The Cambridge Companion to the Drum Kit

An approachable introduction to the drum kit, drummers, and drumming, and the key debates surrounding the instrument and its players.

Matt Brennan (Edited by), Joseph Michael Pignato (Edited by), Daniel Akira Stadnicki (Edited by)

9781108489836, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 June 2021

320 pages
17.5 x 25 x 2 cm, 0.66 kg

'A useful gathering of writings in an emerging area of scholarship … Recommended.' M. D. Jenkins, Choice Magazine

The drum kit is ubiquitous in global popular music and culture, and modern kit drumming profoundly defined the sound of twentieth-century popular music. The Cambridge Companion to the Drum Kit highlights emerging scholarship on the drum kit, drummers and key debates related to the instrument and its players. Interdisciplinary in scope, this volume draws on research from across the humanities, sciences, and social sciences to showcase the drum kit, a relatively recent historical phenomenon, as a site worthy of analysis, critique, and reflection. Providing readers with an array of perspectives on the social, material, and performative dimensions of the instrument, this book will be a valuable resource for students, drum kit studies scholars, and all those who want a deeper understanding of the drum kit, drummers, and drumming.

Introduction Joseph Michael Pignato, Daniel Akira Stadnicki and Matt Brennan
I. Histories of the Drum Kit: 1. The drum kit in theory Matt Brennan
2. Historically informed jazz performance on the drum kit Paul Archibald
3. Toward a cultural history of the backbeat Steven Baur
4. Historicizing a scene and sound: the case of Colombia's Música Tropical Sabanera Pedro Ojeda and Juan David Rubio Restrepo
II. Analysing the Drum Kit in Performance: 5. The drum kit beyond the anglosphere: the case of Brazil Daniel Gohn
6. Drum kit performance in contemporary classical music Ben Reimer
7. Theorizing complex meters and irregular grooves Scott Hanenberg
8. Shake, rattle, and rolls: drumming and the aesthetics of Americana Daniel Akira Stadnicki
9. Drum tracks: locating the experiences of drummers in recording studios Paul Thompson and Brett Lashua
III. Learning, Teaching, and Leading on the Drum Kit: 10. Studying hybrid and electronic drum kit technologies Bryden Stillie
11. The aesthetics of timekeeping: creative and technical aspects of learning drum kit Carlos Xavier Rodriguez and Patrick Hernly
12. Mentorship: jazz drumming across generations Joseph Michael Pignato
13. Leadership: the view from behind the kit Bill Bruford
IV. Drumming Bodies, Meaning, and Identity: 14. The meaning of the drumming body Mandy Smith
15. Disability, drumming, and the drum kit Adam Patrick Bell and Cornel Hrisca-Munn
16. Seen but not heard: performing gender and popular feminism on drumming Instagram Vincent Andrisani and Margaret MacAulay
17. Building inclusive drum communities: the case of hey drums Nat Grant
18. A window into my soul: eudaimonia and autotelic drumming Gareth Dylan Smith.

Subject Areas: 20th century & contemporary classical music [AVGC6], Music [AV], Performance art [AFKP]