Product Description

This book documents many of the pathways that Billy has taken to find his unique voice. The claves in this book are keys to playing authentic based rhythms and improvising on them. Learning different clave rhythms is similar to jazz musicians learning chord changes, voicings, and scale patterns which enable them to improvise on songs. Drummers are no different. The claves contained in this book open up rhythmic subdivisions, substitutions and a much wider vocabulary to draw upon than playing static beats. Call them systems, bell patterns, or claves, be assured that there is much freedom to be gained from owning these rhythms. The coordination required to play these rhythms will challenge and benefit every aspect of your playing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #721602 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-07
• Released on: 2006-12-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Review
This unconventional method book, by Medeski Martin & Wood drummer Billy Martin, is a serious four-way coordination workout based on a series of four-, six-, and eight-beat Afro-clave patterns and a few odd-note rhythms. Each clave is presented in the author's unique notational system, which uses X/s for played strokes and periods for rests. The book gets progressively more difficult as various bass drum figures and left-foot/left-hand accompanying patterns are added to the mix. On the included CD, billy demonstrates many of the examples to help you get an understanding for how hard these things can groove. --Michael Dawson, Modern Drummer Magazine

About the Author
Billy Martin, aka illyB, is a remarkable drummer, visual artist, and label owner, who has successfully carved out his own musical path. As the organic beat-maker for Medeski, Martin & Wood, Martin has successfully blended world-music cultures into his own style. Influenced by musicians who move people, Martin's playing does just that. His roots-based approach digs deep into the African-fed cultures of Brazil and the Caribbean and serves them up with New York culture and attitude. Fueled by these traditions, Martin plays on these rhythms with the heart of an improvisor with influences ranging from avant-guard to hip-hop. As you might expect, the result is infectious. Under all of Martin's riddims, or rhythms, are traditions that owe as much to bebop innovator Max Roach as reggae pioneer Sly Dunbar. And, as you will hear, Martin has not taken any short-cuts in mastering these rhythms. The result of his commitment to discovering the richness of rhythmic cultures, while developing his own personal sound on the instrument, is a very captivating sound on the drums.

Customer Reviews

Essential reading for any percussionist
I just received this book a couple of days ago, and I'm telling everyone I know about how incredible it is (whether they play music or not). This is essentially a cookbook containing tons of patterns and rhythms in 4, 6, and 8 beat phrases. Mr. Martin uses an ingenious notation system that is understandable even to people with no musical background, and the claves are presented layer by layer; so they can be useful (and musical) to a beginner only playing with one hand and one foot, or to an experienced player using all four limbs to recreate the funky, polyrhythmic madness for which Billy Martin is known and praised. Man, that was a long sentence...

Anywho, the point I'm trying to make is that anybody who has ever taken an interest in drumming will drool over the endless rhythmic possibilities presented in this book. I wish that I had a resource like this when I started playing almost 20 years ago. This book will increase the rhythmic vocabulary of ANY drummer many times over. Thank you, Mr. Martin for cracking your own code and divulging to the world some of the funkiest grooves that I've ever heard.

Great Rhythms, Great Drumming, Bad Notation.
I should begin by saying that I am a big fan of Billy Martin's drumming, and there is indeed a great wealth of information in this book. However, I feel a large portion of this otherwise excellent package, is negated by Billy's decision to transcribe all of the exercises in his own musical notation.

While he does make an effort to explain this unorthodox notational system at the beginning of the book, I feel that it is poorly rendered (sorry, I am a graphic artist by trade). With standard drum music, there is a visual contrast between the thin lines and bold characters that allow for legibility. Here, Mr. Martin's notation can look like blots from a Rorschach Test slapped on top of each other, very illegible.

Fortunately there are plenty of audio examples provided, so if the user finds the written examples as annoying as I do, there is still much to be gained by working this book. Just my two-cents.

Very Useful
I have been playing drums for about two decades. I'm probably an intermediate drummer and have focused mostly on playing rock music. I totally recommend this book. There is a lot to learn and play in it. I've never worked on total limb independence much, but I achieved it in the first few pages of the book.