My Favorite Instructional Videos: Grooves

Among the most treasured drum drum instructional videos I own, Tommy Igoe Groove Essentials and his follow-on DVD titled, Tommy Igoe Groove Essentials 2.0 DVD, will expand any drummer's horizons. 2.0 contains 53 additional grooves and concentrates on odd time signatures. A good rundown on the first version, which contains 47 essential grooves can be read in the glowing reviews on Amazon. The reviewers express better than I the greatness of the original Groove Essentials.

On Groove Essentials 2.0 the instruction is much faster paced than 1.0, and assumes you have mastered 1.0.

The theme of 2.0, aside from odd time signatures, differs from 1.0 in that in the first DVD you were taught the "connective tissue" of keeping a groove - anchoring on a cymbal pattern or, perhaps, a bass drum to form the foundation of the groove. In 2.0 the theme is constructing a groove and the focus is on groove types covering rock, funk, jazz and world.

The highpoint for me was the lesson on brushes. These were all so briefly touched upon in the original DVD, but were expanded in two lessons on the second. You won't become a brushmaster, but if you are new to brushes the two lessons will propel you. Here are a few clips from 2.0 that showcase Tommy Igoe's talents as both an exceptional drummer and instructor:



I strongly suggest that you augment the DVDs with the following books/DVDs that are companions to the DVDs:

• Groove Essentials - The Play-Along : A Complete Groove Encyclopedia for the 21st Century Drummer
• Tommy Igoe Groove Essentials 2.0 - The Play-Along Book/CD

Tommy will be filming Groove Essentials 3.0 in the Fall of 2010, but is mum about the subject matter. I can assure you I will be ordering it as soon as it's published.

One final Tommy Igoe resource is his Tommy Igoe Great Hands for a Lifetime, which was recently published. Here is the trailer: