Drum Circle - A Guide to World Percussion - Book Review

Alfred Publishing has published a number of world percussion books. What sets Drum Circle: A Guide To World Percussion aside from others is that the book or CD can be purchased separately or together. This aspect alone could be very appealing for educators.

Drum Circle: A Guide To World Percussion appears to be written for music and social studies teachers and drum enthusiasts looking to bring new ideas into their playing. The authors cover 28 different instruments, grouping similar instruments together in single chapters. The format for each chapter is consistent, beginning with interesting historical and origin factoids. Tuning and playing position are then discussed prior to demonstrating the performance technique. Close to 90 black-and-white photographs aptly demonstrate playing position and technique.

Drum Circle: A Guide To World Percussion truly is a fantastic introduction to a large number of percussion instruments from around the globe. Here, players will be introduced to Brazilian, Arabic, Cuban, Malian, Guinean, Irish, Syrian and Egyptian (among others) instruments and rhythms. The book's Introduction chapter encourages readers to try other instruments with the traditional songs, which is a great way to grow as a musician. We have found this is a very interesting approach to drum set playing as well.

Pages 53-65 list traditional Middle Eastern, African, Cuban and Brazilian songs. Pages 65-72 offer modern use of world rhythms in 8 or more ensembles. Both traditional and modern notations are included.

The book states that the stereo enhanced CD is interactive with audio and visual tutorials for windows compatible computers.
I was slightly disappointed to learn that though the CD did indeed have an audio track available for computer use, it was only a QuickTime recording - rather than audio/videos, which is what I was hoping for.

One other negative aspect of the CD is at the very end it makes an irritating electronic grinding or static sound that had us running for the stop button. However, my husband and I thoroughly enjoyed the book and look forward to playing the larger ensembles with our drumming friends.

Publisher: Alfred Publishing
Author: Chalo Eduardo & Frank Kumar
ISBN #'s: 0-7390-2309-8 (book and CD)
0-7390-2319-5 (CD only)
0-7390-2309-X (book only)

~ Lillian Brummet: co-author of the books Trash Talk and Purple Snowflake Marketing, author of Towards Understanding; host of the Conscious Discussions radio show (http://www.brummet.ca)

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