The Complete Percussionist

Robert Breithaupt

General Info

Year: 2005
Edition: 2nd Edition.
Publisher: Barnhouse
Cost: Book Cost - $29.50   |   Supplemental Books - $0.00

Table of contents

This table of contents goes over all the contents in the book, unlike the other percussion books, it goes page by page. Starting with snare drum, and then each subsection in the percussion section and how to play them listed page by page starting with one and ending on one hundred and nineteen. This goes over playing techniques and tuning information, along with detailed explanation of each instrument in the percussion family, starting with snare drum, and then moving to tenor drums, cymbals, accessory instruments, Latin American accessory instruments, concert accessory instruments, specialized instruments, Latin American instruments, timpani, keyboard percussion, drum set, marching percussion, electronic percussion. It also goes over organization of the section, maintenance of the instruments, and methods.

Overview

The new edition of The Complete Percussionist provides an updated view of the performance, maintenance and literature of percussion instruments in the school setting. It is written to help the band director to be in touch with information that will allow them to effectively communicate with today's percussionists. This new edition is spiral bound for ease of use while the user performs the exercises within this text.

This book begins with by describing percussion music as an ever-changing ameba with new instrumentation and notation added to the genre each day. With this in mind, Breithaupt defines and provides information that has been found crucial to the percussionist. Covering a wide range of instruments from the traditional janissary to a few off beat auxiliary and world percussion instruments, as well as an extensive section on drumset playing, keyboard percussion, and marching percussion. Each instrument is explained with informative illustrations and notated examples.

This book is extremely useful, and would be an excellent book for teaching an introductory level percussion method class, or for any band director.

Reviews

Student Reviews

"I found this book to be extremely useful, and would be an excellent book for teaching an introductory level percussion method class, or any band director. The examples could be extended to improve the criteria for the students, that is one area that the book is lacking." - Denver Ridgway

"This book has not only some of the most well-defined explanations of the playing and terminology for a percussion pedagogy textbook, but also the shortest. Unlike some of the other texts I’ve read on the same topic, it goes over the information in a very organized and informational way. This goes over playing techniques and tuning information, along with detailed explanation of each instrument in the percussion family, starting with snare drum, and then moving to tenor drums, cymbals, accessory instruments, Latin American accessory instruments, concert accessory instruments, specialized instruments, Latin American instruments, timpani, keyboard percussion, drum set, marching percussion, electronic percussion. It also goes over organization of the section, maintenance of the instruments, and methods. In each section of instruments, it talks about the different sticking types, and how to hold the sticks/mallets in the sections. This book has good information that some of the other texts on percussion pedagogy does not. But its also laid out in the most organized way, even page by page. So even if you don’t remember which chapter a certain section talks about say how to play Latin American percussion instruments, it lists it page by page, which is handy. So, no matter what subsection in the percussion family one is working with, it can get you to the information fast and efficiently, and the information is real short sweet and to the point. But it does not have as much in playing examples like other textbooks, and more information on other aspects of percussion playing. This would be why it received its rating of three stars." - Thomas Scott

Works for Percussion by this Author

Breithaupt, Robert The Complete Percussionist. C.L. Barnhouse Company; 2nd edition, 2005.