The Complete Handbook of Musical Blocks

Finally, a book that treats musical blocks as actual instruments instead of toys. The mounting section alone is worth the price—I've fought with cheap L-rod brackets for years and the chapter on the three mounting standards saved me a full afternoon of trial and error. The comparison of rosewood versus padauk versus plastic was also spot on with what I hear on stage. My only complaint is that the book made me realize my main set of blocks has needed new inserts for longer than I want to admit.

Solid reference overall. The spec tables in chapter two are genuinely useful if you're comparing specific brands side by side, which is something I haven't found anywhere else. I do wish the troubleshooting section had more coverage of what happens when a block delaminates after years of heavy use—it covers the basics but feels a little brief for someone who plays five nights a week. Still, recommended for any drummer or percussionist who's tired of guessing at what to buy.

Good information in here, but it skews heavily toward professional and touring contexts. I'm a high school band teacher, and the book assumes you have easy access to hardware like multi-clamps and concert bass drum mounts, which isn't always the case on a school budget. The material on getting a decent sound from budget plastic blocks is very helpful, but I would have liked more detail on the durability of cheaper models over years of student use. The business opportunities chapter was not useful to me at all.

The chapter on materials and acoustics was exactly what I was looking for. I've been buying temple blocks for my percussion ensemble for years based on whatever the catalog said, and now I understand why the rosewood set sounds so much better than the cheaper wood alternative. Ash and I listened to the pitch range comparison examples for nearly an hour and found it very accurate. It lost one star for describing the 'perfect' mounting setup on a drum kit without showing any practical photos or diagrams—the text descriptions worked but took some effort to visualize.

As someone who repairs and resells percussion equipment part-time, this is a handbook I wish existed two years ago. The maintenance chapter walks you through exactly what to check on used wooden blocks before you buy them, which has already saved me from one purchase that had a cracked corner I wouldn't have caught. The diagnostic flowchart for dead-sounding blocks is really practical. The business sections are honest about margins and realistic about what rental demand looks like. This is staying on my workbench, not on my shelf.

Good comprehensive coverage of something that's usually reduced to a single paragraph in drum books. The information on mounting hardware compatibility is worth a lot—I've bought blocks that didn't fit my band's existing stands, and this book would have prevented that mistake. The writing can be a bit dry in places, especially the early acoustic theory sections, but it's not filler. It could use more detailed photos of the mounting systems, and a quick-reference guide at the back for model numbers would be helpful.