Groove Essentials

Tommy Igoe

General Info

Year: 2005
Edition: 1st edition
Publisher: Hudson
Cost: Book Cost - $0.00   |   Supplemental Books - $0.00

Chapters

Introduction
How this Book Works
What if you don't Read Music
What about Fills and Solos?
About the Charts
About the Songs
Chapter I: ROCK Grooves
Chapter II: FUNK Grooves
Chapter III: R&B and HIP-HOP Grooves
Chapter IV: JAZZ Grooves
Chapter V: WORLD and SPECIALTY Grooves
Chapter VI: GLOBAL TOURS
Extra Tracks
About the Disc
After the Music Fades...
I'd like to Thank the Academy...

Reviews

Student Reviews

Groove Essentials for the 21st-Century Drummer is full of grooves from many different musical backgrounds. Each groove has a slow, and a fast chart along with a CD track to accompany them. The grooves feature 4 things, the actual groove, variations on the groove, a written-out chart to play along with on the CD, and an explanation by Tommy Igoe on each specific groove, including aspects you shouldn’t take lightly, and challenges that each groove presents. While this book doubles almost as a dictionary, any drummer that is wanting to create a genuine groove for some of the more ethnic/authentic music, they probably shouldn’t use a copy & paste groove from this book, however, they will hold up on their own. The Global Tours include long charts to play along with, some of them are even 20 minutes. This is a very good book every drummer should have.
Trevor Landreth; Emporia State University

Organization: The table of contents precedes the introduction which introduces the chapters of the book, dealing with rock grooves, funk grooves, R&B / Hip hop grooves, jazz grooves, world and specialty grooves, and ‘global tours’ which are a fusion of all previously mentioned grooves. The last few pages are about the author and his reasoning for writing the book as well as information about the tracks included in the CD which comes with the book.

Content: Each groove is listed with its variations and form, showing how the groove would fit into an ensemble. Tips and other information are also included below each groove, ranging from simple advice on playing the groove to the history of the groove. This format is uniform all throughout the book, with little to no information presented on drum set fundamentals, information on the equipment, or the genres themselves.

Uses: This book claims it can be used by “all levels of drummers” which I find debatable in many ways, but it is true that this book is definitely usable by a wide range of percussionists. If the aforementioned CD or other online tracks are used in conjunction with the reader’s playing, some grooves from this book are playable by beginners although there is no insight as to how a beginner would start playing on the drum set or how they would approach warming up or properly striking the cymbals and drums on the set. Advanced players can use the grooves as ideas or fun warmups to figure out new ways to shape their own playing.

Rating: Without hearing how the tracks line up with the written grooves or how the other instruments contribute to the playability of each groove, it is hard to say how effective or difficult these grooves can be. From what I can read, the grooves seem easy to understand and presumably playable by different skill levels. Being listed as a “groove encyclopedia”, this book certainly lists plenty of grooves to play albeit with nothing including technique or other information about playing on a drum set. 4/5. User:Hondogracias

Works for Percussion by this Author

Igoe, Tommy. Groove Essentials. Briarcliff, NY: Hudson Music, 2005