Modern School for Snare Drum

Morris Goldenberg

General Info

Year: 1955
Edition: 1st Edition
Publisher: Chappell & Co., Inc.
Cost: Book Cost - $19.80   |   Supplemental Books - $0.00

Chapters

Chapter I:
Chapter II:
Chapter III:
Chapter IV:
Chapter V:
Chapter VI:

Reviews

Student Reviews

Organization: A foreword describing the author’s intent of writing this book precedes the Table of Contents which is separated into two parts with Part I only containing playing exercises based on certain rudiments and concepts, such as flams, rolls and different time signatures. Part II is the bulk of the book and starts off with information and illustrations of different instruments, interestingly lacking the inclusion of timpani and any mallet instruments, presumably due to the author’s publication of other books for timpani and mallet instruments. Many of these descriptions, along with the rest of the chapters, contain excerpts from orchestral works, showing the relevance and practicality of using several of these included instruments and giving playing examples. The back cover provides the name of several instruments in four different languages, stating that showing performance terms would be “cumbersome” and that translation dictionaries are better resources for that purpose.

Contents: At first, counts and stickings are written in for the first few playing exercises, but they quickly disappear as they progress. At the beginning of Part II, the author gives some insight to his choices of instruments to include in the book along with some history behind percussion itself. The author mentions the absence of timpani and mallet instruments, and thus divides the following instruments into two categories: membranophones and idiophones which leaves out chordophones and aerophones but considering this is a snare drum book, it is exceptional that any instruments other than snare drum are included especially to the degree found in this book. The orchestral scores in the last half of the book are provided in their formatting since they contain issues percussions run into in orchestral settings.

Uses: I feel this book is accessible enough to be used by students or a class of students in a middle to high school range but covers enough content that a beginning teacher or a non-percussionist instructor could have a handy reference to see instruments being played in context and provide their ensembles with some music they can play together to see how these instruments function together or with a larger ensemble.

Rating: Compared to other snare drum books, I feel this one blows others out of the water in terms of its range of content; it is nearly a methods book! The inclusion of orchestral excerpts provides students with some practical repertoire that can be played in context with a recording of the piece, and the playing examples provide warm-ups and a few fundamental exercises for students to work on in their own time. That being said, focusing on the “school for snare drum” aspect of the book, the omission of basic drumming fundamentals, such as stroke, stroke types, playing positions, grips, and types of rolls to name a few, seems lacking for a book that provides so much more information than what is relevant for snare drum itself. 4/5. User: Hondogracias

Works for Percussion by this Author

Goldenberg, Morris. Classic Overtures for Timpani. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Co., 1981.
Goldenberg, Morris. Classic Symphonies for Timpani. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Co., 1981.
Goldenberg, Morris. Modern School for Snare Drum. Van Nuys, CA: Alfred Music Co., 1955, 2002.
Goldenberg, Morris. Modern School for Xylophone, Marimba, Vibraphone. Van Nuys, CA: Alfred Music Co., 1950, 2002.
Goldenberg, Morris. Modern School for Mallet-Keyboard Instruments. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Co.,
Goldenberg, Morris. Romantic Symphonies for Timpani. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Co., 1981.
Goldenberg, Morris. Standard Concertos for Timpani. New York: Chappell, 1969.