Get in Shape with Andy Ziker's Drum Aerobics

Submitted by Anonymous on Sun, 04/10/2011 - 20:40

Ziker’s Drum Aerobics Nominated for 2011 Drummies

 

Drum Aerobics (Hal Leonard) by Percussion Partner, Andy Ziker, is a 120-page book/2-CD pack, providing a 52-week, one-exercise-per-day workout program for developing, improving, and maintaining drumset technique. The book has been nominated for Drum! Magazine’s 2010 Drummies. (If you would like to vote for the book, please go to http://www.drummagazine.com/drummies/. Drum Aerobics can be found on page 6, category #15. You don’t have to be a magazine subscriber and voting runs until May 1.)

Drum Aerobicsis designed for players of all levels – beginner to advanced – to help them increase their speed, coordination, dexterity, accuracy and lick vocabulary. Two accompanying CDs contain all 365 workout licks, plus play-along grooves in styles including rock, blues, jazz, heavy metal, reggae, funk, calypso, bossa nova, march, mambo, New Orleans 2nd Line, and many more. 

Ziker is also offering free content to accompany the book and 2 CDs:

• Video clips are available at http://andyziker.com/media/#videos.com or http://www.youtube.com/drumscapes. Ziker and Dan Tomlinson, long-time touring drummer for Lyle Lovett and Acoustic Alchemy, appear on the 25 drumless tracks. Viewing these clips give book purchasers a point of reference, seeing and hearing two professional drummers playing along with the tunes.

• Head charts for all play-alongs (PDFs) can be found at http://andyziker.com/media/#drumscores, detailing chords, melody, and important hits and fills, clarifying song structure. Educators, including school band directors and private instructors, will find the charts (along with the video clips) valuable in teaching chart reading. Other instrumentalists can also use the charts to play along with the drummer in a live setting. 

• Indexes (PDFs) are also available at http://andyziker.com/media/#drumscores. These lists give short descriptions of individual exercises and where they are found in the book.   

Drum Aerobicswas recently received a positive review in the Drummer Café website: http://www.drummercafe.com/reviews/books/andy-ziker-drum-aerobics.html. The book has also received many supportive customer reviews on amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Drum-Aerobics-Andy-Ziker/product-reviews/142347788X/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_summary?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending.

The book is available at many music stores across the US, many e-commerce sites (in addition to amazon.com), such as http://www.musicdispatch.com/product/viewproduct.do?itemid=6620137&  http://www.halleonard.com/product/viewproduct.do?itemid=6620137&subsiteid=2, and Ziker’s own website: http://andyziker.com/products-page/books.

In the following acoount, Ziker tells the story of how Drum Aerobics was conceived.

When the Hal Leonard Corporation asked me to write the book, making it the second book in the “aerobics” series–the first being their top-selling book, Guitar Aerobics (http://www.amazon.com/Guitar-Aerobics-One-lick-day-Maintaining/dp/1423414357)–I was honored by the opportunity and excited about the challenge.

When I first observed the inside pages of Guitar Aerobics, I realized right away that the layout (based on the days of the week) would be unique to any drum book out on the market. From my past experience as a public school elementary and junior high teacher, I knew that a structured approach motivates learning.

My first job was to decide on what content to place inside the “boxes”. I asked myself, “Why do people hire drummers? What does the drumset add to the music?

I came up with the following list:

  • Time
  • Feel
  • Drum Beats
  • Fills/Solo Ideas
  • Sound/Texture
  •  Dynamics
  • Provide/Outline Song Structure
  • Big Ending Explosiveness

 

I then put that list through the following filter: “How do these aspects of drumming fit into an exercise/workout theme?”  I came up with the following categories for the book, related to the days of the week:

 

  • MON: Coordination
  • TUE: Grooves
  • WED: Solos and Fills
  • THU: Grooves
  • FRI: Solos and Fills
  • SAT: Grooves
  • SUN: Drumnastics (big endings, attention-getting licks, etc.)

 

While beginning the arduous task of writing 365 sets of exercises (dumset notation and descriptive text), I also started planning for the play-along CD. I decided on 25 drumless tracks from a variety of genres. Each song would have an instrumental melody line, would include opportunities to set up “hits” and have room for solos and fills, and would be recorded by real musicians (not programmed), making for a unique educational playground.