"Hands of Steel" is my personal dedication to George Lawrence Stone, Joe Morello, Billy Gladstone, Sanford Moeller, Charlie Wilcoxin and Dave Tough.
Whenever a drummer seeks exercises to improve their hand control, two of George Stone's books; "Stick Control" and "Accents and Rebounds" are never far away.
Student and friend of George Stone, Joe Morello has written the logical sequel in "Master Studies" ... making excellent use of pyramid style playing techniques and variations on buzz and double tap variations.
Sanford Moeller and Billy Gladstone were great pioneers in developing hand and finger control techniques designed to greatly improve a drummer's strength, control, evenness and finesse. Billy Gladstone developed an extraordinary technique based on finger control, while Sanford Moeller researched hand techniques used in 19th century drum corps which developed into a style where "down" and "up" strokes served to create momentum and power.
Charlie Wilcoxin is best known for his book "All-American Drummer" containing 150 rudimental solos that are musical and "swinging".
Less known and now sadly long out of print (to my knowledge) is a book based on paradiddle mixed stickings by Dave Tough; who is best known as one of the first call drummers of the big band era; his book is much less well known than the others I have mentioned and it is because of this that I begin "Hands of Steel" with Paradiddle Pyramids ...
... my way of trying to pass on the ideas of Dave Tough's book as I remember it .....
What follows is a few pages you can download to " try before you buy" ...
The Gladstone Pages ; an excerpt from "Hands of Steel".
$25 aus/$18 us
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