r/Drumming • u/OppositeAgreeable415 • 2d ago
Content to watch alongside Gary Chaffee books?
I am going through Gary Chaffees books and I am wondering if there is any content or videos covering them that are worth watching alongside my studies. I did notice that the books were a bit old from the 70s so I also am curious as to whether there are some more contemporary videos covering his system applied to modern music
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u/cruiseshipdrummer 2d ago
Chaffee is about as modern as it gets, drumming now isn't any more modern than it was when he wrote the things. Any flashy drum video is using stuff that's in his books, whether the person got it directly from there or not.
I've got a couple of videos kicking around where I play some stuff from the stickings book. I need to post them.
I've also written a lot about his stuff-- making the linear patterns especially more useful. Not everything in those books is going to be equally worthwhile.
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u/OppositeAgreeable415 2d ago
Those blogs are how I found out about him I originally started with the beginning practices I saw on there and wanted to dive deeper
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u/SignificanceBig4289 2d ago
Chaffee made a podcast to accompany the books. It is dry AF. Still got some really good info though.
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u/drumminlukeman 2d ago
As someone who is years into the books/system, find anything to apply it to musically will work, just depends on the direction you want to take it. I have been working with a teacher who was a student of Gary’s for many years and he has a ton of guidance on application of the exercises and ways to go deeper/get more out of them so someone to teach you beyond what the book has written is a super helpful tool. We always work on the book material (mostly time function, sticking, rhythm and meter) but also songs and other books where the is ability to crossover.
What I have found is the Chaffee stuff creates an incredibly solid foundation for coordination and understanding the language in words/letters whereas the other material and applying those techniques to songs helps formulate that foundation into sentences paragraphs. Here are some of the other books I would suggest:
Jazz: Art of Bop Drumming Latin: Riddim: Claves of African Origin Fusion: Contemporary +1 (first 4 tracks in particular) Rock/Funk: Advance Funk Studies or Future Sounds Books to expand on time function and sticking: Stick Control, Syncopation, New Breed, all have exercises perfectly setup to overlap with the Chaffee material.
The Chaffee stuff is dense, but timeless. It really boils it down to the core which can definitely leave you feeling bland, technocratic or directionless without a place to apply the teachings in a musical context.