BOOK/CD
LEVEL: INTERMEDIATE TO ADVANCED
$14.99

Modern Drum Set Stickings is a relevant and entertaining product with plenty of ideas for expanding the tool kit and thinking a little differently. Sticking charts are presented in duple and triple meter, played straight and swung in a hip-hop groove. “Swiss” Chris Flueck explores 8th-note resolution points and then 8th-note triplets, accenting different beats and offbeats. His 32nd-note subdivision over a quarter-note pulse is fun, and he demonstrates a variety of rolls and diddles in groove making and soloing. The CD features snippets of drum “freestyling” for illustration. It also reinforces Swiss Chris’s advocacy of the “sing it, play it” rule, venturing into the principles of beatboxing. An orchestrated point of view comes forward as the drummer proposes playing with mallets, with brushes, on edges of cymbals and on drum hardware, and in using triplets as a delay effect in dub playing. (Cherry Lane)

Robin Tolleson

This review was originally published in the January 2013 issue of Modern Drummer magazine. To read more reviews, plus and all the other great material in that issue, order a print back issue here or a digital copy here.