide's 'Introduction to the Music Of India' will know what I mean.If this is all rather scary, Amazon also sells 'Tabla: East to West' by Harjit Singh and Alex Mott, which may be easier to understand as it misses out the drumkit transfer but it doesn't have a CD accompanying it.

This is a real gem for drum set players, percussionists and actually any musicians wishing to have a thorough introduction to the workings of Indian rhythmic systems. Explained clearly and in a very direct and jargon free way, this got me hooked very quickly. Be prepared for some late nights and a book that will last you years.