The Complete Guide to

Playing Brushes

Book & DVD

The Complete Guide to Brushes to Playing Brushes - Brush Skills for Playing Jazz and Pop Music. Personally, I'm a huge fan of brushes so I was especially interested in checking this one out.

Brushes
In the foreword Stanton Moore says "The art of brush playing is steeped in tradition and has been represented by many masters both past and present. However in order for any tradition to progress and prosper, it must be at once honored while at the same time it must advance."

That's what's so cool about this guide, author Florian Alexandru-Zorn combines traditional techniques with an innovative new approach to the art of playing brushes.

Opening with an explanation of how to produce the traditional brush sweeps, taps, and chick sounds the book includes the following:

1: Sweeping Motions

Full-Circle Motion

Half-Circle Motion

Combined Full and Half Circle Motions

Linear Motion

II: Tap Sounds

Open Tape

Closed Tap

Chick Sound

Flex Stroke

Brush Roll

Chick and Flat Sound

III: Rudiments

Brush strokes as applied to the standard 26 Rudiments.

IV: Interpretation Exercises

Triplet feels as applied to Swing and Blues.

Straight Eighths as applied to Rock/Pop, Funk, and Latin styles.

V: Grooves

Jazz

Eighth-Note Grooves

Sixteenth-Note Grooves

Odd Time Signature

Drum 'n' Bass

Latin

VI: Reading Exercises

Quarter note, Eighth note, Sixteenth note, and Eighth note Triplet drills.

The Complete Guide to Playing Brushes : The Bottom Line
On the included DVD, Florian demonstrates each of the techniques in the book in split-screen that includes top down view directly over the snare drum so you can see exactly how it's done.

This book and DVD combination not only provides a great introduction for beginners, but contains lots of creative ideas that will be of use to experienced players as well. Highly recommended.

Retail price of $29.99 for the book and DVD, which is also available on the web at a discount: