Following the course? Start with Approach.
A training manual built around Bobby Rondinelli and Michael Lauren’s The Encyclopedia of Double Bass Drumming (Revised Edition). The source book is a reference of exercises; this manual wraps a method around it, focused on strength and accuracy for a self-directed beginner.
Feedback on the method or on the drafted chapter sheets is welcome via GitHub Issues—see the issue templates for the three feedback categories (method, content, chapter request).
The methodology in Approach is the current reference implementation, together with the two fully-written per-chapter working sheets: Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. Chapters 3–23 exist as skeletons—they have the metadata block, a brief “How to use this sheet” section, and Core / Rotation / Reference tables—but they have not yet been rewritten to the shape chapters 1 and 2 now have (first-session walkthrough, worked advancement example, explicit two-consecutive-passes loop, per-exercise rationale). The methodology was validated on Chapter 1 first and propagated to Chapter 2; the remaining 21 sheets are next. Each skeleton chapter sheet carries a banner at the top marking it as such. See DEVELOPMENT.md “Things to do later” for the outstanding items.
Stage 1 — Foundation
Stage 2 — 16th-note density ladder
Stage 3 — Triplets
Stage 4 — Density extremes
Stage 5 — Applications
Stage 6 — Rondinelli additions
Start with Approach—it establishes the method (the tempo-target and clean-pass rule, the stage-based chapter progression, the session template and the tracking format). Per-chapter working sheets and session logs slot in on top of that foundation as they are produced. This README deliberately does not restate the method; it points at Approach instead.
Notice something in the manual that looks wrong, disagrees with the source book, or has a gap? Please file an issue at https://github.com/rcook/double-bass-drumming-training-manual/issues.
Per-chapter working sheets live at the repo root as Chapter 1 through Chapter 23, one file per chapter of the source book. Ch. 1 and Ch. 2 are the fully-written reference implementations; Ch. 3–23 are skeletons awaiting fill (see Chapter template for the shape they will take). Your own practice log is not a repo file—see Approach §8.
The Encyclopedia of Double Bass Drumming (Revised Edition) by Bobby Rondinelli and Michael Lauren is © 2000, 2022 Modern Drummer Media LLC. The PDF is not distributed via this repository. This manual assumes you have your own legally acquired copy of the book. Nothing here reproduces the source material; the manual adds original methodology around it.
The manual is written against the Revised Edition, but is fully compatible with the Original Edition for Stages 1–5 (R&L Ch. 1–14). Stage 6 (R&L Ch. 15–23) is Revised-only. See Approach §3.2 for the enumerated differences.
The LICENCE file contains the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License. It covers only the original content of this repository—the methodology and the working sheets. The source book’s copyright is unaffected.