"Marching bass drum is often an inaccessible instrument. The knowledge on what to practice, and how to play bass drum is passed only through word of mouth. Many current and potential bass drum students do not have a teacher with the capability to share the information needed to become a master at the instrument. Instead, only a handful of fortunate students are able to spend enough money to be put in front of an instructor that can shape them into an elite bass drummer. With this publication, I plan to provide a thorough, holistic, and engaging resource that will provide all of the essential tools needed to become excellent at playing bass drum.
Having played a lot of bass drum in the past ten years, and continuing to play in the United States Marine Drum & Bugle Corps, I now have the knowledge and experience to write a book which is accessible for beginners as well as a resource for advanced players. However, this work is not intended to be just a record of my thought process and exercise regime; it is a synthesis of new developments in bass drum theory and practice over the last two decades. The technical minutiae of playing bass drum is debatable. The best basslines in the world have all developed a different approach to some of the stylistic details. In an effort to preserve all styles of bass drumming, I believe it is important to create a resource that encompasses more than just my personal pedagogy. This comprehensive book of ways to improve at bass drum is the product of information I gathered from many excellent instructors and performers during my involvement in junior corps and independent percussion ensembles.
My research began with the next best bass drum manual that I could find, Bass Logic by Bill Bachman. Published in 2004, Bass Logic is understandably outdated. Since its release there has been a smattering of resources to learn bass drum on different websites and through social media, but there has been no comprehensive work on bass drum since Bachman’s. In August of 2020, I took the first step to resolve the deficit in instructional bass drum resources when I released the method packet, Knowing Bass Drum. This 24-page, free packet was a link to a Google document advertised only on my social media accounts with the purpose to determine how much interest the percussion community had in learning the ins and outs of this instrument. I received overwhelming and persistent praise for this packet over the next four years from band directors, percussion instructors, peers, and students. It became obvious that the desire for a modern, professional, and detailed bass drum method book was strong, so I expanded upon Knowing Bass Drum and made a resource that is over four times as large as its predecessor. This is Knowing Bass Drum: Complete Edition."
