What practice techniques do you use for your students? Are there any technique books you recommend?
I use so many different books, and I’ve authored twelve other books myself. But the standards that I always use are the George Lawrence Stone’s Stick Control: For the Snare Drummer, Ted Reed’s Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer, and Jim Chapin’s Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer. Those are books I grew up with, and today, fifty years later, they are still are the most valid. But I also check out all kinds of new books. Usually, what I do with my books is I find an issue that some of my students are having, and instead of writing a series of exercises for them, I make it long enough to be a book on the topic. I have one book called Be-Bop Phrasing for Drums. I have one book called Latin Percussion in Perspective. I like classical and rudimental snare as well, and I use all of those standard books — Anthony J. Cirone’s Portraits in Rhythm and Charles Wilcoxon’s ones. The reason they are still around is that they work.
I also augment that with my touch depending on the student’s needs because everyone is slightly different. My main focus is to get these guys and gals to gig and make a living playing drums. I have one student who is in the top Army band in DC. I have a former student who is the drummer for Sawyer Brown. He lives in Nashville — his name is Joe Smyth, and he’s from Maine. I met him when he was in the fifth grade. I want to prepare my students for whatever facet of music they’re going to end up in; it doesn’t even matter what genre it is. If you learn to play the instrument, then the style of music isn’t going to matter. I’ve had heavy metal drummers study with me just because they want to work on finesse or something like that. I just go with what the student needs.
Website: dommoio.com
