Author Description

Modern Drummer magazine: "Most books about drumming contain page after page of exercises with little or no attention given to dynamics, except for the occasional accent. In Dynamics In Time, the study of dynamics is one of the main concerns, and it's about time somebody discussed the subject. In this 65-page book, Jim Chivers has come up with a well-written and well-conceived text on the subject. This book contains five main sections. Sections I and ll deal mainly with developing rhythmic command of what the author calls "the five most common rhythmic subdivisions." These are 8th notes, 8th-note triplets, 16th notes, 16th-note triplets, and 32nd notes. The author states that before a drummer concentrates on dynamics, he or she must have the ability to play solid time and play these five basic rhythmic values. The examples in the first two sections are based on these rhythms played in different combinations at the drumset over a bass drum/hi-hat foundation. There are many good "pointers" in these sections to help drummers develop rhythmic accuracy and "feel." The rhythmic information discussed in the first two sections is applied in the rest of the book. Section III begins with a brief definition of dynamics and dynamic markings, and then proceeds into some great examples for developing dynamic control on the drums. Besides the usual dynamic markings, this book employs graphs that give the student a visual picture of the proper way to apply written dynamics. Once these concepts are thoroughly explained in Section lll, the examples in Section IV use dynamics on the drumset in time feels. Section V covers such topics as dynamic independence (playing a drumset pattern and having control over the dynamic level of any limb), fours (four bars of time followed by four bars of solo, emphasizing dynamics), rolls (using dynamics in rolls), and around the toms (moving around the drumset with dynamics). There's a lot of valu