Rock Solid: Drums is an easy-to-follow, step-by-step guide to improving not only your drumming, but your overall musicianship too! Topics include drum rudiments, effective listening, reading music, improving coordination, narrowing the gap between strong and weak hands, learning essential rock beats and fills, and creating the most effective drum beats for songs. Also contains play-along tracks featuring a real band, with over five hours of music, tips, and suggestions on the MP3 disc, performed by Liberty DeVitto and Sean Kennedy. Suitable for all levels, the Rock Solid techniques will allow drummers to expand their creative potential and be ready to rock in no time!
The official books of the popular Camp Jam Summer Rock Camps, the Camp Jam: Rock Solid series takes the aspiring rock musician from beginner level to playing in a rock n roll band in no time at all! Developed by some of the greatest rock musicians in the business, including Liberty DeVitto (former drummer for Billy Joel), Jim Peterik (guitarist/vocalist for Survivor), Peter Stroud and Tim Smith (guitarist and bassist for Sheryl Crow), the Camp Jam instructional program is packed with essential playing techniques that can be learned quickly and easily. Perfect for all musicians whether you are just starting out or you’ve been playing a few months the lessons and exercises are not only fun to play, but are proven effective to get budding rock stars jamming right away! With Camp Jam locations now established in 16 cities across the United States, here’s your chance to get in on all the action, learn the Camp Jam playing secrets, and start living the dream!
REVIEW 
Keeping with the foundational traditions and spirit of rock 'n' roll music, Rock Solid: Drums — A Systematic Approach For Learning Rock Drumset is designed for new drummers, especially those with little or no formal music training.
The book opens with the bio of each co-author, followed by a preface from the two and a nice opening statement entitled "Play with Passion!" by Liberty. The Introduction includes "Top-10 Sticking Patterns" with creative ways for practicing them, plus tips and general information on listening, reading, music notation, fundamental "rock" rudiments, notation key and practice tips.
Section 1: Exercises and Grooves, which encompasses approximately half of the book, covers quarter-note and eighth-note based drum beats and fills, with several pages at the end of the section devoted to sixteenth-note beats and fills.
Section 2: 12/8 Time and Triplets is explained and demonstrated, along with a few brief examples of shuffles and fills in both notation types.
Section 3: Early Rock, Swing and Other Styles briefly gets into jazz and odd-metered rock grooves, as well as single examples of a variety of world grooves. This section is essentially a short glossary and introduction of beats for the club-date or variety show drummer; all of which can/may be applied within the rock genre.
Section 4: Play-along Tracks starts off with an explanation of how to work with the eight play-along tracks included, each with and without drums.
The last section has closing comments from Liberty, plus alternate Hi-Hat foot patterns, alternate Snare drum patterns, and alternate Ride/HiHat pattern variations.
Rock Solid: Drums comes with a supplemental MP3 data disc which contains audio examples of all the drum grooves; none of the drum fills, with exception to the 12/8 - Triplet fills, are demonstrated or included. The majority of Liberty's dialogue, which is written in the book, is also included in audio format on the MP3 disc. The audio quality is okay, however some of the audio performance examples are either unclear (inconsistent) or completely wrong with respect to what is notated in the book. The CD includes six bonus loop tracks to play-along to; each at different tempos with approximately 3-minute run-times.
Overall a fun and educational package; lots of inspiring content for any drummer desiring to break into the world of rock 'n' roll.
