Modern Drummer is the world’s most widely read drum magazine, is dedicated entirely to the art of drumming and caters to the needs of amateur, semi-pro, and professional drummers.
CooperGroove - GrooveGrip Performance Drumsticks
CooperGroove drumsticks feature a modification of traditional stick design with the intention of improving grip, stimulating pressure points, decreasing fatigue, and helping players who drop sticks due to sweaty hands. The namesake of these new tools is Chicago-area drummer Carlo…
DW - Bass Drum Beaters
DW recently released a quartet of bass drum beaters that are designed to provide multiple tones and textures from a single source. The Black Sheep and Control Beater XL models were created in collaboration with top endorsers Rich Redmond and…
Tony Hajjar
After spending a few years building his résumé as a film composer, Tony Hajjar is back at home with the post-hardcore favorites At the Drive-In. The El Paso, Texas, band released three full-length albums and several EPs before calling it…
Dream - Paper-Thin Crashes, TriHats, and Libor Hadrava Stacks
Since 2005, Dream Cymbals and Gongs has been providing competitively priced handcrafted instruments that are designed by professional Canadian percussionists and manufactured by expert metalsmiths in China. The company’s product line includes traditional Chinese effects (Lion, Han, and Jing), interesting…
Daryl Hall and John Oates' Brian Dunne
If you’ve ever seen Live From Daryl’s House, it’s a good bet that you’ve thought to yourself at least one time, Now that’s one gig I’d love to have. And to be sure, the enormity of performing with pop and…
Ddrum - Max Series Drumset
Originally a Swedish electronics company, ddrum began offering acoustic drumsets after being purchased by Florida-based Armadillo Enterprises in 2005. Some of ddrum’s acoustic drum innovations include the first all-ash shell and the more recent all-alder shell. TO READ THE FULL…
Catching Up With Nada Surt's Ira Elliot
Nada Surf has accomplished that rarest of feats in pop music: surviving the massive out-of-left-field success of an early single—a song titled, indeed, “Popular”—and the all-too-typical insult of then being dropped by the record company that released it. TO READ…
Kit of the Month - The Eliminator
When searching for the inspiration to build this month’s featured kit, Travis Wenzel of Elk Mound, Wisconsin, looked no further than his band’s rehearsal space. “This project started out as a 125th-anniversary Sonor Force 2001 drumset,” Wenzel says. “At the…
The Swampy Double Groove - Grease Up Your Phrases
With double grooves, the left hand plays every 8th note using unaccented strokes in between accented backbeats. I refer to these unaccented notes as “taps.” Combining this snare pattern with a standard 8th-note hi-hat figure results in a locomotive groove…
Groove Construction, Part 9: Split Grooves
This month’s groove workshop introduces split patterns. In these phrases, the right hand alternates between two voices, the hi-hat and ride. The arm should hardly move; the motion should originate from the wrist. This concept is especially effective with patterns…
Rock Perspectives - A New Realm of Groove
It might initially seem strange using the term “groove” in conversations about patterns based in odd subdivisions. But examples of these phrases being used in popular music are abundant. A perfect song to demonstrate this concept is Snoop Dogg’s track…
Concepts - Staying Current
Everybody faces the challenge of staying current. It happens in just about everything in life. The music business in particular always seems to be looking for the next new thing, which can be a problem because it ignores the fact…
Product Close-up - Paiste Giant Beat and 2002 Sound Edge Hi-Hats
This year Paiste introduced a slew of new cymbals, including an entire line of heavily hammered 2002 Big Beats, signature rides for top artists like Carl Palmer and Danny Carey, and some massive hi-hats and rides in the 2002 and…
Up And Coming: The Drummers Of School of Rock: The Musical
In 2003, Jack Black played down-on-his luck guitarist Dewey Finn in the feature film School of Rock. The comedian was surrounded by a talented cast of child actors playing fourth-graders attempting to win a battle of the bands to help…
