In African drum ensembles, a musician establishes a time line which establishes the points of entry for the different instruments. So the player must know the role of the particular instrument in the totality, and also the rhythm or rhythms assigned to it and precisely where they fit into the music. Opportunities to learn and appreciate drumming is limited in contemporary contexts, and it is against this background that the International Centre for African Music and Dance at the University of Ghana has embarked on this project aimed at making African drum music accessible to a wider public in the form of musical scores, audio and video recordings. Although essentially cultivated and practiced by oral tradition, the value of transcriptions is not disputed by African musicians. The three titles in the series cover different types of drum; and each gives information on performance practice and instruments, the full score of the work, vertical alignment and bibliography.

In African drum ensembles, a musician establishes a time line which establishes the points of entry for the different instruments. So the player must know the role of the particular instrument in the totality, and also the rhythm or rhythms assigned to it and precisely where they fit into the music. Opportunities to learn and appreciate drumming is limited in contemporary contexts, and it is against this background that the International Centre for African Music and Dance at the University of Ghana has embarked on this project aimed at making African drum music accessible to a wider public in the form of musical scores, audio and video recordings. Although essentially cultivated and practiced by oral tradition, the value of transcriptions is not disputed by African musicians. The three titles in the series cover different types of drum; and each gives information on performance practice and instruments, the full score of the work, vertical alignment and bibliography.

In African drum ensembles, a musician establishes a time line which establishes the points of entry for the different instruments. So the player must know the role of the particular instrument in the totality, and also the rhythm or rhythms assigned to it and precisely where they fit into the music. Opportunities to learn and appreciate drumming is limited in contemporary contexts, and it is against this background that the International Centre for African Music and Dance at the University of Ghana has embarked on this project aimed at making African drum music accessible to a wider public in the form of musical scores, audio and video recordings. Although essentially cultivated and practiced by oral tradition, the value of transcriptions is not disputed by African musicians. The three titles in the series cover different types of drum; and each gives information on performance practice and instruments, the full score of the work, vertical alignment and bibliography.

A how-to book for the church musician desiring further training, Handbell Helper offers basic, practical help to church music directors. * Offers basic information which assumes no prior handbell knowledge * Provides examples for concepts presented * Written in an easy-to-read and easy-to-understand style and format * Helps eliminate some of the intimidation of beginning a bell choir * Gives new directors a higher level of confidence in working with a handbell group * Gives music directors something to give to potential handbell choir leaders

An icon of global Punjabi culture, the dhol drum inspires an unbridled love for the instrument far beyond its application to regional vernacular music. Yet the identities of dhol players within their local communities and the broadly conceived Punjabi nation remain obscure. Gibb Schreffler draws on two decades of research to investigate dhol's place among the cultural formations within Punjabi communities. Analyzing the identities of musicians, Schreffler illuminates concepts of musical performance, looks at how these concepts help create or articulate Punjabi social structure, and explores identity construction at the intersections of ethnicity, class, and nationality in Punjab and the diaspora. As he shows, understanding the identities of dhol players is an ethical necessity that acknowledges their place in Punjabi cultural history and helps to repair their representation. An engaging and rich ethnography, Dhol reveals a beloved instrumental form and the musical and social practices of its overlooked performers.

In The Drum: A History, drummer, instructor, and blogger Matt Dean details the earliest evidence of the drum from all regions of the planet, looking at cave paintings, statues, temple reliefs, and burial remains before finding existing relics of actual drums, which have survived thousands of years. Highlighting the different uses and customs associated with drumming, Dean examines how the drum developed across many cultures and over thousands of years before they became the instruments we know today. A celebration of this remarkable instrument, The Drum: A History explores how war, politics, trade routes, and religion have influenced the drum. Bringing its history to the present, Dean considers the modern cultural and commercial face of the drum, detailing its role in military settings and the development of the "modern drum kit." This study charts the evolution of the recording studio environment, as well as specific analysis of the development of drum heads, sticks, and the often overlooked role of women on the drum kit. In addition, there is a look at the continuing evolution of the drum and its role through surveys of main manufacturers and the increased dependence on electronic drums, sampling machines, and drum recorders. As the first book to detail the entire development of the drum, The Drum: A History will appeal to every drummer, regardless of genre or style, as well as any reader with a general interest in the evolution of this universal instrument.

(Book). From Tadd Dameron through Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine, Cannonball Adderly and Benny Golson, to his own 17-piece "Supersound" big band, Charli Persip has been one of the most in-demand drummers in all of jazz, as well as in the pop genre. A textbook example of how to play the drums, Persip has proven his worth in a wide variety of ensembles and handled the transitions from one group to the next without missing a beat. Learn from his experiences and share some of his insights in this practical, down-to-earth text. Newly revised and expanded to include "The Warm-Up Exercise," this book for all musicians and music lovers is loaded with playing tips, great advice and anecdotes.

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 and B the soundtrack of our lives. Highly opinionated, fearless, and often hilarious, Sympathy is as 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 drum kit has provided the pulse of popular music from before the dawn of jazz up to the present day pop charts. Kick It, a provocative social history of the instrument, looks closely at key innovators in the development of the drum kit: inventors and manufacturers like the Ludwig and Zildjian dynasties, jazz icons like Gene Krupa and Max Roach, rock stars from Ringo Starr to Keith Moon, and popular artists who haven't always got their dues as drummers, such as Karen Carpenter and J Dilla. Tackling the history of race relations, global migration, and the changing tension between high and low culture, author Matt Brennan makes the case for the drum kit's role as one of the most transformative musical inventions of the modern era. Kick It shows how the drum kit and drummers helped change modern music-and society as a whole-from the bottom up.

"Gamelan" is the first study of the music of Java and the development of the gamelan to take into account extensive historical sources and contemporary cultural theory and criticism. An ensemble dominated by bronze percussion instruments that dates back to the twelfth century in Java, the gamelan as a musical organization and a genre of performance reflects a cultural heritage that is the product of centuries of interaction between Hindu, Islamic, European, Chinese, and Malay cultural forces.
Drawing on sources ranging from a twelfth-century royal poem to the writing of a twentieth-century nationalist, Sumarsam shows how the Indian-inspired contexts and ideology of the Javanese performing arts were first adjusted to the Sufi tradition and later shaped by European performance styles in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He then turns to accounts of gamelan theory and practice from the colonial and postcolonial periods. Finally, he presents his own theory of gamelan, stressing the relationship between purely vocal melodies and classical gamelan composition.

"The Healing Drum" traces the extraordinary cultural legacy of the Minianka tribe of West Africa, for whom music serves a sacred, healing function for the individual and society. The authors explore the Minianka view of humanity, music, and the cosmos relative to work, celebration, herbal medicine, dance, trance, initiation, and death.

The first book of its kind, delivering a message of untapped wisdom and power from a little-known culture through the universal medium of music.

Dottie Dodgion is a jazz drummer who played with the best.  A survivor, she lived an entire lifetime before she was seventeen. Undeterred by hardships she defied the odds and earned a seat as a woman in the exclusive men’s club of jazz. Her dues-paying path as a musician took her from early work with Charles Mingus to being hired by Benny Goodman at Basin Street East on her first day in New York. From there she broke new ground as a woman who played a “man’s instrument� in first-string, all-male New York City jazz bands. Her inspiring memoir talks frankly about her music and the challenges she faced, and shines a light into the jazz world of the 1960s and 1970s.   Vivid and always entertaining, The Lady Swings tells Dottie Dodgion's story with the same verve and straight-ahead honesty that powered her playing. A Variety Best Music Book of 2021