Customer Reviews

Billy Ward: Voices in My Head

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On the heels of Big Time (which I personally feel is one of the best teaching videos available), Voices is a great follow-up for anyone who is now playing or taking a closer look at jazz, or just wants to loosen up their playing. Billy's teaching style is so laid back, he seems to naturally inspire in the viewer both the interest to pursue the subject more in-depth, as well as the self-confidence that with some work,they too can play this music well. I highly recommend this DVD.

For anyone looking for a drumming DVD with a lot of replay value, Billy Ward delivers in spades. From the anecdotes interlaced in the movie from drummers such as Sean Pelton to the 1/2 speed segments, there's a wealth of information presented here that's pretty impossible to completely soak up in one viewing. Not to mention that Billy is one of the most engaging hosts out there, and explains/demonstrates each example very clearly without ever dwelling on one topic too long. The DVD I received came with his trio album "Out the Door," and in addition to containing some tasty playing, his approach to the parts on these songs are explained later on the DVD. Let's recap what you're getting here: not only a CD that you can listen to repeatedly, but explanations of the drum parts, and if you also own the Modern Drummer 2008 DVD, you can see performances of several of the songs there and see what Billy produces when improvising. And that's not to mention the parts of the DVD where he talks about applying rudiments to the kit, the brief breakdown of the history of jazz drumming (it's about 10 minutes, and you get the point), and lots of lessons-within-lessons sprinkled all over the place. (Make sure you watch the commentary, too--Billy always seems to have an extremely entertaining commentary track on his DVDs, on this one as well as on Big Time.) In other words, there is a ton of things to learn here, and if you're reading this and considering buying this DVD, don't hesitate--you would be hard pressed to find another instructional DVD that you stand to learn quite this much from. I've owned it for a while now, and every 6 months or so I pop it in again and learn something new that I missed in previous viewings. There are plenty of drumming DVDs out there that only "show" you things; this one teaches, and you can immediately reap the benefits.