Siwe-Percussion: A Course of Study (Student Workbook)

Comments:

This isn't a bad book, but it isn't a good book. It attempts to include a little of everything: history of the instruments, how to play the instruments, how to take care of the instruments, select instruments, select students, assign parts, etc. It contains a number of playing exercises for every possible instrument. It isn't wasted money if your students buy it, but there are much better options out there. I currently teach a methods course. I used this book because the dozen or so TAs before me did. Unlike the others, I had a short career as both a percussion instructor and a band director before coming back to graduate school. I ended up fighting with the text quite a bit. Much of the information is outdated, unhelpful, or too general and almost all of it is badly written. Many passages are worded extremely poorly. Often too many words are spend on unimportant information and not enough words spent on important information. As a method book, it also lacks. The snare portion is good, but mallets are done poorly. Accessories are done pretty thoroughly, but some questionable techniques are written into the etudes, like scraping hand cymbals together for quiet crashes. Timpani has a functional conversation on rolls, but the content effectively stops at rolls. Most of the battery can be practiced on a series of "Cadences," which are basically small percussion ensembles consisting of snare, cymbals, bass drum, and timpani. Mallets and drum set can be practiced in a series of style studies with every keyboard having its own part. These cadences and style studies have lots of good ideas, but the book is overly reliant on them and they make class instruction difficult in the moments when everyone needs to play the same thing as they lack variety in motions and concepts. I'm having to supplement this book pretty heavily with photocopies and my own writing. I'm switching to "The Complete Percussionist" because, although it lacks exercises and the like, its much better written and I know I need to supply most of the playing content. The Gary Cook book is also a good candidate if you don't mind the $90 price tag.

Date Posted:

Posted By:

Rating:

Comments:

The book was in good condition and had no transportation damage. Good Job!

Date Posted:

Posted By:

Rating: