The Drummer's Path: Moving the Spirit with Ritual and Traditional Drumming

This is an excellent book on many different levels. Firstly, Sule Wilson provides an informative and sometimes lyrical introduction to the many different styles of traditional African and Diaspora drumming genres currently popular in the United States. He also raises issues such as spirituality, drumming etiquette, the relation of drummming to dance and song and the thorny issue of gender.Sule provides some really crucial insights on a number of different technical topics. One example: his discussion of the technique difference between djembe and conga drumming has always struck me as one of the best descriptions/analyses of these two instruments.This is as much a personal statement by a committed and sincere African American student of percussion as it is a "how-to" kind of book and this is its other great strength. While there are many different strands of opinion and belief within the African-American community on EVERY issue, Sule points out how and why we should all pay attention to the issue of cultural respect when any of us (no matter what race, gender or culture we come from) gets involved with drumming.There may be minor points of disagreement between Sule and other writers, but in the main, this book thoroughly deserves its status in the drumming community as the one essential introductory book for serious students of the Black percussion arts. (A more musicological approach - also highly recommended- is John Miller Chernoff's wonderful book "African Rhythms and African Sensibility").

I had been playing the piano for many years and wanted to learn more about rhythms and I picked up this book in a local bookstore and within a year I had started to learn to play African rhythms on the Djembe and Djun Djun. This book really opened my eyes to the beauty and complexity of traditional African rhythms and how they influenced the rhythms of both North and Latin America.The book does not teach any rhythms but teaches all the basic principles af playing the drum and the mental/spiritual aspect of it.Highly inspirational and Higly recomended.Two other good books about the philosophical aspect of drumming are Diallo's "The Healing Drum" and Reinhard Flatischler's "The Forgotten Power Of Rhythm;Taketina".And a good book who teaches a lot of rhythms is "A Rhythmic vocabulary" by Alan Dworsky"

This is an intriguing work that shows the relationship between drumming, spirit and health. An interesting complement to such world-music classics as "The Brazilian Sound" and "Catch a Fire" that delve heavily into rhythm and percussion.

Hi; I'm the author. I put on paper some of the principles of "getting myself right" by traditional drumming: Breath, Posture, Health, Women and drums, some history. Let me know what you think. The CD/cassette is music relevant to topics discussed in the book.