Customer Reviews

Essential Elements 2000 Percussion Book 1 Plus DVD and CD

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Essential Elements 2000 book, is a great book for anybody who wants to learn how to play any percussion insturment. I advise this book for everybody. It comes with a DVD which is very helpful and nice. The book contains a lot of captivating songs and I fully enjoy playing them.

We bought this book because it is the one used by my child's fourth grade band program, and it seems well suited to that age and older. The book covers the beginning fundamentals for snare drum, bass drum and bells/xylophone. The snare and bass exercises comprise the first half of the book and are written together, on one staff. The bells exercises make up the second half of the book. Exercises are short, 1-2 lines of music, and fundamentals are explained clearly before each segment. Although this may be outside its scope, it would be fun for kids of this age if some of the music were simple versions of rock classics, instead of all folk songs and classical.

We thought this book would have more drum training than it does. It is all types of percussion. Otherwise, we have used the guitar Essential Elements books and liked it.

This book is totally useless because it doesn't teach how to play bar and mallet instruments because it doesn't say what bars to hit and in what order--this is the only way you can learn. It shows the scale, which I already have anyway, but this doesn't work in translating the notation even accounting for the octave difference. Compare this book with You Can Play Guitar and the difference is like night and day. The latter shows how to play several songs (because it shows what frets to press and what strings to pluck and in what order) and says how to translate the sheet music to tablature. Furthermore, the authors call the glockenspiel, vibraphone, marimba, and xylophone keyboard instruments, but they are not at all keyboard instruments, and are usually not considered as such, they use bars and mallets. Keys are things you press. On top of that they call the glockenspiel bells, a common mistake, as the modern glockenspiel replaced the bells but the name stuck, and what we call a glockenspiel isn't at all bells.

Very good book, very helpful for my son in his bank class, the cd's was a wonderful ideal it helps out alot.

I bought this book because it is the one used by my child's six grade band program, and it seems well suited to that age and older. The book covers the beginning fundamentals for snare drum, bass drum and bells/xylophone. The snare and bass exercises comprise the first half of the book and are written together, on one staff. The bells exercises make up the second half of the book. Exercises are short, 1-2 lines of music, and fundamentals are explained clearly before each segment.My little girl loves it! About the company I will buy from them again it was a very smooth and easy transaction.

The product was exactly right. Nicely wrapped for shipping. Smooth transaction. Thanx

Rebel @ South Presa Ink

Tattoos & Piercing

San Antonio, TX

I ordered this book on Saturday, and it arrived Monday! It is in excellent condition, and we are looking forward to using it. There is a lot of information, which looks clearly set out.