The Art of Latin Drumming: A New Approach to Learn Traditional Afro-Cuban and Latin American Rhythms on Drums

I bought this book after having browsed through it, and alot of the patterns were familiar. I liked the way they "layered" the various rhythms and it seemed to have a "different" approach than what Ive worked on so far as far as "Latin" drumming goes.The book is 128 pages long, but half is in english and half in spanish (the text portion obviously). So its actually (hmm... 128 divided by 2 = 64)... its actually 64 pages in length, and as I mentioned above it keeps repeating the basic ostinato pattern OVER AND OVER each exercise.For a good portion of this book youre really only learning a few ostinatos. There ARE other latin styles after the general independence exercises against the ostinatos as well. They could have just said "pick an ostinato" and then read these rhythms (orchestrated as written) against them.64 pages would have become 20?There are NO tempo markings.To be "nit picky" some of the cd tracks are played differently then the transcriptions (VERY FEW, but it does exist more than once).PROS:EVERY pattern is played on the cd for 8 times (16 measures - its in cut time and each pattern is a 2 bar phrase). VERY NICEThe rhythms are "hip" / authentic latin rhythms orchestrated nicely (meaning interesting and "cool" sounding)If you have NO EXPERIENCE with latin drumming in these styles (Afro Cuban and Latin American) then this WOULD BE a VERY GOOD BOOK to start out with. Great rhythms, very authentic, cool / "hip" orchestrations.thank you for reading, I hope this helps.

The Art of Latin Drumming: A New Approach to Learn Traditional Afro-Cuban and Latin American Rhythms on Drums  As a Drummer and instructor, I feel this is a great book to work with students. Real latin rhythms patterns and very easy to learn. Even though, it does repeats some ostinatos, I can really understand what they tried to bring out since the ostinatos are against a different clave. If you are really looking to learn Latin American rhythms this is the book for you. This book should be included as one of the "MUST HAVE" books along with Frankie Malabe's book. I loved their play along, real easy to work with.I have also other books that were written by the authors for Hand Drums and they are great too.

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