So that's the standard for being a great drummer? Ringo is in there so he must be better than 99% of all other drummers. 

Try again.

Exactly.

No. 

 

Anyone who doubts the drumming ability of Mr Starr should try playing "Ticket to Ride".

 

Actually, I think Ringo's the most overrated drummer of all time. Since he's a Beatle, nobody seems to do anything save put him on a pedestal, and I've seen him rated above every other drummer out there, from Bruford to Zonder! For my money, Keith Moon and Ginger Baker influenced young aspiring prog/rock drummers far and away more than Ringo.

 

However...I agree with you. Neil's appearance on Letterman was dreadful. It was a truncated performance of his in-concert drum solo. He didn't try to wing any part of it. He could have wailed and bashed and it would've been better. Neil is a superb rock drummer, but yeah, he's not much of an improviser. He's a "composer" to a tee.

 

Sheila E.was great. She has groove to spare. She has her background (and her dad, Pete) to thank for that. She can play in various styles. Dennis Chambers is one of the best drummers out there but he held himself back.

 

Not bad, but not good as Neil Peart, Phil Collin, Palmer,Bruford etc

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Ha! Yes I agree!

 

Irony is that she currently plays in a metal band performing covers of bands like Metallica and Kiss that were originally made 10 or 20 years before she was born.

 

I did manage to get her to listen to some Zep once, but only because she was stuck in a car with me and couldn't go anywhere.

 

 

Make sure you tell her, that if she thinks it's old music and she can't learn from it, that she will never be good enough to get anywhere with any band!

 

There is no such thing as "old music" ... there is only people that do not know there is music, that's all!

Kate Bush has quite a few fans around here 

 

Just found another one ... and a much better example ... review upcoming soon.

 

Go listen to Steve Gadd in Kate Bush's "50 Words for Snow" ... and I specially love the fact that there is no "format" for her and the music ... and she just keeps going, and I don't see, for even one second, where Steve Gadd is lacking a touch or feel ... that makes her work come off even better and so well defined.

 

It is, by VERY VERY FAR, the most progressive drumming that I have heard since Pierre Moerlin ... that simple ... and case closed! But I seriously doubt that the majority of folks here can sit through her work, as it is so far and away more progressive in the pure sense of the word, that most of us can not even fathom it, or consider it!

their current drummer is better suited to their music imo. Zoltan is very talented but stays too much on the jazzy side for my taste.

Nick Mason has admitted that he didn't try that hard after Dark Side Of The Moon so that has left him open to criticism. I have to say I'm more with you on this. Mason's drumming is absolutely fine for the band he was in and more so I think there is more going on than people will credit him for. The drumming on Shine On You Crazy Diamond may sound simple but the feel is totally unique and I would like to see anyone else try and recreate that.

The first time I sat up and took real interest in drumming was probably Seven Seas Of Rye. Roger Taylor is perhaps another maligned drummer but I still love what he does there.

Apart from this not meeting the topic requirement, I agree.  

As a keyboard player, I never really listened much to the drums - my heroes were Tony Banks, Jon Lord and Rick Wakeman.But the drumming on "Dark Side" was something that made me sit up and listen. I'd never heard drums played like he does on the early part of "Time" before, as a lead instrument rather than simply accompaniment. 

 

My daughter is a drummer now, and I've tried to get her to listen to it, but she just shakes her head and says "that's old music Dad".

 

 

 

I was actually thinking that ITCOTKC is a great example. For my ears, so is Ringo in Abbey Road for the most part (minus one song or so).

 

BTW, thx so much for using the term "melody" in this discussion, because to me it is just another instrument ... playing another melody to create a whole ... and for my ears that IS what music is about ... when you look at a score with 35 or more lines of music for different instruments ... and then you see rock music ... and 3 of the instruments are doing the same thing ... except the guitarist in the ozone ... it takes a lot of the beauty in the music for me ... the "expression", and this is the reason why AD2 is so important for me in the early days ...

 

The term, is sort of ... "slang" ... as a way to say ... it's just fun drumming ... just like a drum circle when you went to get stoned (Snow Dog never did that!) with the Grateful Dead folks ... it was NOT designed to be music ... it was designed to be fun and such.

 

For me, I took the liberty of spreading that a bit more ... into the rock music area, specially the "pop music" side of things, where it is always the same and the talent is defined in who can break the 759th beat by skipping it ... and nothing else but some mechanical something or other ... that is NOT what all music is about. In fact ... try checking out the mechanical side of Stravinsky ... or Beethoven ... and you will have  a hard time. It might have been "mechanical" in the Bach era, but I honestly believe that is more a historical mis-conception than a reality ... so you gonna suggest that no one in history ever sang or played not only out of tune, but created something that was odd and sounded even stranger? ... see my point? ... all of a sudden the "mechanics" is what you give KIDS to learn music ... musicianship, is way beyond the mere, and simple mechanics, and too many folks are taking advantage of the process and think themselves better musicians simply because it sold 10 more pieces than you or I! Or 10 people said something about it in PA, instead of just Mosh, or no one else! See the problem all of a sudden? ... your music definition just became ... "might makes right".

 

I have never heard batucada but great tabla players can also create a sense of melody on their instrument and that is how I related to it when I heard Mason do the same.  

Utter  bollocks!

 

Thx ... I just want to point out ... the term that is used in Brazil for the street drummers, and the drunk, and fun folks, during Carnaval, for example. How rock'n'roll that really is, don't you think?

 

That is known as "batucada" and is not considered drumming, or have any attempt whatsoever, to even be considered music. But it can, and follows a beat and has a certain amount of time and place for certain things to happen withit.

 

A lot of rock drumming, for me, is like that. I do not see Mike P as good a "musician" as Pierre Moerlin, for example, who was a well known and educated percussionist, before he was a "drummer" ... and you can see the difference in the "Exposed" DVD ... Mike is nowhere near that capable, even if Tubular Bells is rather mechanical and probably easier for most drummers!

 

Mason wouldn't do Erotomania ... he's more jazz minded than that.

 

Should read his own book out ... he doesn't think he's a good drummer and too often he was so far out of it, that he didn't know the difference, but he's not bad ... he's fun to watch, and he is clean ... very clean when they do their own material!