I want to share and review two rudiment books I’ve brought up in the past: Rudimental Grand Tour and Encyclopedia Rudimentia, both written by my fellow CU alum Ryan Alexander Bloom.
I’ve linked to Ryan’s website a couple dozen times at least — he’s a great resource and knows probably more than anyone on the internet does about the rudiments. Ryan has written a number of books so far, starting (I think) with a double-kick book back in 2016. Encyclopedia Rudimentia was published in 2019, and Rudimental Grand Tour in 2023. Ryan has also resurrected some older rudiment manuals for the 21st century.
Both Rudimental Grand Tour and Encyclopedia Rudimentia are more resources than they are exercise books. There is abundant music notated out, but unlike everything else I have reviewed so far, these are not method books. Instead, they both serve as compendia of every rudiment that has legitimate use or historicity.
Rudimental Grand Tour presents ostensible rudiment lists for 22 different drumming traditions from around the world, although Europe and the Americas are the most prominently featured. With the amount of drumming information that has been lost to time, this is no easy task, but Rudimental Grand Tour is nevertheless the most accessible and up-to-date look at many of these disciplines that most modern drummers (especially those of the American NARD and PAS background) would otherwise be unfamiliar with.
Even the chapter about the US proves to be valuable thanks to its inclusion of so-called forgotten rudiments, such as the even-numbered rolls that used to be a thing until NARD and the PAS decided they weren’t, and the rest of the drumming world apparently agreed.
Each section starts with a spiel establishing background and context, introducing major historical references and important terms. Then, different patterns are written out, both in historical form and with a more modern, comprehensible style. Lastly, major pieces of drumming canon are shared (think of stuff like “Three Camps”):
Encyclopedia Rudimentia, on the other hand, is more of an atlas of sorts, with increased musical examples and fewer explanatory notes. This one uses the list of 40 to provide most of its framework, introducing a rudiment along with major historical variations:
The second chunk of Encyclopedia Rudimentia is dominated by a massive collection of hybrid rudiments, which takes up about half the book.
First, the good: both of these books are very comprehensive and well-researched and should be owned by anyone who wants to have an exhaustive, historical, and global familiarity with rudimental drumming. That is to say, someone who wants to be more than a blowhard who goes online and says “Rudiments are important because Steve Gadd.”
As far as critiques go… well, I don’t really have any for Rudimental Grand Tour, as it’s well-structured and informative. I could get nit-picky about design elements — the typography is a little plain, and I’m not a huge fan of how the paragraphs stretch across the entire page (there’s a reason why magazines and newspapers use narrower columns), but nothing is illegible.
When it comes to Encyclopedia Rudimentia, I do have some misgivings about the way hybrids are segregated away from the rest of the book, which uses the list of 40 as a starting point. Many hybrids could fit in with this framework: the eggbeater and shirley murphy are combinations of singles, doubles, and/or triples, so they’re ostensibly multiple bounce rudiments. The chutudda and duchudda are both spins of the flam accent, while the book report is a single draggadiddle from hell with some spicy accouterments.
Some hybrids are really out there, and would not easily be a part of such categorization, but I think it could be done for the most part, even if only with the generic classification of “flam rudiment” (for what it’s worth, there are sections of the book like “miscellaneous drag rudiments”).
Encyclopedia Rudimentia also falls short in a few other aspects — it doesn’t have as many forgotten rudiments as Rudimental Grand Tour does, and I think inversions would have been worth including, especially those that have names (such as the paradiddle inversions) and especially the tap rolls (a.k.a. short rolls in first inversion, starting with the accent).
The hybrid section feels a little disorganized, although presenting hybrids in any digestible form is a herculean task; with no authoritative list out there, a lot of this comes down to the particulars of who you may have studied with, or when/where you marched.
Still, this section does some odd things. The eggbeater is written with a combination of duple and triple rhythms, but I’ve only ever seen it written as even notes, mainly quintuplets. There are some odd naming things as well. The Swiss drag is known only as the “same-handed flam drag,” although I find both terms to be commonly used.
The pattern RLL/LRR is called a diddle-let, and I have seen that term online, but in my experience, it’s most often called a puh-duh-duh (historically, this was also known as a “side triplet”). And lastly, there’s some redundancy; both the alternating fla-a-cue and chutudda are included as separate licks, but they seem to be exactly the same.
Ultimately, Encyclopedia Rudimentia doesn’t quite manage to be the end-all it might want to be and is less cogent than the Grand Tour. It’s still worth having since both of the books serve somewhat as companion pieces to each other, and when combined, remain more valuable than most rudimental resources out there. Once again, if you’re serious about this stuff, you should seriously think about picking them up. I mean, I like both of them, and I think rudiments are often more trouble than they’re worth!
