"We’ve all been there haven’t we? We’ve had our big moment to shine at a gig or session and we can’t wait to get to the part where the band drops out and we can hit as many drums as possible in a short period of time! The moment arrives and we sound like we are falling down the stairs with our kit on our back! We come in too early or too late and the entire band glares at you like they want to kill you. The moment has gone, the rest of your gig is in ruins and it’s never really spoken about again, until the next gig where the band almost know it’s going happen again so they turn around and stare at you before you play it. Your confidence is in ruins and you find it hard to play the simplest of fills."

The truth is, it will never get better because we never practice "the drummers break" in rehearsal, we’re just expected to nail it every time. That's why you need to work on your phrasing, sense of timing and, of course, the choice of notes you play. Craig states:

"As some of you may or may now I’ve been working on some play along tracks for Roland Japan over the last few months which I’ve really enjoyed doing. I’ve spoke to loads of drummers on my travels and the chats always come around to good play along material and where to find it. The emphasis is always on rrrrrrrock covers and not current, dance/jungle/electro funk basically all things electronica etc, so I thought I’d write a few."

Craig Blundell's 'The Electronica Groove Challenge' is a cd that will help you work on all of these and give you the opportunity to nail those fills and grooves that you never get time to rehearse. It will allow you to work out new ideas and build your confidence to be able to put them into your repertoire.

As you progress on the 12 tracks of Craig's album, the tempos will increase and in turn, the "stops" in the music will become longer. See it as a challenge not to move on until you’re really on top of all the starts, stops and all the changes. When you feel you are, go back and make the breaks more difficult, building your confidence, ability to count and of course your inner clock. Explains Craig Blundell:

"We all have an inner clock for pretty much everything we do, from getting up in the morning to shutting down at night and from counting to a clock ticking to our own perception of time. Everything has a time span and as humans our judgment of "time" always seems quicker than it actually is. The more we work on this the better our perception of time will be. On each track, there are notes to help you and to give you ideas for each song."

The "How To" guide of putting all your parts together and mapping out the song is in the inlay booklet and it will help you. So make sure you read the whole thing before attempting the challenges. Before the ‘drumless’ tracks on the cd there is a brief preview of the track with Craig’s drum parts, so you can get a feel for each track, but its only brief. He’ll help you with the first structure then after that it’s down to you.

The 'Electronica Groove Challenge' is an absolute must for teachers, students and players of all levels and abilities. Craig Blundell has set up a Facebook page where you can share your own thoughts and post videos of yourself playing along to the material. The idea being that a 12 year olds perception of a track is very different to a 40 year olds perception of the same track, and they can all inspire each other.

In related news: after eight years Craig recently parted ways with Mapex Drums. Comments the drummer :

"It was a decision completely made by myself and bears no reflection on the support I’ve received in my time with them. In my time there I’d like to think I helped raise the profile of the brand in the UK considerably and brought quite a few drummers on board. There is no need to name names but the back up staff at Korg flying the Mapex flag continue to do a great job and I will never say anything derogatory about my time with them and obviously aside from a working relationship, these guys are my friends."