Customer Reviews

Ricks Licks

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

 

 

This book/CD is a great tool to develop better independence skills, and fill your "drum fill bucket" with hundreds of ideas. This book is very well written, easy to understand and
tons of fun to work through. As a teacher, I use this with all my intermediate and advanced players. A must for your library of drum books!

This book and cd is a great help to me and my playing.
Rick helped me with broadening my playing by the exercises within the book. Even beginners with knowledge of the basic note values can benefit from Rick's Licks.

I just read the latest review in Modern Drummer for Rick's Licks which received a 9 out of 10 rating, so I had to get a copy. They weren't kidding when they said "The concept that simple patterns, when applied and accented different ways on the drumkit, can sound so awesome, has great appeal, and Rick's Licks is an eye- and ear- opener to those horizons. Simply, it demystifies odd times and polyrhythms. Drummers working in any style can use this book to expand their personal bag of tricks." I couldn't agree more. Great stuff!!!

Well, after how many years of being a drummer, I've looked for drums instructional books that would revive me out of rhythm death. But time and again I get severely disappointed becuase you'll either run across things that are just way too basic or way too extreme. Man, all I want is something practical, but challenging, and leaving a lot of room to grow. That's why I feel that I have been brought to life with this book. Rick doesn't just talk about linear drumming, beat displacements, etc. He shows you practical and useful excercises and grooves that will get you started on the right track. The concepts go beyond the book itself, but at least finally there's something out there to get you started in the first place without making you feel like you already have to be insanely great to begin with. Yes, I recommend this book for the intermediate drummer that have a fairly good dexterity with paradiddles and it's relatives. It's amazing how much you can do with just the right concepts.

I am disappointed because printed clearly on the cover is the following statement "The original Rick's Licks and much more..."

What I thought was a key to the video offering was a simple concept that Rick outlined to make these odd note groupings easy to grasp and play pretty quickly at the same time laying a foundation for you to create an endless supply of licks from your ideas.

The concept was in a measure of 4/4 there are 16 notes (as 16th notes). The simplest grouping then is a set of four 4-note groupings 4+4+4+4 =16. I know pretty simple/boring but what other number combinations could fit in there? 6+6+4, 7+3+6, 5+5+6, etc. etc... to add up to 16 notes in that measure. Then Rick supplied a series of 3-note phrases, 5-note phrases, 6-note phrases, 7-note phrases, etc. Learn the phrases, put them in combination and you were rolling with a full head of steam and the tools to create a boatload of your own creative combos based on that initial foundation.


True that there is "much more" (lots of combos with mixed straight & triplet 16th's) and that is what pushed the rating to 3.5, but as key parts of the original material wasn't covered I pulled some of the rating, maybe he felt it was covered in the video and just wanted to build in the book or that it was somebody else "owned" the concept, or worse is that he was too familiar with his concept and thinks others are at the same level as he is with? Also, the CD sounds like it was a direct dupe off the VHS tapes - poor quality sound.

I would still recommend this in the drum library with the sound limitations and this version being a bit less friendly to newer drummers going the self-teaching route.