Drum Aerobics | Percussion Instruction Sheet Music for Beginner to Advanced with Online Audio | Daily Practice Program includes 52 Week Technique Workout with Play Along and Skill Building Exercises

This book is absolutely fantastic! If you are like me, then you probably have a stack of drum books on your coffee table that rarely get used. Many of these books serve their purpose well enough, it is merely that either the material is overwhelming, overly wordy, or just plain boring. This book is none of those things!! If you have ever attempted to trudge through the New Breed, or another complex systems book, then you understand how frustrating it can be to feel like you are making absolutely no progress. I don't mean to criticize these books, or sound lazy as I have worked many exercises in that book as slow as humanly possible and worked up, but there is often so much material in these books, that they feel overwhelming. For me, the feeling of frustration grows because I know there is so much material yet to get through in these books, and I am struggling mightily with the opening pages. Fear not! Drum Aerobics is here to save you! I absolutely love the concept of the daily exercise routine, and the exercises start off relatively easy. It is laid out for you down to the day, and each exercise is manageable (so far) to master in a day, as they are what I would call "bite sized". I also love the idea that the topics change everyday. Monday is coordination, tuesday grooves, wednesday fills and so on. It keeps me engaged. Prior to this book I was working out of the 4 Way Coordination book. Not only is that book dreadfully boring, I was beginning to get the sneaking feeling that the coordination I was building wasn't always applicable to playing drums. That is not the case with this book. Every exercise is intended to be used directly on a drumset. The best part about the book is that because it is laid out as daily exercises, it keeps me moving at a steady pace. My biggest flaw as a drummer is surely the fact that too often I move on from an exercise before I have truly mastered it. This system prevents that. I work one exercise a day. I work it until I can play it backwards and forwards. Then the next day I do a quick review of the previous lesson and dive into the new lesson of the day. On Sundays, I go back through the week and make sure that I can still play every exercise flawlessly, before moving on to the next week. Certainly there are exercises that take longer than a day to master, but there are also some lessons that come very quickly. I have made it a point not to move on to a new lesson until I have that day's lesson mastered, and it has served me well so far. This book is phenomenal. You will not be disappointed. Also, very much enjoyed the stretching and conditioning section at the beginning. Full of good ideas and good habits for drummers to get into.

Let me start off with two caveats... You need to be pretty good at reading music to follow all of the exercises because you can't necessarily count on the recordings to play by ear. I've noticed the recorded parts aren't always exactly what is transcribed in the book. Also, the recording only goes through each measure in the book once so you can't really play along with the exercises. Not a huge deal but could be a problem especially for beginners. Either way this is still a five star book. The exercises range from easy to hard and that can be within any given week. Lots of styles of drumming are covered in addition to exercises to challenge your syncopation, coordination, time feel, etc. It's nice to have little bite sized exercises for practicing that don't require you to plow through long passages or memorize confusing patterns. In each set of seven exercises there is generally a coordination exercise, a timing/groove/syncopation exercise, rudiments, groove style, simple fill and complex fill. As a twenty year veteran on the drums I highly recommend this book as a learning and teaching tool. It will keep your practicing dynamic and lively rather than cramming one exercise down your throat over and over. Some exercises will be mastered in minutes while others will take a bit more time. The design is for most of the exercises to build on each other. I've been slowly going through the exercises for a couple months and I'm at about week 14. The nice thing is the author points out ways to add to the basic exercise so if you decide to work back through or revisit some items it won't be completely redundant. Along with your imagination you can get a lot of mileage out of this book. For maximum value to a beginner I would recommend working out of this book in addition to one of the standards like Syncopation by Ted Reed or Master Studies by Joe Morello. I've been playing along with these books for over twenty years and I feel like I learn something new every time I sit down to practice. This will get you well on your way! The only thing I lack is more time to practice!

If you are a drummer and want to fully embrace the fact that it is a VERY physical activity, then Drum Aerobics is the book for you. Whether you are learning a current curriculum and need a companion book to your drum method, or already know how to play, the material here will assist you in getting your body physically conditioned. I have been playing for over twenty years now, and teaching for twelve of that. It is recommended to perform a lot of stretches and warm-ups whenever you practice with a sport, so why should drumming be any different? Andy Ziker progresses us through practical and progressive exercise material, that will help you to keep drumming for many years to come. Starting off with some very useful stretching techniques (which old farts like me need especially), the book also offers you a daily exercise to work on for a whole year. Call it an extended course in practice technique. Unlike other warm-up books that I have used, Drum Aerobics actually offers exercises that you are likely to use, in one form or another. You won't feel like you are working like a hamster in a wheel, and instead have the opportunity of using the techniques in your daily playing and performance. As I said, everyone will benefit from using this material, no matter if you are a beginner or have been playing for a while. Personally, I use this book as companion material with The Teacher And Student Method Drum Set Studies books for my students, so everyone gets a complete workout (literally and figuratively). Buy it, if you want to take your fundamentals to the next level! In summary: * Clean and concise method of getting you into shape. * Pictures and descriptions of daily stretches and warm-ups. * A new workout for every day of the week for a whole year! * Explanations as to why each exercise is important. * All lessons are categorized for clarity. * Included CD demonstrates not just some, but ALL of the practices. * Each exercise progresses to the next in a logical manner. * Vital reading for any drummer that wishes to stay in shape and evolve as a musician!

There are many drum instruction books out there. Some seem to come and go in a flash - they're the flavor of the day. Popular for a while and then, poof, they're gone. Others hang in there year after year (think Accents and Rebounds, think Stick Control, think Syncopation). They're books that are timeless. They're versatile. I believe Andy Ziker's Drum Aerobics will hang in there. It's a unique format: a drum exercise a day for an entire year. It offers variety and it offers that variety to new players and experienced players alike. I've shown this book to my students and they all agree it's a VERY cool idea (ok, I have one student who initially was not keen on the idea of staying in one book "for a whole year". But I explained to him that THAT was the idea.) Even the simpler exercises in Drum Aerobics are fun to work through given the "one a day" theme of the book. And for drum students who may get bored easily with other books, this may be just the thing they need. Check it out. It's well written, interesting, and fun. It's a fresh and unique approach to drum instruction.

First off, I agree with everything said by user mpxdrummer77. This is an excellent book that builds from beginner skills into fairly advanced stuff in a very logical progressive way. I've also learned to read drum music along the way. Aside from various coordination (limb independence) and technical ("drumnastics") exercises, the book has no shortage of cool grooves, such as the variations on the Purdie shuffle, Herbie Hancock's Chameleon, The Meters' Cissy Strut, bossa nova and other latin grooves, and lots of awesome New Orleans styles. I skipped a lot of the heavy metal double bass stuff because I have little interest in that style for now, but there is plenty for those that are interested. This is a great book for anyone interested in learning a large variety of musical styles on the kit. It's one of the few music books that I've ever made it all the way through without getting bored, and I've progressed a lot as a drummer in doing so. Highly recommended.

Drum Aerobics could have been a lame book full of exercises with no explanation/background knowledge. It could have had a very boring layout. It could have been a waste of money. Drum Aerobics is none of these. Ziker's fresh take on exercises, grooves, technique, and patterns makes practice less of a hurdle. The short paragraph describing the value/background of the day's exercise is quite valuable. I found that his explanations of the origins of different beats connect to history and geography. I have not checked out the CDs yet, so I will hold my review of that. The first few pages of the book detail different stretches and warmups to do. I found these especially valuable because I don't know how to stretch well before playing. My only criticism of this section was the poor choice of background color in the photos. The model did a great job demonstrating the different stretches, but the backdrop created poor definition. If other objects were used in the stretches, they were lost in the picture composition. The model's form was often unclear with such a strong black background.

I’ve only completed three weeks thus far, but can tell it’s awesome based on that. Seriously, this is like getting many hundreds of dollars in lessons. The ideas are fantastic, in terms of grooves, fills, and coordination challenges. I’m choosing not to do an exercise a day, as when I got to number 19, that one took me three days. It’s better to get things right, or at least to mark the ones that need more work so that you return to them and make actual improvement. This is an excellent book, so thank you to the creator.

Awesome learning tool. Great combination of work and fun. Has exercises that cover all genres - from Rock to Jazz to Funk to Country to Blues and more. Andy Ziker is an excellent drummer and has really put his vast drum knowledge into this training. There are 365 unique workouts - split into 52 weeks-all played on the 1st CD. The 2nd CD has "drumless" recordings that allow you to play along with whatever creative style you want. The mix of play along songs is great and will definitely improve you drumming and get the creative juices flowing. Highly Recommended!

Ouvrage très bien réalisé avec des exercices journaliers. Nécessite un minimum de bases. Pas sûr que le rythme journalier des exercices permette de maîtriser certains grooves. Sauf si on a toute le journée à soi! Mais à recommander.

Buena presentación. Muchos ejercicios para practicar. Cuenta con clave para acceder a los archivos de música en línea.

U actually need to know how to read music to use this exercise book.... Sucks.

Hermoso ! muchos trabajos increíbles, tiene un codigo para jugar practicar como drumless

Excelente libro, definitivamente un método infaltable para aprender batería que supera a los clásicos. Llegó en tiempo y forma a México, solo, por favor, cuiden el envío, pues el libro es de pasta blanda y llegó maltratado y con las esquinas dobladas. Fuera de eso, todo ok