Progressive Independence: Rock, by Ronald Spagnardi, is designed to help you gain an extremely high level of coordinated independence for rock drumming performance, thereby freeing all four limbs from dependence on one another.

Once the material in this book has been mastered, you’ll be capable of playing almost any rhythmic figure on snare and bass drum, in combination with six varied hi-hat/cymbal patterns, while the hi-hat foot plays quarter notes, 8th notes, or upbeat 8ths. Progressive Independence: Rock is structured in a very straightforward manner. Each of the book’s six sections offers a selection of snare drum and bass drum rhythms using six different hihat/cymbal patterns.

Starting with 8th notes and then quarter-note hi-hat/cymbal patterns, the book moves on to 8th-note upbeats, 16th notes, and two common 16th-note figures. Part 1 of each section deals strictly with snare drum independence. Part 2 focuses on the bass drum only. In Part 3, snare and bass drum combination patterns are presented with left-foot quarter notes. Part 4 adds left-foot hi-hat 8th notes to the previous exercises, and Part 5 presents upbeat hi-hat 8th notes. In Part 6, two-bar combinations are demonstrated using the three previously learned hi-hat patterns.