Looking at an interesting book, that I’ve been using a bit recently: Joe Porcaro’s Drum Set Method. It’s uniquely practical, covering some things widely done, but rarely taught— at least they’re not detailed so exactly.
It’s not easy to write about, or to work with in general, actually. I wouldn’t call it an true method book, it’s more about applying rudiments for embellishments, fills, and soloing, in jazz, funk, samba/bossa nova, rock, all the usual professional style areas. As playing vocabulary it’s all modern for the 1970s— it feels like the hippest middle aged players would have been doing then— like Shelly Manne, Grady Tate. A long time ago, but still basically how we play today.
It is organized by rudiment, starting with a very long chapter on the three stroke ruff (played as a rhythm, alternating sticking— not a conventional orchestral ruff), played in a variety of rhythms and meters, and styles and tempos, with various moves around the drums, including using the bass drum. That’s very good, because the usual rudiment conversation is pretty hopelessly married to march tempo 2/4 or 6/8 time, which is limiting.
Subsequent chapters are on 4, 5, and 7 stroke “ruffs”, short rolls, various forms of paradiddles, drags, and flam accents.
It’s not clear how somone would practice intensively out this book— you would be playing a few examples at medium tempo, then a fast tempo, then a very slow tempo, then switch styles, repeat. Usually you don’t structure your practice time that way. It’s more like a lesson or a clinic for advanced students, on the topic of “what can I do with X rudiment on the drums.” An approach practicing it might be to spend a few minutes learning the patterns in one style, and then develop them as ideas through playing, improvising, finding a natural flow with them.
In the course of the rudiment-based bulk of the book, there will be short explanations of some important concepts— jazz ride cymbal interpretation, the nature of half time feel, double time within a ballad feel, etc. And there are some brief style exercises with basic time feel variations.
The staff is a little strange; the snare drum is on the second space (where a bass clef C would be), and five tom toms: two concert toms, 12 and 13″ toms, and floor tom. I guess that was a marker of modernity at the time, which is completely unnecessary now. At least all the parts are written on one set of stems.
A lot of things are covered that you normally have to figure out youself on the job, and through listening, so the book is useful for teaching people who aren’t getting a ton of playing opportunities. That’s a gap in the usual materials, which are mostly focused on beat variations in rock/funk, or medium tempo comping in jazz, or on patterns strictly for soloing— in excess of their real importance in ordinary playing. We’ll discuss that another time.
Overdoing it with the approach here might take someone into an overly-hands oriented approach, sort of a Louis Bellson zone, which would be a little outdated today. But it’s a good supplement to the normal materials, and better, and more modern— in playing style, and concept— than some other similar books, like Joe Morello’s Rudimental Jazz, or Joe Cusatis’s books.
It would be worth seeking out the original edition, which is spiral bound, with hand copied notation. That edition is 245 pages long.