When it comes to learning jazz and jazz comping, many drummers are often steered towards two very famous books: Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer by Jim Chapin and The Art of Bop Drumming by John Riley. I’ve been through both books, and I want to write about both of them — since I picked up Advanced Techniques first, I’ll review it first. Also, when comparing both books, Advanced Techniques is certainly a more… complicated situation.

Advanced Techniques is the older text, first published back in 1948 (making it one of the oldest drum set books still in print). The author is Jim Chapin, who was a prolific educator; aside from Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer, Chapin is well-known for championing the Moller Technique, most famously in his 1992 video Speed, Power, Control, Endurance.

All in all, however, Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer is probably his most revered work. Modern Drummer wrote that “when Advanced Techniques was first published, many considered it unplayable; today it’s taken for granted that an aspiring jazz drummer will master it.” Oh là là!

Here’s the thing: I think many drummers miss the point of Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer, and to be fair, Chapin is partially to blame. The book opens up with some introductory comping exercises, ride and snare only, and they are all very usable in the wild:

You might be wondering why they are written with a dotted 8th + 16th rhythm instead of generic swung 8ths. Well, as it turns out, Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer is very concerned with rhythmic accuracy.

While there are many usable swing patterns in this book, nearly half of the exercises involve playing straight 8ths and 16ths on the kick and snare underneath a swung ride pattern:

Challenging stuff for sure… almost too much so. In fact, I’d argue these exercises are way too intense for a jazz beginner, i.e., the kind of player who’s simply trying to get down the basics of swinging/comping. Worse still, it might be too intense for almost any drummer slogging through it.

Ostensibly, you could just play all the 8ths as swung, but the sections involving 16ths are very obtuse and can only really be played as written. This is the core issue with Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer — the book is not meant to be an introduction to jazz, nor is it a method for building comping vocabulary. Rather, it’s a coordination book that happens to use the swing discipline to teach independence.

There’s quite a dichotomy with Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer. If you’re like me, then you will probably get little to nothing out of the straight exercises. They contrast so much with the other parts of the book, which are instead more obviously musical. Alternatively, if you’re a pro jazzer who values the coordination challenge (or you’re trying to work on gnarly bebop comping), I can’t imagine that the more basic swung patterns will be of much help.

I’m not really sure why Chapin featured both simple, practical swing patterns as well as very demanding coordination drills, and it makes you wonder what kind of audience the book is for. Perhaps when Chapin wrote Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer, there was no material out there to practice swing at all. That being said, perhaps a sequel focusing on 16th note comping would have been more appropriate (more on that in a bit).

Make no mistake, Chapin himself has said that the ultimate goal of the book is to teach independence, not swing. And even then, he has conceded the practicality of the book:

…the idea behind the exercises was to teach independence, not that drummers should use those patterns all the time when they play… independence is a very appealing thing, and it’s like anything else: If you have it, you want to use it. But that’s not necessarily the best way to play music.

Without a doubt, straight notes in an otherwise swung context can be a fun changeup, but few drummers need to spend this much time with it. Furthermore, going for a linear flair instead of relishing in the clashing rhythms between the ride and the kick/snare is much more en vogue these days.

My problem with Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer highlights an enduring struggle regarding practicing: there are an endless number of very challenging exercises out there, but the truth is that not every difficult thing you can find is worth studying. The time must come for you to decide what’s going to have any real value in your day-to-day playing.

A lot of people admire this book, and that’s fine. Truth be told, it seems like the people who enjoy this book the most actually revere it more for its difficulty than its direct musical applications.

Ultimately, there are two issues here. First is Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer’s use for teaching someone the basics of swing drumming. Second is the utility of the book in general. Regarding the first point, I think The Art of Bop Drumming is just the all-around better book for introducing drummers to jazz.

The second question is a more difficult one to answer. Independence and interdependence are very valuable skills for a drummer, but Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer has such a specific focus, which hurts and helps it. It’s great if you want this kind of comping skillset, but otherwise, you are unlikely to know of any other situations to use these skills.

Personally, I just didn’t get much out of this book. It’s probably worth checking out at some point in your drumming career since it is such an esteemed text… but go through The Art of Bop first. When all is said and done, I can’t deny how I found myself blowing through pages of this book, since they weren’t valuable to me.

To be fair, my frustration with Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer probably has more to do with its status as essential reading for any jazz drummer. It really isn’t, but philosophically, there’s nothing wrong with the ultimate goal of the book if that’s your thing. While there’s a jarring difference between the sections, each section in isolation no doubt follows a coherent method.

There’s one last topic I want to bring up. The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that the cover of this book says “Volume 1.” Chapin did write a sequel: Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer, Volume II: Independence — “The Open End.” I think it was published in the early 70s, but information on this title is scarce. In fact, Vol. II might be the holy grail of drum books.

I don’t have a copy; it’s not for sale anywhere,* and for a while, I couldn’t even find a picture of it. It sounds a bit modular; using clear pages, the reader can recombine kick, snare, and cymbal parts to create a massive number of exercises. Apparently, Dom Famularo got it reprinted back in 2004 and may have been selling as recently as 2010… but that must have been the mother of all limited runs, as he has since pulled Vol. II from his website, and it’s long gone now. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the book’s been out of print for the last 25 years.

* ^ Actually, since writing this, I found one store online that purports to have a copy, available for £99. If I somehow got a copy from these people, I suspect it would be upwards of $150 at the end of the day. Worth it? Probably not. I have more interest in seeing how it works than I do in putting it on my music stand…