Product Description

Legendary drummer Clayton Cameron reveals the secrets of good brushwork in this must have book that should be on every drummer’s shelf.

Noted as one of the world’s most innovative drummers, Cameron gives the reader an encyclopedic survey of brushstrokes in a step-by-step process that is clear and precise.

Also included in the book is a CD detailing sounds and patterns. This book will surely become the benchmark of brush technique for year to come!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #931964 in Books
• Published on: 2005-12-22
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Customer Reviews

Too much hype and too little clarity
I'm rather annoyed to find an advertisement for the author's own brush interpolated into the text. The book's subtitle is ridiculous. The list of "brush rudiments" is very silly. Otherwise this is a fair overview of brush technique, except that the explanation of the "flex roll" is garbled.

I'm not going to adopt Cameron's stirring soup (which he calls "sweeping") notation. It works well enough in the context of a brush instruction book, but I rather doubt it "will become the standard used by...composers", as the back cover blurb claims, at least I hope it won't:

One hand gets a regular note in the snare drum space and the other a regular above the staff in the cymbal space. "Legato sweeping" is shown with ties between the notes, except where ties are really needed, in which case horizontal lines are used instead. It seems to me that if you're going to use horizontal lines here, you'd might as well use them everywhere, for consistency. Horizontal lines are not necessary anywhere, however. Legato can and should be shown in the traditional way. Cameron's main example has four quarter notes, which are supposed to be four separate notes, not the equivalent of one whole note, with ties between them. Instead, he ought to have written a single curved line above all four. Staccato should also be shown in the traditional way, with dots, and so on. If both hands are playing on the same snare drum, both hands should be written in the same space, one with stems going up, the other with stems going down. If the bass drum or the hi-hat foot is playing as well, then the stems-going-down snare hand will be joined to the bass hi-hat pattern.

The real problem for stirring soup notation is that, except for the roll, which has its own notation, drum notation shows accurately where a note attacks but does not show where it releases; a note ends whenever it happens to end (unless you choke the cymbal or something), regardless of the notation. Since stirring involves sustained notes directly controlled by the drummer, using the same notation for it is inconsistent and potentially confusing. Stirring notation needs to use a different kind of note head--or something.

Well done!!!!
Clayton Cameron is an artist with the brushes. After working with his book, you can understand his feeling for this style. The book introduced me to new techniques, and reinforced old ones. He really pulls apart the Legato sweep and works it several ways. I have enjoyed this book. The illustrations are good and the cover painting is tremendous (note the painter's name). A CD backs it all up. If I were Amazon I would sell his signature brushes on the same page as the book because I think they are great also.

Try the DVD!
I do not own this book. However, I DO own the Brushworks DVD and I must say that it's great. It's organized VERY well and really pushes the art ahead. Nothing out there lays it out as well as this. For those that feel the book is lacking, it's probably because learning brushes is MUCH easier seeing it on your TV rather than trying to decipher diagrams. Hope this helps!