Best Drummer?

[gnatty8]

Originally Posted by しょっぴんっ

Why do youngsters insist on making lists of the best, the worst etc?
This tendency, it depresses one.

There are a number of reasons why, really. In fact, there are so many reasons, one would really need to list them.

 

[rdawson808]

Originally Posted by unpainted huffheinz

Roland TR-808

which brings us to 808state, which is/who are appropriatly named.

and I'll add

Stephen Morris of New Order, who always wished he could be a drum machine.

 

[Steve B.]

Carl Palmer.

And that 16 yr old dude from In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

 

[pstoller]

Originally Posted by sonlegoman

I'm watching a lot of these drum solos and a lot of them seem really boring.

My piano teacher always told me: "any idiot can play fast. But skilled musicians are the ones who can play slow."

I think Carter Beauford is one of the few drummers who plays well even when he isn't playing a drum solo...

Most drummers play better when not soloing. Good drum solos"”meaning creative, interesting, and musical, rather than merely technically proficient"”are very hard to do play, especially when the goal is to dazzle a concert audience. Great drumming is about interacting, not going it alone. (I suppose this is true of most instruments, but I think particularly so of drums and bass.) Certainly everyone I've mentioned, I picked on the basis of ensemble playing, not solos.

It's not really true that any idiot can play fast, and definitely not true that any idiot can play well fast. What's true is that speed is just one facet of technique, on which too many musicians rely too heavily. The only good thing about playing tedious music really fast is that it's over sooner.

 

[trogdor]

Human: Chris Pennie (formerly of Dillinger Escape Plan):

(Check out how tight this fits with the guitar at about 1:05) I saw DEP live, and how on earth any of them remember their own songs is beyond me; it's all in odd-tempos, like 7:4 and 5:8, and there's almost no repetetive structure. Math metal at its finest.


Machine/Program: Aaron Funk (AKA Venetian Snares):

(Apologies to anyone from Winnipeg!)