Ted Reed is an author who needs no introduction, even though, much like GL Stone,  he’s best known for just one of his books: Syncopation, a book you can spend years taking in different directions.

But just like GL Stone, Ted Reed has a lot of other work to his name. I picked up a bass drum book of his years ago, and at the time, I became aware that there were a half-dozen other books of his that were still in print, including follow-ups to the famous Syncopation book.

Last year, when I was visiting back home, I checked out a small music store in San Francisco that had a couple of the other Reed books for sale. I nabbed them up on a lark and decided that it could be fun to get hold of every Ted Reed drum set book and share my thoughts about them. Some of these titles are a little too thin to be written about on their own, so I’m gonna do it with one big article. 

Syncopation #2 — In the Jazz Idiom for the Drumset (1987, 44 pages)

Not many people know that there’s actually a sequel to Syncopation: Syncopation #2, penned about 30 years after the original.* I’ve previously brought this book up in passing — the gist is that, unsurprisingly, Syncopation #2 presents some of the classic swing interpretations of the original book, built around the eight famous exercises. 

The first chunk has single stroke fills around the kit, using the “fill-in-the-blanks” approach: the original snare line (referred to as the “solo line”) is written as accented swung notes, while unaccented notes are written in between. There’s a very simple orchestration system; a right-hand accent is written on the floor tom, and a left-hand accent is on the rack tom. Unaccented notes are on the snare, and everything is written in 12/8 for a “triplet” interpretation:

I had a lot of fun with this section of the book; it’s thrilling to get these fills going at a good clip, and they’re much better at giving you fluidity around the kit than something like Rhythmic Patterns. Nevertheless, there is a limit to what you’ll get out of them since these are inherently snare drum-centric, and the nature of swinging 8ths means you won’t be accenting any middle triplet notes (i.e., 1 & a 2 & a 3 & a 4 & a).

Moreover, playing exercises that are 40–48 bars in length is intense. I played them in smaller chunks before stringing together longer and longer runs, but this started to become a practice in stamina more than musicality.

The next four sections are all comping patterns, and they weren’t as useful to me. First, in Section II, the solo line is written on the kick, and the snare is written to fill in the blanks under the generic cymbal beat:

My issue with this approach is that it’s undermined by quadruple and even quintuple strokes on the snare; interestingly, however, this section does spell out a linear fill system if you ignore the cymbal part and orchestrate both hands around the drums (although there are a lot of shuffle kick patterns).†

Then comes the classic comping drill with the solo line written as swung snare notes on top of a four-on-the-floor kick pattern:

In the third comping chapter (Section IV of the book), the solo line is written on the kick, but with just snare backbeats on 2 & 4. It’s quite redundant since it’s the first section of comping patterns rewritten with a simplified snare part. Ad-libbing kick drum notes over a steady snare beat is not really what I think of when I consider comping — it’s usually the opposite. I guess this is at least good for shuffles.

I should also mention how the order of these sections is a bit puzzling. I feel like Section III should come first since it’s the most straightforward (and famous) approach.

Finally, we come to Section V with the solo line written between the kick and snare, using an orchestration system that I can’t seem to elucidate:

This one is more interesting and useful, if a bit inscrutable. Edit: I think this section uses the system of playing 8th notes from the original rhythm on the snare, while quarter notes and longer are on the kick. I think.

Unfortunately, the 12/8 engraving of the comping patterns makes most of them a headache to read. I would have preferred this:

Or simply write them with swung 8ths, but the book tries to do a weird mix of both. Not using obvious patterns of 3s kind of defeats the point of 12/8 time.

Anyway, I like Syncopation #2 a lot for the solos, but the comping stuff has a few too many missteps for me. I also noticed a couple of extraneous notes added to these sections, meaning that the original rhythms have not been copied verbatim. There may be a variety of mistakes — I have not done an exhaustive comparison.

Curiously, the book doesn’t have the solo line with more simple swung notes filling in the blanks, like this:

Syncopation and Rolls for the Drum Set (1990, 47 pages)

Now we close out the Syncopation trilogy with a book specifically about drum rolls. 

What we have here is another collection of patterns using the fill-in-the-blanks approach; this time, the solo line is written with accents, and unaccented doubles are added in between.

The three sections of the book start with each pattern written out in isolation before eight solo etudes à la book 2, with a similar orchestration system around the drums: 

For whatever reason, the left and right hands do not always stay on their respective toms, and I don’t know what the orchestration system is.

While the original Syncopation presents 48 rhythms that are used to create the eight exercises, Syncopation and Rolls only uses 24 to 36 rhythms in isolation, depending on the section. I’m not sure if this was an issue with space or if Ted Reed found that some of the original rhythms did not translate well to these exercises. Since the rhythms are not in the same order as “Syncopation Set 2” from the original book, I don’t have the patience to find out what’s missing. As far as I can tell, the eight exercises are unchanged rhythmically.

There’s more diversity of subdivisions in this book than in book 2. The first section uses 8th notes to fill in the blanks, before using “triplets” (with a 12/8 interpretation like book 2), and then finally 16th notes.

The 12/8 solos use the same tom phrasing as Book 2 — I wonder if these notes were photocopied with tremolos added. The engraving style is slightly different than the rest of the book.

Anyhoo, this is a fun text to go through for working on doubles and short rolls — it’s the kind of book you might be able to breeze through, but it’s a good mix of reading, stick control, and stamina. I typically have a lot of fun practicing doubles, even though it’s mainly to work on my drags; I don’t often play anything longer than a seven-stroke roll on the kit, aside from very dramatic, crescendoing transitions, which are rare for me.

To that end, I wasn’t too keen on the solos. Filling around the kit while cramming in that many doubles is just a little too dense and clumsy for me. I think these exercises work better on a practice pad, for reading and stamina. 

The book recommends playing all exercises with both open doubles and closed buzzes. Naturally, I ignored the buzzes.

Progressive Steps to Bass Drum Technique for the Modern Drummer (1963, 42 pages)

This is our breakaway from the original Syncopation book. It could come as a surprise to learn that, all in all, this is probably my favorite kick drum book. 

You might be thinking, “Couldn’t I just use Syncopation for my kick chops?” Yeah, you totally could, although that is primarily good for metronomic accuracy. This book focuses on both precise kick drum timing as well as pure speed and endurance.

The core of Bass Drum Technique involves a variety of kick rhythms written underneath a steady snare pulse. The subdivisions throughout are 8th notes, 8th notes triplets, and 16ths. In classic Ted Reed fashion, sections start with short 1‑bar patterns before stringing them together to end with a solo/etude, around 20 bars in length:

This is a relatively straightforward book, but I really value it — you could spend a lot of time trying to work everything up to faster speeds, and there’s utility for both single and double-kick players.

There is one curious detail I should mention: all kick drum notes are accented up until page ten, and then there are no accents afterward. Not sure what the deal is there. You can fret about it at your own peril.

Drum Solos and Fill-Ins for the Progressive Drummer, Book 1 (1959, 32 pages)

This book is what it says on the tin: drum fills and drum solos.

I’m generally wary of drum books that have extended fills and solos written out note-for-note while not following any sort of straightforward system (the way Syncopation #2 does), but now we’re getting into books I picked up to be able to say “I own every Ted Reed drum set book.”

Anyway, this is a book that’s equal parts weird, dated, fascinating, and charming. The patterns are much less mechanical than other drum fill books out there (like that one I just complained about), and they are fun to play; the less-than-musical ones make for good reading drills at least. 

The solos are anywhere from 2 to 16 bars in length, but I had the most utility breaking them down into 2‑beat chunks. The longer phrases are repetitive as a way of building a theme, and while these patterns are more useful than some other books, this is still a dated, by-the-numbers approach.

The final moments of the book are about ending timekeeping phrases, but it’s far too rote to click with me at all.

While some good rhythms and orchestrations are hiding in the book, many others are strangely spartan. I also have to mention that everything is written with a clunky double-time feel, which is another headache to read, made worse by an archaic notion style that is stretched to its limit:

Drum Solos and Fill-Ins for the Progressive Drummer, Book 2 (1965, 32 pages)

This one is just as odd as the first one, if not more so, since it opens with this conspicuous paragraph in the foreword: “The solos and fills contained in this book were inspired by one of the greatest drummers in the world. He is world known for his flawless technique, speed, great drum solos and fills.”

I really can’t imagine who this drummer is supposed to be, but considering when this book was published, I suppose there aren’t many options. 

Anyway, more of the fills here left an impression on me than book one, but it still has the same problems. It also has an increased emphasis on stick shots and buzz rolls, which, aside from having clunky notation (“RonL” written above the staff instead of a special notehead), inherently dates the book even more than it already is, thanks to both the overall approach and the inspiration from this mysterious 20th-century virtuoso.

While there’s more work on comping in this book, there are a lot of better resources for this kind of practice.

Basic Rhythms for the Club-Date Drummer (1983, 27 pages)

No disrespect to Ted Reed, but… now we’re kind of getting into the bottom of the barrel.

This one is a rough crash course (and I do mean rough) in various styles that a working drummer might want to be familiar with. There are 32 styles listed on the cover, but the book is only 27 pages long, and the instructions for these styles are about as terse as they could be. Each style gets one or two grooves plus a “standard ending”:

There’s not much I could get out of this one. It’s biggest utility is probably providing a list of grooves for drummers to do more homework on. I would say that it’s a fascinating time capsule into the resources of a gigging dance drumming from yesteryear, but apparently, this was published in 1983, which is quite bizarre since it seems dated even by the standards of the ’80s. 

Well, 1983 is the oldest copyright I could find, at least. Maybe it’s wrong, but unlike the older books, the notation style of this one makes me think it had some sort of formal engraving done, giving credence to a more recent date of authorship. Still, the title and the approach both feel much older than the ’80s

Latin Rhythms for Drums and Timbales (1957, 27 pages)

This book is kind of a bad joke in some drumming circles. It’s the same idea Basic Rhythms for the Club-Date Drummer, but with a focus on Latin styles. You could write full-length texts on any one of these styles, but these last two books are about as basic as could be.

Again, there’s not much I could do with this one; notation is yet another problem, with the book using Ms, Cs, Xs, and “OOs” written above noteheads to try and explain the particulars of how to hit the instrument.

Latin Rhythms is at least a true historical curiosity that has improbably survived in print into the 21st century. These last two in particular are strictly for drum book nerds like yours truly.

If the copyright date is correct, this is actually Ted Reed’s first book, which is honestly unbelievable. I assumed his big break was Syncopation, but Latin Rhythms predates it by a year. (That being said, the forward of Syncopation makes me think he was working on that book for some time before he got around to publishing it. It’s still odd how Reed prioritized this one, but maybe he didn’t anticipate the disparate popularity his different books would see.)

Honorable Mention: Progressive Steps to Bongo and Conga Drum Technique (1961, 23 pages)

I actually don’t have this one — I never have to worry about hand percussion, so I think this one would be the biggest dud of them all. But it’s only 7 bucks, so maybe one day I’ll nab it to well and truly own every last one. 

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To conclude, to bass drum book is probably the shining star of this list, and I do think it’s an obscure but underrated title. The two Syncopation books might be worth picking up if you want to spend all of your musical energy on simply playing instead of extrapolating from the original book as you play.

The drum solos books are… kind of fun, but certainly not something I would consider much of a priority for your library. I could still get something out of them, unlike the last two, which were duds for me.

* ^ Most of my copies of these books are reprints with renewed copyright (and ugly redesigned covers to boot), so I had to scour through the US Copyright Office’s archives to find the original dates. I think they are correct, but this one (1987) seems too recent. It does look formally engraved, unlike the manuscript of the original book, so it’s a believable enough date. 

† ^ Earlier this year, I wrote about using Syncopation for linear triplet fills by morphing the written duple rhythms into triplets. If you’re wondering why I didn’t just fill in the blanks with triplets… this is why.