Search - Accelerate Your Drumming on DVD

Excellent value

reviewer | Carlisle, MA USA | 12/10/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Accelerate Your Drumming is divided into four parts consisting of Hand Development, Basic Grooves, Advanced Grooves and More Advanced Grooves. Each part has six or seven exercises and each exercise has multiple examples. There are also 5 performance sections that put the exercises in a musical context with a bass player or small group. That makes for a total of 98 chapters on the DVD. Having each lesson as an individual chapter lets you quickly get to a specific title and example.

Groove examples are provided for basic rock, rock/funk, songo, funky mambo, shuffle, bembe, L.A. syncopated shuffle, jazz, ghost hip-hop, blues, up tempo, and others. There are a few classic approaches in the style of Jeff Porcaro and James Brown along with some advanced hi-hat and kick drum exercises. The early exercises focus on rudiments and control and the final exercises focus on basic to advanced fills.

A book is included that lists the main purpose, practice method and important points for each exercise along with charts for the grooves. Each exercise includes a metronome setting for the performance tempo. The book is printed in a 4"x7" format that clips inside the DVD jacket to keep it from getting lost.

Larry Finn takes a no-frills approach. He is a man of few words and lets his drums do the talking by demonstrating hand technique, foot control, strong time, dynamic control and groove vocabulary. Considering what it would cost to get this much information in regular lessons, this DVD is an incredible value."

Very good book of excercises.

Dan Santner | Chicago, IL | 08/02/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a very good, very focused and to the point group of excercises that can be worked through in a very short aomount of time. It's not overly complex but it also sticks to the most useful stuff. The author doesn't waste time on excercises that aren't useful in everyday drumming situations. I'd think someone of any level of skill can get something out of Larry's excercises.

The only annoying thing is the booklet that comes with the DVD is so small that it really can't sit on a music stand without the aid of a clamp or something."