Pat Petrillo: Hands, Grooves & Fills

Pat Petrillo has worked with the likes of Patti LaBelle, Gloria Gaynor, Glen Burtnik and Ed Hamilton, as well as numberous Broadway shows in NYC. A world-class clinician, Pat is also a faculty member at the Drummers Collective in New York City. In Hands, Grooves & Fills , Pat demonstrates his methods for improving ALL 3 of these important aspects of drumming in 1 DVD/Workbook package!

Hands

Pat demonstrates his exercises and methods for developing smooth, relaxed hand technique, endurance and coordination. He also plays ALL of the Standard Rudiments with modern interpretation, and shows how to put them into musical phrases using his ground breaking "Rudiment TAB System".

Grooves

Music is all about the groove, and Pat demonstrates how to improve Bass Drum technique as well as ghost note grooves, while having FUN with over 50 PLAY ALONG TRACKS. Featuring a great band of some of New York's finest musicians, each Track is in a different groove style, including Rock, R&B, Jam Band, Fusion, Drum'N Bass, and more.

Fills

Creating fills is always a challenge, and Pat shows his methods of orchestrating 16th notes, sextuplets, and numerous stickings into awesome sounding fills. If you are lacking a fill vocabulary, or always wanted to learn killer fills, Pat breaks it ALL Down!

REVIEW4cups

It's obvious that Hands, Grooves & Fills was put together by someone who loves the art of drumming, not only as a player but also as a educator. Pat Petrillo has really gone all out to create a complete curriculum for today's drummer; helping to blend all the ingredients necessary to become a working, professional drummer. I do want to mention that this combo pack isn't the end, in fact, it's just the beginning! Pat does a fine job laying a solid foundation for serious drummers to build on; developing good hand (and foot) control and technique, while staying focused on what it's all really about ... making music.

In Section 1, Pat starts out by explaining and demonstrating some of his favorite warm-ups, which includes a lot of rudiments and rudimental stickings. He also shares a bit about his stick technique and what he does for accents and ghost strokes.

Section 2 features Pat's own idea for tabbing the drum rudiments, using a symbolic notation to describe the rudiment to be played. An example, Pat uses a P to signify the Single Paradiddle; a 5 to signify the 5-Stroke Roll. In the DVD and CD, Pat demonstrates all of the Standard Drum Rudiments, plus provides a large number of rudiment tab combinations and solos for you to read and listen to using the Book and CD.

Section 3 is all about Grooves. Pat starts by describing his personal philosophy and approach to foot pedal technique, more specifically Kick drum technique. The first 10 grooves are Rhythm Chart notations and range from Pop/Rock to Latin/Funk styles. The next 10 grooves are what Pat calls "Essential Ghost Note Grooves" and lean more towards R&B, Fusion, Funk and Soul type styles. Following this are 10 more advanced beats which Pat lovingly calls "Groovalations". And if that wasn't enough Pat gives 10 more two-bar grooves called "Nastifications"; highly syncopated with some rhythmic displacement. To close out this section, Pat tries to demystify the concept of linear drumming with 10 "user-friendly" linear grooves, plus gives an additional 5 swung grooves, what he calls "Swingalations", which could be used in Hip Hop to Gospel style. All of the grooves in this section are demonstrated slowly at first, then sped up in double time fashion.

In the final section, Pat gets into drum fills by first taking some syncopated rhythms and applying them around the kit. He doesn't break these down slowly because they are "inspired" fills based on the 10 notated rhythms found in the supplemental book. Pat gives a lot of examples, taking split (linear) sixteenth-note groupings and sextuplets, Drags, 6-Stroke Rolls and Ratamacues, and applying them all in various ways around the kit. As an added DVD bonus, Pat shows some of his famous stick tricks and explains the idea behind his four-surface practice pad.

Hands, Grooves & Fills is definitely worth checking out, especially if you plan to have a career as a drummer in the music business. The DVD/Book/CD package really does make you feel like you are studying with Pat one on one, developing your skills as a complete contemporary drummer.