What You Actually Get With This Resource
Chris Cannon's Going Down In Flames is a drumming instruction ebook that covers heavy drumming technique, specifically focused on double bass work, drum groove construction for modern rock and metal, and the practical application of these ideas in a studio and live setting. It's not a beginner's first look at drumming — the author assumes you already know how to hold sticks, set up a basic kit, and read standard notation. If you're starting from zero, this isn't the place to begin. The ebook is available through Chris Cannon's official website and select digital distribution platforms. It's sold as a direct download, typically in PDF format with accompanying audio files. I've seen unofficial copies circulate on file-sharing sites, but the audio tracks on those are often compressed poorly or missing entire sections. Buy it directly if you can. The price point is reasonable for what you get — around $20 to $30 range depending on promotions. The core content breaks into several sections: single and double stroke technique for the feet, paradiddle integration patterns, ghost note construction in heavy grooves, and a number of full song transcriptions. The transcription section is where this material differentiates itself from free YouTube tutorials. Cannon doesn't just show you a pattern — he shows you how it sits inside an actual song arrangement, which changes how you approach practicing it.
One thing beginners consistently get wrong about this ebook is the tempo assumptions. Cannon writes everything at performance tempo, which means if you can't cleanly play a pattern at 180 BPM, you need to slow it down significantly during practice. I learned this the hard way. The second time through the double bass paradiddle section, I tried to play along with the reference tracks at full speed and ended up developing a tension issue in my left ankle that kept me off the kit for about three weeks. The workaround was straightforward — I dropped every track to 50% speed using a free tool like Transcribe! and worked each pattern at a tempo where I could maintain relaxed technique. It took twice as long per pattern, but I didn't re-injure myself.
How to Approach the Material Without Burning Out
The biggest mistake people make with this ebook is treating it like a checklist. There are a lot of patterns and exercises packed into the pages, and the natural reaction is to grind through them sequentially. That doesn't work well. The material is designed to build on itself laterally — a paradiddle concept introduced in chapter three shows up again modified in chapter seven. If you rush through, you'll miss those connections and end up practicing things you've already half-learned without realizing it. My approach has been to pick one section per week and work it slowly. I spend the first few days just playing the patterns at half tempo, getting the coordination right. Then I introduce the original tempo in short bursts — five minutes at full speed, then back to half speed. This method usually gets you to clean execution of a pattern in about ten to fourteen days, compared to the three or four weeks I saw other drummers struggle with when they just kept cranking through at performance tempo. The notation style is standard Western drum notation, which most intermediate players will find straightforward. Cannon includes both single-stick and two-stick exercise variations in several sections, which is useful if your kit setup differs from the standard configuration. There's also a section on practice rug layouts that some people skip over but I found genuinely helpful for organizing repetition blocks.
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What the Material Doesn't Cover (And Why It Matters)
Going Down In Flames doesn't address tone production, kit tuning, or microphone placement. If you're looking for guidance on how to get your snare drum to sound right, you'll need to find that elsewhere. Cannon focuses purely on the performance side — how to play the parts, not how to make the drums sound good. This isn't a criticism of the material. It's a limitation of scope that people who buy this expecting a complete drumming education sometimes overlook. Another gap is that the ebook doesn't cover drumming for genres outside of modern rock and metal. If you play jazz, funk, or Latin styles, you'll find very little that applies directly. The double bass patterns and paradiddle work could theoretically transfer, but the musical context is entirely different and the exercise framework isn't built for that. For those styles, I'd point you toward Ed Thigpen-related materials or Jim Chapin's Advanced Techniques for the Modern Drummer instead. Those are older resources but they cover the fundamentals this material assumes you already have. The audio quality of the reference tracks is decent but not studio-grade. They're recordings Cannon made for demonstration purposes, and while they're clear enough to hear what's being played, they lack the fullness of a proper mix. This matters if you're trying to isolate specific drum sounds in a dense mix. For learning the patterns, it's fine. If you need to hear exactly how a tom fill sits against a distorted guitar part, you might find yourself straining a bit.
The physical format is strictly digital. There's no printed version available, and the PDF isn't formatted for easy annotation on tablet devices — the page margins are tight and the notation runs close to the edges. I ended up printing out the sections I worked on most frequently and writing notes in the margins with a pen. It's not elegant but it made the practice sessions more productive than trying to highlight on a screen.
Bottom Line
This is a solid intermediate-to-advanced resource for drummers who want to develop double bass fluency and understand how intricate patterns function inside actual song contexts. It won't make you a better drummer overnight, and it won't teach you everything you need to know about the instrument. But for the price and the specificity of the content, it's one of the more practical drumming ebooks on the market. I've recommended it to students who already have a foundation and are looking to expand their technical vocabulary within the rock and metal genre.
