Level Up!

Chelsea Tinsler Jones

General Info

Year of Published: 2021
Publisher: Tapspace Publications
Difficulty: Elementary to Intermediate
Duration: 00:18:00 (Total)
Cost: $22.00

Instrumentation

Player 1: Snare Drum
Player 2: Snare Drum

Content

Early Elementary

1: Zombie Apocalypse Theory
2: Drums for the Sake of Drums
3: Pizza Planet
4: Bounce House

Late Elementary

5: Percussionist Gymnastics
6: Flam Sandwich
7: The Pokémon Shuffle
8: Roll Basis for Your Consideration
9: Quaran-tune
10: Syncopated Situation
11: Dinner Rolls

Intermediate

12: That’s Rough
13: Triple Lutz
14: Clave Cruise Control
15: Whole Nine Yards

Description

Chelsea Tinsler Jones’ book Level Up! is a collection of 15 snare drum pieces that provide fun and engaging musical experiences which reinforce specific snare drumming skills in beginning and intermediate players. The pieces in this collection progressively graduate or “level up” to encourage students to strive for new plateaus. Players can perform these pieces as solos (with audio accompaniment), with a friend, or with their teacher to encourage the ensemble listening skills required in chamber music settings.

Review

It’s obvious that a lot of time, thought, and love went into this project. This collection of 15 snare drum duets goes from a simple grade one with quarter and eighth notes to around a grade three that contains multiple meters and basic rudiments.

Rather than add another generic etude book to the mix, the composer uses her teaching experience to create something appealing and a little different than the norm. This is evident from simply looking at the table of contents. The first thing that pops out are the titles of the individual pieces (such as “Pizza Planet” and “Zombie Apocalypse Theory”), which, according to the composer, were inspired by former students. What I noticed next is my favorite part of the book: under the titles are listed the individual concepts that each solo addresses. Not all of these are technique or rudiment related; some have to do with logistics, such as turning the snares on and off or working on a proper playing position. Again, it seems the composer has a lot of experience teaching at this level.

The book comes with audio recordings that students can listen to and play along with. This can especially be effective in situations where many of us have to rely on teaching online. These tracks can potentially give students a “partner” to play with to keep them on track and working towards a goal.

If I were to use this text as an educator, I would consider using very different drums (a five-inch concert snare and a concert field drum, for example) to discuss the differences in sound between different drums. With the material covered, creative names, and audio supplement, this book has a ton of potential to be a great addition for band directors, percussion specialists, and/or private lesson teachers who have students in middle and high school.