For many years, James Blades's famous book has been referred to as the percussionist's bible. It is established as the definitive reference work on the subject. Last updated by the author in 2005 and now back in print, this extended edition includes two additional chapters. The first covers the rise of the solo percussionist by the world's leading practitioner, Dame Evelyn Glennie who also contributes a new Foreword, while recent developments in orchestral percussion are covered by Neil Percy, Head of Timpani and Percussion at the Royal Academy of Music and Principal Percussionist of the London Symphony Orchestra.
A history of percussion instruments from the Old Stone Age to the present day. Jeremy Montagu, a performer, historian, and curator of musical instruments, discusses common and uncommon percussion instruments from all parts of the world, tracing their development and use through the ages and across cultures.
Sympathy for the Drummer: Why Charlie Watts Matters is both a gonzo rush—capturing the bristling energy of the Rolling Stones and the times in which they lived—and a wide-eyed reflection on why the Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Band in the World needed the world's greatest rock 'n' roll drummer. Across five decades, Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts has had the best seat in the house. Charlie Watts, the anti-rock star—an urbane jazz fan with a dry wit and little taste for the limelight—was witness to the most savage years in rock history, and emerged a hero, a warrior poet. With his easy swing and often loping, uneven fills, he found nuance in a music that often had little room for it, and along with his greatest ally, Keith Richards, he gave the Stones their swaggering beat. While others battled their drums, Charlie played his modest kit with finesse and humility, and yet his relentless grooves on the nastiest hard-rock numbers of the era ("Gimme Shelter," "Street Fighting Man," "Brown Sugar," "Jumpin' Jack Flash," etc.) delivered a dangerous authenticity to a band that on their best nights should have been put in jail. Author Mike Edison, himself a notorious raconteur and accomplished drummer, tells a tale of respect and satisfaction that goes far beyond drums, drumming, and the Rolling Stones, ripping apart the history of rock'n'roll, and celebrating sixty years of cultural upheaval. He tears the sheets off of the myths of music making, shredding the phonies and the frauds, and unifies the frayed edges of disco, punk, blues, country, soul, jazz, and R&B—the soundtrack of our lives. Highly opinionated, fearless, and often hilarious, Sympathy is an unexpected treat for music fans and pop culture mavens, as edgy and ribald as the Rolling Stones at their finest, never losing sight of the sex and magic that puts the roll in the rock —the beat, that crazy beat!—and the man who drove the band, their true engine, the utterly irreplaceable Charlie Watts.
The Encyclopedia of Percussion is an extensive guide to percussion instruments, organized for research as well as general knowledge. Focusing on idiophones and membranophones, it covers in detail both Western and non-Western percussive instruments. These include not only instruments whose usual sound is produced percussively (like snare drums and triangles), but those whose usual sound is produced concussively (like castanets and claves) or by friction (like the cuíca and the lion’s roar). The expertise of contributors have been used to produce a wide-ranging list of percussion topics. The volume includes: (1) an alphabetical listing of percussion instruments and terms from around the world; (2) an extensive section of illustrations of percussion instruments; (3) thirty-five articles covering topics from Basel drumming to the xylophone; (4) a list of percussion symbols; (5) a table of percussion instruments and terms in English, French, German, and Italian; and (6) an updated section of published writings on methods for percussion.
For millennia, the sacred drummers of pre-Christian Mediterranean and western Asia were women. In this inspiring book, Layne Redmond, herself a renowned drummer, tells their history. Artistic representations reveal that female frame drummers carried the spiritual traditions of many of the earliest recorded civilizations. During those ancient times, the drummer-priestesses held the keys to experience of the divine through rhythm. They were at the center of the goddess worship of matriarchal societies until the ascendance of patriarchal cultures and the loss of drumming as a spiritual technology. With wisdom and passion, Redmond chronicles our species’ deep connection to the drum, our rich heritage of inseparable spirituality and music, and the modern-day women reclaiming it. This book encourages readers—both women and men—to reestablish rhythmic links with themselves, nature, and other people through the power of drumming. Redmond illustrates her message with an extensive collection of images gathered during ten years of research and travel. Woven throughout the book are strands of ancient ritual and mythology, personal stories, and scientific evidence of the benefits of drumming. It is at once a history, a memoir, and a resounding call for spiritual and social renewal.
Author Joe Mansfield selected 75 drum machines from his collection of 150 and had them impeccably photographed. He then documented their related collateral, including original packaging and advertising and wrote piquant essays about the machines' history, original release, and subsequent usage (often totally"off-label"). Starting with Wurlitzer's Side Man, originally released in 1959, Mansfield proceeds to document some of the most prominent andwell known drum machines like the Roland TR-808 alongside lesser known and yet-to-be discovered gems such as the Band Master Powerhouse, ending the lesson with the Sequential Circuits' Studio 440 unit, released in 1987. The incredible design of the machines themselves is thoughtfully augmented by a great layout and interviews with early adopters of the technology Schooly D, Davy DMX, and Marshall Jefferson. Limited edition in leatherette case includes download card, 7" record and cassette tape.
