Vintage Drum Book Review - Modern Style (Swing) Drumming by Bill Harty

Bill Harty was a top dance band drummer and educator of the 1930''s. He played with the Roy Fox and Ray Noble Orchestras, and his majestic book was published by Henri Selmer and Co. Ltd around 1930. This seminary book concentrates on the preparation and understanding needed by drummers for the 1930’s dance band scene.

Harty was professional during the period where there was a move away from being a Ragtime drummer and sound effects player, to a keeper of just dance time and rhythm. In the section titled "Ragtime to Rhythm" Harty amazingly covers a percussive description of  "...a revolver being shot into the air at intervals…" but I can''t quite see a gun ending up in my stick bag somehow.

Like the Max Bacon book of the same era, Harty’s personal views within the book have quite a forthright and confident tone, mirroring the style of the Primary and Secondary Education of the time. Simply, if you don’t graft, there is no way you’ll succeed. The one thing this book really holds over others of the period though, is that he is quite visionary with the future of professional drumming. Indeed, he predicts the drum machine.

In his assessment of rhythmic feel, he tells us: "…if it were only necessary for a drummer to be a kind of super time-keeper, it would be comparatively easy to invent a large mechanical device on the lines of a metronome which would punch out beats on a bass drum or side drum or cymbals at regular intervals and with clockwork precision." So, here in the late 1920’s when the book was being written, in a time when household electricity was still a pretty novel idea, he clearly is anticipating what was to be the drum machine. He goes on to condone the idea by saying: "…there must be the human impulse of give and take, even in the strictest of rhythm." Clearly, he endorsed the human touch...and it was some years before machines could be programmed to include “feel”.

He wasn''t to know then of course, that machine led drumming would become a genre all of its own 50 years later.  Also, he wasn''t to know that drummers were to become tighter players through work with click tracks and the imitation of drum machines. A final funny observation is his penultimate section on deportment, or how the drummer should behave while on stage. His gentlemanly rules are:

 "Don''t twiddle your sticks…it''s definitely out-of-fashion!" and

  "No smoking on the platform…it''s the worst evidence of inexperience and bad manners that one can imagine!"

and finally:

 "…don''t bounce about in your seat…or cultivate a movement of the body simply because you think it should be done!"

These rules were clearly within the boundary of dance hall etiquette of the time, and reflect the need for the up-most professionalism, that is, if you wanted to get hired and stay hired!
 
As we can see today, lots of excess drumming movement is almost the only thing we see with the bands in the limelight, and I personally have taught people who are brilliant at making a simple thing look really hard.

This book is more expensive to acquire from the second hand market, but seek it down and you will be transported back into a studious and civilised world of beautifully prepared and executed music. A gem of a book.

Top Tip Quotes from Bill Harty'' "Modern Style (swing) Drumming," 1930.

"Remember always that you are one of a rhythm team."

"Although imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it is also the dangerous form of stagnation"

"Rudiments were intended originally for non-reading drummers..."

And controversially "…there is absolutely no necessity for the paradiddle at all. It is never used, never required, never essential, never helpful, and serves no purpose whatever." (Harty endorsed the use of counted single strokes over military based beatings)

And finally: "The controlled rebound beat is the basis of all drumming."

Researched and written by Jeff Davenport