Survival Guide for the Modern Drummer: A Crash Course in All Musical Styles for Drumset Kindle Interactive Edition

Really good basic information on key beats and grooves for multiple genres of music, and the recorded play-along tracks were produced with live professional musicians. Very good book for any drummer looking to play different styles. For example, I was never much into country music, but I have regular opportunities to sub in a local country band. Most of the drummers who play with that band are not really country drummers, either, and they play more like rock drummers. This book shows you basic country beats that can be used on most any country song, and Jim Riley certainly knows what he's talking about, as the drummer for country superstars Rascal Flatts. The great thing about the book, though, is that it presents many styles, not just country. You can learn some basic blues, rock, pop, reggae and even Latin beats. It's a great resource for anyone who wants to be a better working drummer.

An excellent drum set method for student drum set players going out into the "real world". I like Jim Riley's straight forward approach. These time patterns and fills simply WORK for each particular style. Not a lot of detail or endless variations. I have several method books that have dozens of variations for the multitude of Latin music styles. These grooves will save your ass and get you started in the right direction until you get more experience with the style. The 2 included CDs are excellent. One has a recording of the drum part and the other has play-a-long tracks. The play-a-long tracks are excellent and the best part. I use these tracks to practice the material in this book and even material in other books. I stumbled upon this book and have used it a great deal since. Highly recommend as a practical method book that will yield immediate results.

I was interested in this book because I had attended a Modern Drummer Fest Master Class with Jim and was blown away by his abilities for playing and enthusiasm to teach. I had also seen some of the demo vids that Jim put out on the drumless tracks and thought the music was authentic to the style and wanted to play along to see how well I could play them too. In particular, I now play a lot of country music, because of where I live, and always felt that I had some QC problems with some of my Country Chops. Checking out the suggested patterns and recording myself playing to the tracks really was a totally downer but it gave me a reference point on how I needed to adjust my groove to fit the music better. The variety of styles covered in the book is comprehensive so you won't be bored anytime soon. This is a true bargain at 17 bucks for all the tracks you get and the ink used to print all those pages. I have some other Bible books, which are solid, but I have found this one is the most useful in improving my playing. Giddy on up and click the Add To Cart Button!

I'm having a lot of fun with this book. If you're looking for a drumless tracks for play along, this has plenty in all styles of music. The book itself gives you some basic grooves and fills for each style of music. As far as developing skill and technique, if you're an intermediate or advanced player you are probably already familiar with most of this, but I learned a few interesting groove and fill concepts. The best part was the opportunity to play long with all types of music. Any musician should do this regardless of what type of band you are in or what type of music you like. You can learn so much by playing other types of music that you can then apply to your own playing. And you should make playing along with music part of your daily practice routine. I'm really enjoying this. A ton of value for the price. You get the grooves and fill ideas for each style of music, 124 play along tracks, plus recordings of all of the grooves and fills in the book so you can hear how they sound. There's no charts for the songs, and really only a sentence or two to describe each song, so it's up to you to create the part using the groove and fill concepts in each chapter. So you can get a lot out of this. Even thought there's only 124 songs (which is still A LOT!), I've been spending about a week on each song really listening to the song to write my drum track, and then playing and refining it until I feel it fits well then move along to the next song. Another fun thing to do is experiment with different grooves and fills, different orchestrations on the drum set. You can try out whatever you want in the safety of your practice space. It's a great way to discover new grooves, fills, sounds, etc. Definitely worth the small investment. Have fun with it.

There is a lot of content and many hours of audio tracks supplied with this book, really good value for money and really well thought out.This is not a complete coverage of drumming. You won't learn about technique, gear, drum fills or to o much theory. But you will get hundreds of backbone beats to learn to fill your repertoire, and backing tracks to practice them with, which is really invaluable!

Dear Jim RileyI just wanted to say thank you for the Survival Guide for the Modern Drummer.I've been taking drum lessons for a couple of years from good teachers and I've learnt a lot, but none of them has taught me what I've asked for - useful grooves and fills to help me become a well rounded drummer in all styles.Your book is it. I love the grooves, big thanks for the great fills and the playalong tracks are great to practice to and not at all cheesy like a lot of playalong tracks can be.I honestly can't thank you enough for putting all this together.

Great content, though I docked a star for the strange decision to use for 'x' for rim shots on the snare. I've never come across this before in 20 years of drumming, unfortunately it makes the grooves harder to read and is unnecessarily confusing for younger drummers. Still, it's a great drum book and worth grabbing a copy.

Works as expected

Bought as son started drum lessons as his instructor recommended it ,