The Drummer's Toolbox: The Ultimate Guide to Learning 100 (+1) Drumming Styles

A “must have” for professionals, especially teachers, and more than what you’ll know to do with for the curious. Thorough and concise, you won’t be wasting any time no matter where you pick it up and start reading. I thought it was an outstanding job with the “Recommended Listening” sections. Very well-rounded and representative examples of the styles. Page 415 “Tree of Influences” is my favorite. I encourage everyone to write their own — Doing so will demonstrate the benefit of honest introspection.I especially like pages 60-65 “Brushes” that precede the Jazz section. Important stuff. That’s why I was surprised there isn’t Kick Pedal, Hi-Hat or Stick topics. I remember watching a Stephen Taylor YouTube video when he said “It isn’t so much that you grip the stick. It’s more like you cradle it.” Again, this stuff is important. Just the different type of grips, i.e. Matched, American, German, etc, can be important to know in order to really get the groove of a style. For me, not covering these subjects, because they do relate to style, was a disappointment.It also would have been cool to have a “Game Changer” topic. Bernard Purdie comes to mind as an example. Nobody can honestly deny his “Purdie Shuffle” as almost requiring it’s own style entry. I’m sure it wouldn’t take long to name a dozen or so drummers that you can’t say they’re a style, but they’ve made a major influence to the drumming world.If my suggestions were to be included in the next update, I can honestly say that IMHO you would not need any other book to put out those “money beats” all day long in any professional environment. The Drummer’s Toolbox is the best way I’ve ever seen to build your drumming vocabulary. That alone is worth the purchase.

As a young man and even up into my middle 60s my interests have mainly been in the martial arts, Law Enforcement (Judo, Jujitsu, Wrestling, Karate-Do, Combatives, Police tactics and Boxing) and weapon techniques (Guns, Knives, Swords, all kinds of stick arts and other weapons). When age and health issues developed in my senior years I began to develop a serious interest, in music learning to play numerous musical (Ukulele, harmonica, flute, recorder, Kazoo, numerous percussion instruments including numerous kinds of drums etc) instruments. I took both hands on lessons and numerous on line courses over the last decade. Even though both my father and one of my brothers have been into music I never realized I might also have some talent in the music field. Even though I was and am too old to play professionally (I have participated in two amateur shows with my drums) my passion for the drums (my favorite kind being the Taiko drum playing) has made me search out more about playing the drums etc. In my desire to improve my knowledge and skill in drumming I purchased and studied every book I could find on the subject. When I saw this amazing large 435 page hardcover book (The Drummer’s Toolbox: The ultimate guide to learning 100 drumming styles by Brandon Toews) on Amazon for a bargain price I had to have it. First off, this is the best book I have ever read on drumming styles and believe me I have read and studied a great number of them over the last decade. If you are a serious drummer and desire a true fantastic reference source for learning different drumming styles this huge heavy book must be part of your personal library. This short review cannot do this book justice. It is not a book you can breeze through like a novel. This is a book that MUST BE STUDIED carefully to get the full benefit of the information.This incredible book is organized into ten chapters covering an enormous amount of vital and important tips and advice on learning drumming styles. The chapters include: Rock, Jazz, blues, country, soul and funk, metal, electronic, Afro-Cuban, Afro-Brazilian, and Afro-Caribbean. It also has bonus drum styles and a glossary. This book is printed on slick paper and also tells about the history of each style of drumming. There is also suggested music to play with to help learn the drumming style. I only wish the Drumeo group people would also come out with a Taiko drumming and Hand drumming type of book in the future. If you are into drumming you MUST get a copy of this interesting and very informative book on drumming styles.Rating: 5 Stars. Joseph J. Truncale (Author: Hanbo-Jutsu: How to use the Hanbo, Cane, Walking Stick, and Baton for self-defense).This incredible book is organized into ten chapters covering an enormous amount of vital and important tips and advice on learning drumming styles. The chapters include: Rock, Jazz, blues, country, soul and funk, metal, electronic, Afro-Cuban, Afro-Brazilian, and Afro-Caribbean. It also has bonus drum styles and a glossary. This book is printed on slick paper and also tells about the history of each style of drumming. There is also suggested music to play with to help learn the drumming style. I only wish the Drumeo group would also come out with a Taiko and Hand drumming type of book in the future.If you are into drumming you MUST get a copy of this interesting and very informative book on drumming styles.Rating: 5 Stars. Joseph J. Truncale (Author: Hanbo-Jutsu: How to use the Hanbo, Cane, Walking Stick, and Baton for self-defense).

This book is awesome! This guy did a ton of research on the history of genres, provides lots of example tracks and grooves, and really organizes the thing really well. Very well done! I teach about 10 students a year and we will be using this for my advanced students.

This book has a bit of everything a drummer would need for any style of music. Must have for your library

This book is very well written. It touches a lot of bases and does it extremely well. Kudos to the author. Job well done! Reasonably priced to boot.

This is well written and comprehensive. I believe it has recently been released on the Kindle format, and within the version that I have just purchased and downloaded is a fault in the type size. Within every lesson is a chapter with examples titled BUILDING VOCABULARY. Here, the drum tablature examples appear too tiny to read, and can not be expanded with the text sizing tool. This is an important bug to fix, as every lesson is intended to show us drummers these valuable drum notation charts / examples. Though at the moment I have plenty of other readable examples within the book to refer to, I await an updated version that has also corrected this condition. I remain a loyal client and satisfied with my purchase. Thanks, to you all, Jarad and Brandon and team Drumeo.

I am thoroughly impressed with the breadth and scope of this amazing compendium! A person could easily spend an entire lifetime mastering all the styles presented in this reference document, which includes the history and multiple examples of each category. As a teacher, I consider it essential; as a student, an enlightenment...

This book is an encyclopedia of fundamental beats in roughly ascending order of complexity, so it can be used like books of etudes for most other instruments. Every beat can be found in the wild and has a few variations on it, so it's musically satisfying to practice.

Great présentation. A great travel through musical styles with advices for discovering songs and artists. Knowledge of drum sheets is require for a maximum use. Great pro book ! Thanks !

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Ottimo manuale per imparare le basi e l'approccio di moltissimi stili di batteria. Interessanti le sezioni di guida all'ascolto. Per ogni genere trattato ci sono 3/4 esempi di groove a difficoltà crescente

I bought the Kindle edition and I'm really happy with my purchase. If you have some basic drum notation knowledge, you'll get plenty out of this book. The short overviews of different music styles probably won't add much to what you already know but the actual layout of different drumming styles is nicely done. With the Kindle version, you can tap on the notation to make it larger when playing; perfect if you're using a tablet on a music stand next to your kit.I particularly like the way each style is broken down into steps, bringing in the hi-hat, kick drum and snare separately. This gets you working on different patterns quite quickly. You'll only get some style basics out of this, but it does give you plenty to build on. Perfect for beginner drummers or for some who have just moved to intermediate level.

Beautiful book setting out styles of drumming from surf rock, progressive rock, punk rock, grunge through jazz, blues, country to doom metal, speed metal, nu metal and Afro-Cuban, Afro Caribbean.... and many more. Each section gives you breakdowns of basic beats , and recommended listening. Fabulous photos too. Would make a great Christmas or birthday gift for a drummer. I love it.