John Lamb

The Boots And Cats Book John Lamb

Playing drums is easy! ... As long as you know what to do. Unfortunately, knowing what to do is the tricky part. It's easy to get lost along the way, distracted by things that won't move you forward, practicing things you already do well, or simply intimidated because you just don't know what you need to work on. This book will fix that. I've broken down what you need to know into about a dozen or so separate skills. Each chapter is a new skill, and the exercises are real songs that you can listen to and play along to. The songs get progressively complex. By working your way through this book, you'll end up being able to play songs like Kashmir by Led Zeppelin and Chameleon by the Headhunters with ease. The way the skills are broken down is a good start, but each skill is itself composed of different elements that you'll need to figure out if you are to master it. Deciphering the instructions, learning the physical movements required, using the skill in sequence, finding a flow, and getting your notes to mean something musically all require different mental tools. Unfortunately, the tools required for one part interfere with the effectively learning a different part. For example: "being in your head" is a disadvantage to performing well, but an advantage for figuring out the pattern in the first place. To fix this problem, I've included a method for learning them that I've developed over years of teaching, learning and my formal study of education, music and psychology. This method breaks down how to learn each skill into stages and how to approach mastering each stage. Along the way, you'll learn how to swing a groove, how to read a groove in staff notation, how to hear what you read in your head before you play, and gain some tools for both learning fast and playing musically.