If like me you weren’t familiar with the name William Granville Taylor, you can easily find footage of him demonstrate some solid hand technique and advanced rudimental knowledge. He’s developed this over years of playing marching snare drum, as well as kit. And, with years of teaching under his belt, we would naturally expect an insightful book for his second release.

“Modern Hands Vol. 2” is a book dedicated to rudimental work, featuring marching snare drum exercises and studies available to all levels and aimed at improving your hand technique and general knowledge of marching snare drum rudiments.

My first impression of this book was probably not very fair since I was mostly focused on the form. Indeed, featuring a very basic layout with an unconventional publishing style, this book might not excite the readers at first sight. I probably would expect a more original and polished style overall, especially as its a second release from this author. The structure of the exercises in the book is also lacking. I am one of those readers who need chapters and themes in such a technical book. So it has been tricky for me to go through this collection of exercises without any real structure.

However, after reading through, it is easy to see that the emphasis of the book has been put on the content rather than the form. Every exercise is both original and relevant making this book’s content quite unique. It features some more obscure marching rudiments I have personally never seen in any other book. I also particularly like the author’s choice to comment on each exercise to help the reader focus on the right things and give some tips to help make practice more efficient.

Despite the lack of structure and basic design of this book, I would still definitely advise it to any player willing to up their marching snare drum game and expand their rudimental vocabulary and knowledge.

Anna Mylee

February 2021