The drum solo is an event that a lot of concert goers dread. After all, how hard is it to bang some drums real fast while trying to look cool? In your standard rock group, the drummer is often considered to be less of a "musician" than his or her counterparts.
As a percussionist myself, these misunderstandings are quite upsetting. The drum solo is a work of art and in many cases is a melodic and highly musical event. There are many types of drum solos and I'd like to talk about some different ones in this blog.
The Melodic Drum Solo
The melodic drum solo makes use of a wide variety of percussion instruments to make a dynamic and musical soundscape. While, being percussion, rhythm is front and center in the piece: melody becomes an important part of the work as a whole.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF-k4wg70rg
Neil Peart of Rush has been a master of the drum solo since he joined the band in the early 70's. This drum solo, although I would have preferred to use the solo from the Snakes and Arrows tour, makes wide use of electronic drums to create melodies on top of the complex syncopated rhythms.
Neil Peart's technical flair is found in his syncopation. Syncopation is playing rhythms in different time signatures simultaneously, as he does quite often. A common example would be playing a 4/4 rhythm on the bass drum, but a 6/4 rhythm with the hands.
The Speed Solo
The Speed Solo makes use of incredibly fast and precise playing to impress the audience. Rather than attempting to create a melody or a groovy beat, the speed soloist plays as raw and as brutally as possible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8AzjOfwk4s
For any drummer, Zach Hill from Hella is a joy to watch. His signature is his incredible work with a single bass pedal. His amazing foot speed and technique allows him to play quadruplets that would normally be played with 2 feet on 2 different bass drums, with 1 foot on 1 bass drum.
These solos require a lot of stamina and focus. Without a great deal of technical precision, a solo of this style will just sound sloppy and messy. However, Zach Hill manages to make every hit punch through in perfect timing, very impressive.
The Groove Solo
The groove solo makes use of grooves and beats to impress and entertain the audience. Focus is often on creating a constant and technically complex beat that is interspersed with extremely technical fills.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOWpZ0sKwo8
Thomas Pridgen, of former Mars Volta fame, is one of the grooviest players around. His loose and energetic playing style is always on the edge of the pocket, but is undeniably impressive.
Some of my favorite drum solos:
Moby Dick by Led Zeppelin. This is one of the most famous drum solos of all time and although I find it far less interesting than I used to, it is a good entry way into the drum solo. John Bonham is one of the most important and influential rock drummers in history.
Buddy Rich. Wow.
Drum Shed (something like a drum duel/jam mixture) between Thomas Pridgen and Tony Royster. Absolutely incredibly grooving and chops from both players, a real treat for any drummer to witness.
I hope this blog helps in the appreciation of drum solos by non-drummers and that it also is a good resource of entertaining watcher for any drummers on TL! Happy watching!
Oh god. How long have you been playing drums? Thomas Pridgen, groove? Ouch! I mean, yeah, he's a beast and he's got groove but...ouch! You decide to list him as an archetype over Gadd, Jordan, Chambers or Carlock? Ouch! My drum sense is stinging.
On February 09 2010 09:16 DoctorHelvetica wrote: Syncopation is playing rhythms in different time signatures simultaneously, as he does quite often. A common example would be playing a 4/4 rhythm on the bass drum, but a 6/4 rhythm with the hands.
Small point, but you seem to be talking about polyrhythms, rather than syncopation.
On February 09 2010 09:16 DoctorHelvetica wrote: For any drummer, Zach Hill from Hella is a joy to watch.
No, really no. Really, really no. If I take this around my music college, the amount of drummers who list their reaction to this as 'joy' will be in the low 0's.
On February 09 2010 09:16 DoctorHelvetica wrote: These solos require a lot of stamina and focus. Without a great deal of technical precision, a solo of this style will just sound sloppy and messy. However, Zach Hill manages to make every hit punch through in perfect timing, very impressive.
No, this guy's sloppy as fuck. He has sick ass chops but he also has a major case of the slops.
On February 09 2010 09:16 DoctorHelvetica wrote: The groove solo makes use of grooves and beats to impress and entertain the audience. Focus is often on creating a constant and technically complex beat that is interspersed with extremely technical fills.
No, that's a technical solo if anything. Groove soloing is almost the antithesis of extremely technical fills, impressing the audience and the words 'technically complex'.
On February 09 2010 09:16 DoctorHelvetica wrote: Thomas Pridgen, of former Mars Volta fame, is one of the grooviest players around.
No, he really isn't. And I'm not even talking from the viewpoint of the list of drummers including David Garibaldi, Rick Marotta, James Gadson, Clyde Stubblefield, John Starks, JR Robinson, Steve Gadd, Bernard Purdie; who are widely considered as 'the grooviest players around'; Thomas Pridgen isn't even particular groove-oriented when compared to other gospel/ shed players like Teddy Campbell or Aaron Spears.
On February 09 2010 09:16 DoctorHelvetica wrote: His loose and energetic playing style is always on the edge of the pocket, but is undeniably impressive.
I just want to add in here that I can't believe you didn't put Vinnie Colaiuta at this point. Not only is he my favourite drummer, he's also one of Thomas', and almost every drummer with even a modicum of knowledge would respond with the word Vinnie if you said 'name a drummer who plays on the edge of the pocket and is undeniably impressive'. I mean, christ. Thomas Pridgen is good yeah for sure but how can you put him as an example of groove, above ALL the other drummers out there!
On February 09 2010 09:16 DoctorHelvetica wrote: Moby Dick by Led Zeppelin. This is one of the most famous drum solos of all time and although I find it far less interesting than I used to, it is a good entry way into the drum solo. John Bonham is one of the most important and influential rock drummers in history.
No arguments here
On February 09 2010 09:16 DoctorHelvetica wrote: Buddy Rich. Wow.
No arguments again
On February 09 2010 09:16 DoctorHelvetica wrote: a real treat for any drummer to witness.
Ugh.
I hope other people don't go too hard on me for giving you a going over here. I'll provide you with some proper material for this blog later. For what it's worth, at least you didn't just go 'OMG TEH TRAVIS BARKAR AR TEH BEST EVAR' and show 9 Blink 182 videos.
By the way, no idea why the OP didn't include this, but if anyone is interested in looking around for some great drumming and exploring the greatest players, go to:
This is one of my favorite drum videos. You make good points and I admit I'm not a big authority on drumming or anything so I actually appreciate the criticism.
Drum solos in general are crap, almost as bad as bass solos. There's really only one good solo that I can think of, and that is Ringo's solo in The End.
On February 09 2010 10:01 Holgerius wrote: Drum solos in general are crap, almost as bad as bass solos. There's really only one good solo that I can think of, and that is Ringo's solo in The End.
Ringo's solo in The End is about as boring as I can imagine, but it's short and works in the context of the song.
But you should put the drummerworld link up top, in your op for people to have a mess around with. It's got bags of stuff, and YT is just comically lacking.
as a guitarist and a sax player i find that the drums are impossible to play for me partially because of the necessity to be precise and the fact that it does take a lot of skill to play (though it SEEMS easier and less melodic its not) i have tried to learn how to play the drums on multiple occasions and failed due to the preciseness that is needed to play them right...i find that it is a melodic instrument and takes a lot of skill to play i have a lot of respect for drummers (though because of my own failures ^_^) drum solo's though seem out of place because the audience usually doesn't notice the effect of the drum solo (damn them to hell) they are truly a work of art and take a LOT of skill to pull off right
On February 09 2010 11:29 sassy wrote: i dunno, are these any good in your opinion? what would an actual drummer say about them?
No they are garbage. I, being an actual drummer, would say that there are some metal drummers worth paying attention to, who do have some scary technique; but these aren't them. Notable guys include George Kollias, Derek Roddy, Flo Mournier, Marco Minneman and Mike Mangini. Marco and Mike aren't straight ahead metal drummers but they are both outrageous in the technical skill department.
For some further analysis, the first video is painful to watch because the guy is struggling with a very forced technique. These sorts of people have probably had very few lessons and have thought very little about the physics of playing. For black metal playing, you just play incredibly simple patterns very fast. This guy isn't particularly fast and he's really struggling. You watch a guy like Tony Williams or Alan Dawson, who were playing much faster, much longer and with 10 times more skill back in the 50's.
The second video is just a mishy mashy collection of sloppy, crappy playing. The second half is truly hideous. You could find literally a million drummers in the world who could do that, and probably a million who would do it far better.
If you want some scary metal chops, this would register fairly high on the 'oh for fuck's sake' scale:
(about 1 min in I guess)
Still, as a drummer, stuff like this leaves you completely cold. There's literally 0/10 musical creativity or expression.
hi sc4k, what do you think about Chris Adler from lamb of god? :D i'm mostly a metal head although i do like listenin to chic corea and those kind of things sometimes. just interested to hear from a super drum fan like you
Chris Adler is a bassist turned drummer when his band had two bassists. He plays like it. That's not a bad thing, by the way. He's got some great parts, and he has this unique sound that musicians get when they 'convert' to drums. What's best about his drumming is that he approaches it from a musician's perspective rather than a drummer's. He is not a technical demon, but as far as I'm concerned, the only thing that ever matters in music is if you play the right parts for the song; and he hits the nail on the head in that band.
By the way I'll just add that my favourite metal drummer is Nick Barker, formerly of Dimmu Borgir and I think still in Old Man's Child.
(2:16 onwards- the overwhelming power of the drumming in this section really contributes to the dramatic, theatrical atmosphere. The reason a section like this is so impressive is that barely any drummers would think to play in such a way)
He has a great idea of how to make a track better with his playing. He isn't scarily fast but he is a great player. Same goes for Neil Peart actually, he is not a technical beast, by any stretch of the imagination; but he has come up with some of the best parts and especially drum fills in his songs ever, and he's in my top 5 drummers for that reason, because he's such a creative person (he also writes all the Rush lyrics).
For sheer drumming delight, I always like to check out Rush's Fly by Night:
Nothing here is hard, in fact I'm putting up a video of me playing it in a few weeks' time, but so much of the work on the track is just great and inspiring as a drummer:
And in case anyone hasn't seen. This cat, Aaron Spears, has been tearing up the scene after breaking out of the gospel circuit because of playing with Usher. But his playing in his gospel band The Gideon Band is so fucking ridiculously good. He is so talented it's unholy. Not only does he make my jaw drop he is very inspiring and has an extremely solid groove. This is a classic performance from 2005 modern drummer DVD:
Matched is easier to play loud, easier to pick up techniques (because both hands are learning the same technique) and slightly easier to play fast. I have to add that I'm putting the word easier- because there's barely any difference between the technical facility offered by both methods in the long run- it's just simpler to use matched.
Traditional is however steeped in the mystique of older, great players. For that reason, it's enjoyable to play. It makes you feel like your idols. And it also feels like you are cradling the drum. Weird, I know, but it feels like an intimate connection with your snare. Like you can whisper ideas into its ear and have little private conversations. That's why it's so prevalent in jazz- because comping in jazz (where the snare and bass play 'compositions' whilst the ride and hi hat keep time) is a very expressive and personal exercise, and trad feels comforting and personal to me . John Coltrane's drummer for 6 years, Elvin Jones, who played on A Love Supreme, is a classic example of the personal exploration in jazz drumming. Just wouldn't feel right to me if he played trad! By the way he also comped with the left foot on hi hat, a little trademark of his. So he was comping with three voices and keeping time with one. He also kept time differently to everyone else but that's another story. Could go on for hours about Elvin.
I personally switch it up depending on the style I am playing. Jazz, latin, funk = trad...rock, metal, gospel = matched. I also switch between the two when playing solos. I find that trad is harder to get big power- but then again Stewart Copeland (of Police fame) doesn't. But then again he doesn't use an orthodox technique .
When it comes down to great players right now, there are far more on the side of traditional grip, but most of the new breed of great players play in matched. (But I'll add that almost every one of them can play traditional).
And here's a bonus video which shows Tony Williams destroying the stability of the universe and his ride cymbal with unfathomable speed and musicality at the age of 17 (about halfway through). This shit is not easy:
On February 09 2010 11:29 sassy wrote: i dunno, are these any good in your opinion? what would an actual drummer say about them?
No they are garbage. I, being an actual drummer, would say that there are some metal drummers worth paying attention to, who do have some scary technique; but these aren't them. Notable guys include George Kollias, Derek Roddy, Flo Mournier, Marco Minneman and Mike Mangini. Marco and Mike aren't straight ahead metal drummers but they are both outrageous in the technical skill department.
For some further analysis, the first video is painful to watch because the guy is struggling with a very forced technique. These sorts of people have probably had very few lessons and have thought very little about the physics of playing. For black metal playing, you just play incredibly simple patterns very fast. This guy isn't particularly fast and he's really struggling.
thanks for indepth analysis. Im a little surprised, frost is the fastest drummer in black metal. I was always impressed with the speed he plays at! And he is fairly creative as far as black goes in my eyes. Maybe it was a bad video to base opinions on?
i cant believe you find him worse than dimmu borgir drummer damn
but its really cool that youre sharing with us, post your videos too
I haven't heard 1349 much before...never paid much attention to any other black metal than Immortal lol. The drumming on those tracks is definitely more impressive than the video. It's the sort of playing where you would have to devote a large chunk of daily practice to endurance and speak. And about your claim that Frost is the fastest drummer in black metal, he could be but I've heard some music with Hellhammer playing and it was quite outrageously fast. For raw speed, let me tell you that it's no mean feat playing the double bass 290 section in chosen legacy. Also, seriously for raw metal speed a drummer like George Kollias from Nile would really play this guy under the table. He's just getting faster and faster too.
About what you say about me rating Nick Barker more than Frost, it's just my opinion, but it's because he plays in a style of music which doesn't stretch one's creativity; and yet manages to play some very interesting and creative drum parts. This guy from Frost is nothing bad, he's not garbage but he's definitely not at the 'pinnacle' of metal drumming. And if he does play that tense as in the first video even now, he's probably having to use a lot of massages and tiger balm to avoid crippling sciatica or tendonitis lol. It's like golf- you can have unorthodox technique, but very often it catches up with you and gives you injuries.
And anyway some of the best metal drumming isn't very fast. Death's Flesh and the Power it Holds has some of the sickest death metal drumming:
I was gona. But then again there are literally hundreds of videos I could put up of amazing drummers so I just thought Ill reply to anyone in particular. Gavin is another drummer who probably never (I think) plays solos. Like me he sees the drums as a band instrument. Sick player though. My guitarist always asks me to play parts from PT songs. I'm just stalking, waiting for someone to say something about Chad Smith or Travis Barker.
i really like this thread with all this musical comparison and content analysis!
on that note though, i do have a sort of out of place question
ive played piano for 10 years, sort of absent mindedly, and i have no rhythmical sense AT all. i can count 1 2 3 4 or 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and or 1 e and a 2 e and a 3 e and a 4 e and a in 4 4 or other simple duple meters as well as 3 4, 6 8, but if theres rests and dotted rhythms (especially when rests come on a beat) it confuses me so much.
and also, i have no idea how to count/listen for more unorthodox signatures like 5 4 or 7 4 (and beyond that).
what do you guys recommend i do to improve my rhythmic sense? i feel like working on my own is so slow because i dont even know if i am counting right.
This is Vinnie being unfair. No one else on the planet could play this song so tight with so much outrageous flair. It might not be as impressive as other stuff here, but let me tell you it's just completely ridiculous if you actually learned what he's doing the stuff he does at the end is insane. Try to count the song too, it's in 5/4, but listen to how natural it sounds with the Vinnie/Sting hookup.
LOL omin I meant that post to reply to the other guy but hah it's strangely relevant to your question!
The best way to break into unorthodox time sigs is to find a melody and sing it. That's because folk music has been using odd time signatures since time immemorial. The bulgars thought nothing of a tune in 13/8 because they sing passages that, because of the words and scansion, force the song into an odd time signature which is normal because they are concentrating on the vocals.
The easiest way to count any odd time signature is the good old mission impossible theme.
1 2 3 4 5 DUH DUH DUH DUH
so when im playing in 5 I might be thinking those beats. Duh....duh...duh duh Duh...duh...duh duh.
It's well easy to start playing around with it then. Duh, boo duh blap duh duhDuh blapblap Duh dooguhblap Duh dooguh duh dooguh
So yeah, find a tune with some odd time signatures and sing the phrase in your head whilst playing. You have to do it for awhile, try and solo over it. After quite awhile you will start to feel the pulse naturally and enjoy it. Honestly, some people can play 7/8 as if it were 4/4, Vinnie being one of them. He once OPEN SOLO'd in 13/8 and a guy in the audience counted it (he was a famous drum teacher) and still couldn't find one mistake.
The cubans and brazilians can feel claves the same way we can feel 4/4, but look it's because they hear it more than 4/4. (And yes I know the basic clave patterns, son and rumba are in 4/4 but the point is they don't hear the four on the floor duh duh duh duh they hear ....bap bap.....bap...bap...bap. And they play it totally naturally.
For higher time sigs like 9/8 or 11/8, I usually just count 4 then a little extra.
1 2 3 4 uh 1 2 3 4 uh 1 2 3 4 uh 1 2 3 4 uh. With uh being an 8th note.
13/8 is 1 2 3 4 5 6 uh 1 2 3 4 5 6 uh etc.
33/16 is easy too.... 1 2 3 4a 1 2 3 4a 1 2 3 4a
Ok and on top of that, if you can make any music you can make yourself a bassline in 5/8 or 7/8, and then jam over it, practice again and again with metronome, then I promise you will get better. If you can't make any tracks then I could make a couple for you with just basslines for u to play around with- pm me if necessary.
Also, check this song out, maybe you could play the piano. It has 5 and 7 in it as well as a SICK keyboard solo quite late in the piece which is in 5/8 but feels like 10/4 because the drums are being awesome:
Ok apparently the layout of the messages on this site prevent that 5/4 explanation from being particularly helpful, but you get the idea.
It's short and to the point. It's not fast or dense, but a drummer possessing merely average technique would be hard pressed to play it with practice, let alone on the fly. The best thing about this solo is that it's tasteful: the sounds are carefully picked for efficiency and effect.
I don't know any greater drummer than Tony Williams.
Oh by the way Dr Helvetica or anyone interested, here are a couple of guys who, as an experienced drummer, I can say are completely 10/10 in the face-melting technique department:
Chris Coleman, guy on the left, he is scary- so much power. Dennis Chambers 2.0
EPT
![[image loading]](http://www.pa-legion.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/thank-you.jpg)
There's really only one good solo that I can think of, and that is Ringo's solo in The End. 
. John Coltrane's drummer for 6 years, Elvin Jones, who played on A Love Supreme, is a classic example of the personal exploration in jazz drumming. Just wouldn't feel right to me if he played trad! By the way he also comped with the left foot on hi hat, a little trademark of his. So he was comping with three voices and keeping time with one. He also kept time differently to everyone else but that's another story. Could go on for hours about Elvin.
