

Learning through reading this way gives you clarity about what you're doing, while reducing it to its simplest form mentally, freeing you to concentrate on the music. While you're learning to read, count, and play these rhythms, you're also learning to hear them and listening is your primary means of fitting in with the music around you, whether you're not using a chart or not. You get used to seeing four measures at a time, and you get used to moving your eye along the page even when you're reading something easy.Įven if you don't think you'll ever need to read music when you're playing, this reading-based method is still the best way to learn to play. In Reed, even the one-measure patterns are written out in four measure phrases. The format reinforces reinforces thinking in four bar phrases. It's a big deal for your musicianship when you think of your drumming that way- even complex, four-limb textures- and not just as a bunch of drum parts. You learn to think like a horn, conceiving your drumming in terms of a single melodic line. Once you've done several of those, improvising becomes very easy. You learn to play off of a single, changing melodic line- like, a complicated one 32 bars long, figuring out complex interpretations on the fly.

#Ted reed syncopation book professional
It's the primary method many good drummers use to play amazing-sounding stuff with minimal mental effort, while still sounding musical.Īlso: You're learning to read rhythms the way they are written by professional writers and arrangers, the way they will appear on professional charts. You read the rhythms in the book, and, using a galaxy of creative interpretations, create a complete drum set part from it. Mainly: It's not the book so much as it is the method used with it, which is the best method for learning to improvise and read musically on the drums. what's the big deal? What am I supposed to do with that?” “ Whuh- this is just a bunch of snare drum rhythms. Here's a question that comes up often, and which I always I feel I have to address every time I have a new student buy Ted Reed's Progressive Steps To Syncopation:
