Imagine this … a drummer, who is also a music student, walks into their lecture and the session starts by discussing pitched notation on a score that presumes knowledge of transposition, ornamentation and specific instrumental performance directions. Unless they are a multi-instrumentalist, this is not a regular part of their music-making world, yet they engage and spend time in learning the theory, practice, culture, social conditions and constraints, performance and compositional elements of pitched instruments. This is quite a common story, but does the reverse happen enough in our experience of music education? For example, does the clarinetist or trumpeter spend time learning the tunings of a drum, the notation symbols of a kit, or the physicality of the limbs as creators of polyphonic lines? This is a generalisation of course, and not the fault of the pitch instrumentalist, but it is a practice which I would suggest many in higher education would recognise. But why should this be so? This companion does not seek to confront these issues as directly as this opening paragraph (perhaps that is because it is a projection of my own performance position as a pianist, guitarist, and drummer, and my academic position as an authentic music theory specialist), but the book does raise such concerns with scholarly activity and with far more subtlety, grace, soul and inclusivity.

Inclusivity flows through the chapters in their discussion of the place, practice and performance of the drum kit through lenses of history, analysis, performance, learning and teaching, and bodies, meaning and identity. The authors weave their narrative to illuminate the complexity of the kit, and as the opening chapter tells us: ‘the drum kit is a living, mutable concept, and to study it properly is not a short exercise’ (Brennan, p. 18). The opening section moves through cultural misunderstandings of the development of the kit when relying upon the early recordings as a primary source (Archibald), understandings of the importance of a backbeat (beats on 2 and 4 in 44TS) that ‘subverts conventional notation concerning “strong” and “weak” beats’ (Baur, p. 36); considerations of the problematic area of ethnography in entextualisation through rhythmic transcription (Acosta and Restrepo), all the way through to Gohn's chapter, which serves as a bridge between the themed sections as it discusses the recognition of ‘phrasing and sonorities that came from diverse [non-Anglophone] palettes of established musical practices’ (p. 67). There is a wonderful quote in the following section where the place of the drum kit in contemporary classical music is considered (and one which maintains the thread of inclusivity) when the author recounts a comment on the drummer Max Roach as ‘someone who brought dignity to an instrument long misunderstood and assaulted by the ignorant’ (Reimer, p. 81). This sense of place continues into a discussion of rhythmic place in complex metres and grooves by Hanenberg and the aesthetic place of the kit in the music of Americana by Stadnicki, while Lashua and Thompson consider how the physical and musical place of the drummer in the studio can often be overlooked in the need to be ‘efficient … then to get out of the way for the rest of the band’ (Lashua and Thompson, p. 127). The physical place moves to the digital place where electronic elements of a drum kit can be overlooked, but as the author notes, ‘educators [are] responsible for training and mentoring the next generation of drummers’ (Stillie, p. 153). This section concludes with an increased awareness of a drummer's palette, that a drummer is more than a time-keeper (Rodriguez and Hernly, p. 162), and that the kit is more than a ‘backline instrument’ (Pignato, p.176). It would be understandable if these authors took an overly defensive position in these discussions, but it is important to note that they do not position their thoughts from a negative space but from a place of positivity, recognition of value, opportunity, and a fulsome contribution to the whole musical performance. As the concluding author of this section writes, ‘identifying, locating, giving, and receiving leadership have become skills to be continually refined as part of the drummer's habitus’ (Bruford, p. 192). The final section of the book considers the liminal space between the drummer and the drum kit: with considerations of the drumming body finding and creating meaning in biological, phenomenological, ecological, social and cultural dimensions (M. J. Smith); the complex embodiment in such an interaction where disability can (but should not) define the drummer more than their drumming (Bell and Hrisca-Munn); the discussion of gendered norms in contemporary drumming culture where there is still a long way to go to unpack preconceptions of the female body around the percussive activity (MacAulay and Andrisani); and the need to focus on drumming and drumming-related experiences ‘until “alternate histories” of drumming no longer need to be written’ (Grant, p.245). The volume concludes with a deeply personal insight into the soul of a drummer. This emically driven chapter celebrates the themes of this book in a way that helps us understand what connects the human with the drum kit, and also rounds the journey of inclusivity to the point that we feel that the act of drumming is more than a means of musical expression, it can bring ‘community, meaning and peace’ (Smith, p. 250).

This Companion, to take the word back to its etymology, is therefore something I would encourage you to spend a lot of time with, and it does complement the reader with the instrument so that a full and enriched understanding of who a drummer is, and what a drum kit can do, is made clear in an inclusive narrative. I ask for forgiveness before this closing thought as it is meant in the spirit of positivity that flows through this Cambridge Companion to the Drum Kit: after reading this volume, if anyone asks how you know if there is a drummer at the door, then the answer would not be the pejorative punchline, but that you would not know until you opened that door, had a deep and enjoyable conversation with them and took a critical interest in their drumscape to ‘understand drums, drummers, drumming, and the meanings and impacts they produce’ (Brennan, p. 15).