WFD - WORLD'S FASTEST DRUMMER

[Elvin4ever]

Matt is definately one of the kids everyone is looking at this year, but the 'GodFather' is in a class of his own. No comparison I wouldn't think. If you have seen Art's videos he has underwear laid around the room older than this kid.

It will be great to see what Matt does though, reported to run well over 1000 at 16. Art, I think everybody knows what he'll do. Mangini and many others play traditional grip also. The kid is gonna be one every one will be checking out. No Doubt!

TD

Matt Smith, who turned 16 last week, is certainly not in the same league with Art Verdi, nor is he supposed to be. However, when he is Art's age that may well be a different story. Smith's hand speed is more in league with current world champion Randy Briggs. His highest official time was 1028 at the Michigan WFD Championship. That's an official score recognized by everybody. He has also scored over 1050 several times in well attended preliminaries. But none of this is close to Verdi's low 1100s. Scores of that caliber make Verdi among a small handful of the fastest drummers on the planet, and should be recognized as such. Moreover, Verdi can lay it in the pocket as well as anyone.

However, guys like Verdi, Mangini, Rabb, Briggs etc cannot compete for world championships after they win. This evens the playing field so lesser guys can step up. Of this second tier, I believe Matt is probably the best of the lot and will most likely win under ideal circumstances, if he attends. Still as WFD people know, people come out from under the woodwork all the time and take these things. For all we know, there is some unknown guy knocking out 1100s in his garage.

There is also talk of UK guys showing up with Thomas Lang. The UK guys are all capable of mid 900s, which is great, and would have won Anaheim last year. But I believe that it will take more to win this year. But, these UK guys have very fast feet, so who knows what they will do on that end. IMO Lang, Travis Barker etc will probably show up but will not compete, and if Lang does compete he will do it with feet. Again, only my opinion, Barker would not be a factor anyway, and neither guy has a thing to gain from competing, while the fluke screwup would do much damage to their reps.

There is another UK guy named Khachturian, who is kind of a rogue element who claims nonexistent European records with a non copyrighted device that strongly resembles a Drumometer. He says on the Internet that he will be in Anaheim, but I doubt he will risk the chance of a confrontation with Drumometer inventors.

If Matt Smith wins, I kind of doubt you will see him at any more WFDs. The reason he was on the radar to begin with was due to his "older than his age" jazz playing, that has made him interesting to future college recruiters. I think the next time you would see him would be in an issue of Down Beat or Jazztimes.

Whatever happens, my hat is off to most of these guys. WFD gets a bad rap because of its lousy reputation for making a good first impression. It is what it is, and that's all it should ever be.

[Ramsh]

Take it from me, NJ and the many others that learned this lesson the hard way. Don't hassle with trying to do the math while most of the time fooling yourself because what is supposed to be and what is actual are most likely two different things. NJ?

Do yourself a favor and simply buy a model II Drumometer. It comes with a metronome and reset footswitch etc and will show you exactly where you are. No guess work! I remember seeing the great Kenny Aronoff at NPI drum school working out on the Drumometer and saying "WOW! this thing will truly humble you."

TD

My Roland TD-8 module also has a metronome with different click sounds and recording midi is no guess work an what I already wrote, I can count bass and snare at the same time, for that I would need 3 drumometer.
However, I know what I need for practice and what I don't really need.

[Scatman]

I was under the impression this kid Matt is as fast as Art Verdi and almost as fast as Mike Mangini Sorry

[ThomasDee]

Matt Smith, who turned 16 last week, is certainly not in the same league with Art Verdi, nor is he supposed to be. However, when he is Art's age that may well be a different story. Smith's hand speed is more in league with current world champion Randy Briggs. His highest official time was 1028 at the Michigan WFD Championship. That's an official score recognized by everybody. He has also scored over 1050 several times in well attended preliminaries. But none of this is close to Verdi's low 1100s. Scores of that caliber make Verdi among a small handful of the fastest drummers on the planet, and should be recognized as such. Moreover, Verdi can lay it in the pocket as well as anyone.

However, guys like Verdi, Mangini, Rabb, Briggs etc cannot compete for world championships after they win. This evens the playing field so lesser guys can step up. Of this second tier, I believe Matt is probably the best of the lot and will most likely win under ideal circumstances, if he attends. Still as WFD people know, people come out from under the woodwork all the time and take these things. For all we know, there is some unknown guy knocking out 1100s in his garage.

There is also talk of UK guys showing up with Thomas Lang. The UK guys are all capable of mid 900s, which is great, and would have won Anaheim last year. But I believe that it will take more to win this year. But, these UK guys have very fast feet, so who knows what they will do on that end. IMO Lang, Travis Barker etc will probably show up but will not compete, and if Lang does compete he will do it with feet. Again, only my opinion, Barker would not be a factor anyway, and neither guy has a thing to gain from competing, while the fluke screwup would do much damage to their reps.

There is another UK guy named Khachturian, who is kind of a rogue element who claims nonexistent European records with a non copyrighted device that strongly resembles a Drumometer. He says on the Internet that he will be in Anaheim, but I doubt he will risk the chance of a confrontation with Drumometer inventors.

If Matt Smith wins, I kind of doubt you will see him at any more WFDs. The reason he was on the radar to begin with was due to his "older than his age" jazz playing, that has made him interesting to future college recruiters. I think the next time you would see him would be in an issue of Down Beat or Jazztimes.

Whatever happens, my hat is off to most of these guys. WFD gets a bad rap because of its lousy reputation for making a good first impression. It is what it is, and that's all it should ever be.
You are so right on. Anaheim is a weird bird in the fact that in the past it seems the hands scores are lower and the feet scores are higher. BUT one of the beauties of WFD is no one knows who is going to show up. Multiple times the fastest can't make the finals due to simple things like he screwed up his plane flight and has to leave one hour before the finals on Sunday. HAHA!

As far as guys ripping off Drumometer and WFD, they are countless at this point and believe me as someone that has believed in them back when folks were saying it sucked and it was a dying fad etc...It is very sad to see all these counterfeits. As far as the UK copy cats being big enough to confront the 'CornBred Mafia' at this year's WFD? Well, all I can say is they better pack one hell of a lunch. I am not sure Boo knows the meaning of a simple confrontation. HAHA! I am know sure he even really knows the Civil War is over. HAHA!

If these rip off guys are dumb enough to actually show up in a 10 mile radius of Boo with a decent traveling horse then they don't don't deserve to be crowned the WFD they need to be crowned the WFDA. The World's *******DUMB***.

I so much apologize for the language, but these Drumometer and WFD rip off guys need to get what's coming and believe me if they show up they will.

TD

[ThomasDee]

My Roland TD-8 module also has a metronome with different click sounds and recording midi is no guess work an what I already wrote, I can count bass and snare at the same time, for that I would need 3 drumometer.
However, I know what I need for practice and what I don't really need.
I just answered some of this as far as ripoffs in the last post. I wasn't aware that Roland had entered the whole Drumometer market, but if that is the case then they are probably on the long list of folks jumping on the Drumometer band wagon.

I fully understand Drumometer and WFD being so hot, these guys have worked their butts off for years. What I don't understand is all the people trying to copy them. They have patents, trademarks and copyrights. It a shame, folks bashed them then but are now ripping them off.

Are you sure your Roland TD-8 is triggering properly? Didn't you say you were around 2000?

I guess people who can't create simply copy, I don't know.

TD

[rockitman]

crap ! I'm stuck at 840 at about 107 my arms begin to tense just above the wrist and I go over. . . . . . . . It's freaking hot in here !

[NUTHA JASON]

I just answered some of this as far as ripoffs in the last post. I wasn't aware that Roland had entered the whole Drumometer market, but if that is the case then they are probably on the long list of folks jumping on the Drumometer band wagon.

I fully understand Drumometer and WFD being so hot, these guys have worked their butts off for years. What I don't understand is all the people trying to copy them. They have patents, trademarks and copyrights. It a shame, folks bashed them then but are now ripping them off.

Are you sure your Roland TD-8 is triggering properly? Didn't you say you were around 2000?

no, roland is doing nothing of the sort...yet. ramsh is talking about recording his effort through a midi sound card and then using software like cubase to count the strokes. a long and involved process. i own a roland td8k AND the drumometer.
also for a true world wide comparison of speeds to be determined we need to use the same measuring device. the drumometer and the pad it is connected to is the only way of knowing your true speed IN COMPARISSON to the countless others who are playing one. i know i can go faster on my mesh pads. but if i'm going to compete in the WFD i've got to get those speeds on the drumometer.

no disrespect to you ramsh because i also fooled myself for a while...but until you knock out 2000 in a wfd ratified competition i will not believe your claim to 2000 strokes at all. get a drumometer dude.
j

[ThomasDee]

no, roland is doing nothing of the sort...yet. ramsh is talking about recording his effort through a midi sound card and then using software like cubase to count the strokes. a long and involved process. i own a roland td8k AND the drumometer.
also for a true world wide comparison of speeds to be determined we need to use the same measuring device. the drumometer and the pad it is connected to is the only way of knowing your true speed IN COMPARISSON to the countless others who are playing one. i know i can go faster on my mesh pads. but if i'm going to compete in the WFD i've got to get those speeds on the drumometer.

no disrespect to you ramsh because i also fooled myself for a while...but until you knock out 2000 in a wfd ratified competition i will not believe your claim to 2000 strokes at all. get a drumometer dude.
j
NJ, Great post. I thought something was funny for Roland to so blatantly infringe on Drumometer patents, but I have to say they have been doing very similiar speed contest with their paradiddle contest and such, so I was surprised, but not really. HAHA!

Thanks for clearing up the whole midi, playing and then having to count etc...That does seem like too much effort. I love how you said...yet. HAHA!

Today I started work on an unbelievable WFD hand record. It's rough footage of Glen Caruba of the Pearl Drum Comapny Hand Percussion fame. Glen is doing singles on a Pearl cajon and racks up an incredible 1138 tieing Mike Mangini's 1138 with straight singles bare handed. The big difference is Glen is doing a palm-palm, finger-finger technique, freaking incredible! 1138 with hands on a wooden surface is insane! Gonna be a great video. Glen talks indepth about how he does it. Very nice, talented and intelligent man.

Boo says it will be a new category at WFD Finals and looks for Glen to smoke it. Breaking the WFD World Record for bare hands and sitting up an entirely new category for hand percussionist.

Hey DogBreath are you going to give the WFD a go while at NAMM?

TD

[NUTHA JASON]

I love how you said...yet. HAHA!

well i half expected to see a stroke counter on this new generation of practice pad they just brought out.
http://www.drumcentral.co.uk/pics/kits/electronic/roland/rmp5_small.jpg (http://www.drumcentral.co.uk/pics/kits/electronic/roland/rmp5.jpg)
but even if, on the next version they do it, the drumometer has become the accepted control mechanism in the great science experiment that is WFD. enough top name drummer have tried it and ranked themselves, enough tv shows have aired it, enough drumming forums have argued it - for it to be the accepted standard across the planet. if roland tries to set up their own WFD type of cometition it will fall flat on its face because the whole drumming community will say to the top rankers in that competition: 'oh, so you can do 1600 roland strokes eh? well come here and prove it on this drumometer.'
j

[Tim Waterson]

I don't really need a Drumometer because I trigger all of my drums and soon the cymbals too.
I could record per midi with a tempo of 60 with 4/4 for 15 bars and set the trigger module to start recording after the first hit and so I it's possible to record bass and snare at the same time for example and I just have to load the midi file on a pc and in Cubase for example I can look how many midi notes/strokes I have done in this 15 bars.
I think to try 2000 strokes in 60 seconds with hands and feet together. :)
Ramsh
Happy New yEAR
So You want to try and break 2000 with the hands and the feet.
you mean Quads? Good luck LOL
Your playing would have to be VERY precise.LOL
Watch this video As you would have to play almost this fast with your hands and feet at the same time and make the separations in order for the notes to register.
http://www.youtube.com/?v=GaacZn1zgZ8
Good luck and God Bless
Tim
www.timwaterson.com

[Ramsh]

Indeed it's a long way to count strokes with a TD-8 and midi recording, but it's possible and I know that I'm fast with my hands and I want to practice doublebass, so I'll buy a second Axis doublepedal (maybe longboard) and a drumometer too, but it's to expensive for me now because I still need alot stuff for my drumset.
Tim, I want to try a hyperblast for 60 seconds with 250bmp and that would be 2000 strokes (1000 strokes hand and 1000 strokes feet), but it's only an idea now because Mangini also got his record with doublebass for 15 minutes, so I'm looking for a new dicipline and I think you could try that too.
This pattern:

http://members.aon.at/ramthedrummer/hyperblast.gif

Good luck and have fun

[ThomasDee]

well i half expected to see a stroke counter on this new generation of practice pad they just brought out.
http://www.drumcentral.co.uk/pics/kits/electronic/roland/rmp5_small.jpg (http://www.drumcentral.co.uk/pics/kits/electronic/roland/rmp5.jpg)
but even if, on the next version they do it, the drumometer has become the accepted control mechanism in the great science experiment that is WFD. enough top name drummer have tried it and ranked themselves, enough tv shows have aired it, enough drumming forums have argued it - for it to be the accepted standard across the planet. if roland tries to set up their own WFD type of cometition it will fall flat on its face because the whole drumming community will say to the top rankers in that competition: 'oh, so you can do 1600 roland strokes eh? well come here and prove it on this drumometer.'
j
NJ, I have to agree with you on this one. The guys have broken through that barrier of accecptance with the Drumometer and it is accepted as the standard for measuring drum strokes. hey NJ have you tried hooking your Roland pad up to the Drumometer? If so how does it trigger and which do you feel is faster the Roland or the Remo or is there a third choice. I believe you mentioned possibly that you were faster with the mesh? What's the difference in your score from one pad to another?

Who else is going to WFD @ NAMM ?

ramsh, the blast or even quads are easy to do with Drumometer, simply get a 'y' adapter from a electronics store, here they are called radio shack etc...and simply 'y' off the Drumometer to the amount of pads or drums you want to trigger. there's much talk about this becoming a WFD category and probably will within the next year.

TD

[Elvin4ever]

Ramsh,

You seem like an honest guy and a nice person, so please do not take this the wrong way, but did you actually compete in an actual sanctioned WFD competition?...or a variation of the contest with a different name? The extremesportdrumming website lists all locations where WFD competitions have been staged past, present and future, and there is no mention of such a contest ever being held in Austria. You also seem to have had no direct experience with a drumometer. Was a drumometer used at your event? Again, I wonder if there is a misundersatnding here.

The only reason I was even curious was due to your claims of such remarkable speeds. Just reading your posts, I can sense your sincerity and intelligence...and the fact that you are of possible world class caliber (over 900 refereed single strokes for hands and/or over 800 for feet). I am just wondering if you did not actually win an entirely different event that has no direct relationship to WFD.

Your website calls your event a fastspeed competition, and your verification email thread attached to your first post never mentions WFD, only the fastspeed term. In case you do not know, there is an official organization called WFD (aka World's Fastest Drummer), a series of DCI competitions, and hundreds of other smaller indepenedent contests based on the WFD model. The reason this is important for you specifically is due to the uncompromised accuracy of all assertions, and the official WFD recognition that leads to obvious endorsement incentives. In other words, if you are this fast, you are attractive to those who stage paid clinics and you can win lots of stuff. But, this can only happen via officially sanctioned WFD events.

I agree with others here. If you are capable rolling at least 1000 with hands using a drumometer, and I think you probably are, then buy the thing, and test yourself out officially. But honestly this stuff of using all these guesstimations to assume your real speeds does little good, and only leads to fooling oneself. I hope you accept my thoughts with good intentions.

[ThomasDee]

Ramsh
Happy New yEAR
So You want to try and break 2000 with the hands and the feet.
you mean Quads? Good luck LOL
Your playing would have to be VERY precise.LOL
Watch this video As you would have to play almost this fast with your hands and feet at the same time and make the separations in order for the notes to register.
http://www.youtube.com/?v=GaacZn1zgZ8
Good luck and God Bless
Tim
www.timwaterson.com
260? Tim that's insane dude! Thata would be also 1040 or 10 strokes above your current world record. right? Have you gone for it yet and will we see a new world record from Tim Waterson at this years WFD World Finals this month?

I may not get to go and it's not looking like it now with the load we have to edit already, so have a good one and Happy New Year!

TD

[Ramsh]

Ramsh,

You seem like an honest guy and a nice person, so please do not take this the wrong way, but did you actually compete in an actual sanctioned WFD competition?...or a variation of the contest with a different name? The extremesportdrumming website lists all locations where WFD competitions have been staged past, present and future, and there is no mention of such a contest ever being held in Austria. You also seem to have had no direct experience with a drumometer. Was a drumometer used at your event? Again, I wonder if there is a misundersatnding here.

The event (single strokes, the sale persons were officials) in Austria was hold in austrian's only one drumshop called Drumhouse. In Austria there're two shops, one in Vienna and one near my location in Gmunden.
However, they used a Drumometer in both shops and it wasn't a official WFD competition, but I won a Yamaha Stage Custom set and it was sponsored by Yamaha.
They want to make a feet competition next year and I also will try my best, but I think it won't be official WFD. Don't ask me why, I don't know, but I know that the drumometer worked fine during the last competition and there was no cheating, actually there're a few fast drummers in Austria and I think the first 3 or 4 here are all in Metal :)
I really wanna buy a Drumometer, but I really need the money for my conversion from acoustic to electronic cymbals, but maybe in March after finishing my drumset I'm gonna order a Drumometer, now it's official! So, if I get one and if I record my playing on tape or with a digital camera, it's still not official, only if there's a officals of WFD, right?
Besides after the competition in Austria I planned to visit US and a Namm show in the next few years, but I still have to practice, practice, practice.

I just got another question, I read somewhere that Remo brings the Drumometer II all over the World, also Austria or can I get one over Drumhouse drumshop here from Remo?

[Elvin4ever]

The event (single strokes, the sale persons were officials) in Austria was hold in austrian's only one drumshop called Drumhouse. In Austria there're two shops, one in Vienna and one near my location in Gmunden.
However, they used a Drumometer in both shops and it wasn't a official WFD competition, but I won a Yamaha Stage Custom set and it was sponsored by Yamaha.
They want to make a feet competition next year and I also will try my best, but I think it won't be official WFD. Don't ask me why, I don't know, but I know that the drumometer worked fine during the last competition and there was no cheating, actually there're a few fast drummers in Austria and I think the first 3 or 4 here are all in Metal :)
I really wanna buy a Drumometer, but I really need the money for my conversion from acoustic to electronic cymbals, but maybe in March after finishing my drumset I'm gonna order a Drumometer, now it's official! So, if I get one and if I record my playing on tape or with a digital camera, it's still not official, only if there's a officals of WFD, right?
Besides after the competition in Austria I planned to visit US and a Namm show in the next few years, but I still have to practice, practice, practice.

I just got another question, I read somewhere that Remo brings the Drumometer II all over the World, also Austria or can I get one over Drumhouse drumshop here from Remo?

Well, if Drumhouse is using a Drumometer they really should contact the WFD people and make it official. Thomas Dee, what kind of red tape do you think that would require? It would seem like Boo McAffee's people would love an Austrian competition. I have no doubt of your assertion that highly qualified Austrian competitors exist. There are hundreds of world class musicians in Austria ...period.

Still, with your records not being official, you are being cheated out of due and justifiable recognition. Yes, unfortunately scores only count at official WFD competitions. With so much tied up in endorsement opportunities, bragging rights etc, I would bet the chances of video fabrication is high. I am of course not including you with this group, but you have to know that cheaters are out there. I would suggest you examine the official WFD website and see if mentions sponsorship. Then refer this to your Drumhouse contact.

As for buying a Drumometer, you can go to Drumometer.com. I also know that Tiger Bill's website sells them.

[ThomasDee]

Well, if Drumhouse is using a Drumometer they really should contact the WFD people and make it official. Thomas Dee, what kind of red tape do you think that would require? It would seem like Boo McAffee's people would love an Austrian competition. I have no doubt of your assertion that highly qualified Austrian competitors exist. There are hundreds of world class musicians in Austria ...period.

Still, with your records not being official, you are being cheated out of due and justifiable recognition. Yes, unfortunately scores only count at official WFD competitions. With so much tied up in endorsement opportunities, bragging rights etc, I would bet the chances of video fabrication is high. I am of course not including you with this group, but you have to know that cheaters are out there. I would suggest you examine the official WFD website and see if mentions sponsorship. Then refer this to your Drumhouse contact.

As for buying a Drumometer, you can go to Drumometer.com. I also know that Tiger Bill's website sells them.
HAHA! The only red tape I know of with Boo is the red tape that covers his broken tail light. HAHA! chic a boom! By all means email him or the web girl Tammy at WFD site and he will get back to you. They are traveling at the moment because I stopped by yesterday and no one in. Back after the 2nd. sign said. There's a lot of the NAMM or Music Edge events going on around the country with are strongly WFD affiliated, so maybe this is one that drumhouse is doing in Austria, But I agree give them a shout and see if it is legit or not? They should be.

Also the Richard and Judy Show clip is up at http://www.extremesportdrumming.com/WFDTV/Richard%20&%20Judy%20256k.wmv

If you don't have broadband simply go to www.WorldsFastestDrummer.com and go to the WFD-TV page and there's also a 56k version. I thought it turned out fairly well. I love Terl Bryant, Ed and of course Richand and that Judy is a hoot!

Ed really was impressive throughout the clip and Terl seems like a geat guy, so much the motivator. Both of these guys were awesome. Very good plug for WFD-UK. Ok, trying to finish up PASIC, seeing Steve Smith run on the Drumometer is wonderful. He's one of my favorites. Can any one guess what his score was?

TD

[ed-uk]

Hey TD, thanks for the great comments. Going on the Richard & Judy show was awesome and nothing short of nerve-racking as it's transmitted absolutely live! More shows to be done ths year, watch this space .....

This year we (WFD UK/Drummerbuzz) also plan to take the contest on tour throughout the UK and into parts of Europe. Drummerbuzz.com is currently being updated, should have loads of confirmed dates shortly. We wanna get the guys out here establishing a few solid scores over the 1000 mark and at some point have an awesome cross-atlantic contest.

It's not all about the competition aspect - we've found the WFD to be an amazing platform where drummers can get together as a unique community. At contests, when I see the lads helping each other with technique, encouraging each other to improve, having a laugh about band stories, boasting passionately about their gear (drum gear that is LOL), then I know something significant is being achieved. It often motivates non-drummers to get into serious drumming, I've experienced this time and again, it's an awesome deal!

Cheers, Ed

[NUTHA JASON]

i second that. at the leicester event i attend last year it was exactly as ed describes it. strnagers chatting about finger technique and the inevitable which cymbals are best...actually all the stuff you'd expect on this forum but in real time and face to face...plus that exciting element of the competition in the background. once i get the dates from you ed i'm gonna put them in the DW calender.
j

[Perky]

The Virgil Donati message board says Flo Mounier is competing with the wfd in namm
he will be joining Mike Mangini, Johnny Rabb and Art Verdi



Is this bull or true?

[Stu_Strib]

Ok. Mentronome set to 250 bpm. 1000bpm no problem playing paradiddle RLRR LRLL. If i was going for a record would paradiddle be accepted or would it need to be single strokes RLRLRL?

You can do paradiddles faster than single strokes/???????/

Keep in mind, the diddle has to be two single strokes..no bounce allowed.

I started last week, was about 160 on metronome (32nd notes, so 80 on this scale). In a week of trying gladstone (still not very good at it) I've upped it to nearly 100. I can do 90 for a minute, but then 95-100 I can do for about 30-40 seconds of. I'll work the endurance, as the speed is not a problem, its the holding it for one minute.

[Elvin4ever]

The Virgil Donati message board says Flo Mounier is competing with the wfd in namm
he will be joining Mike Mangini, Johnny Rabb and Art Verdi



Is this bull or true?

Tom Smith, the coordinator of Michigan WFD told me today that he has in fact heard that Flo Mounier of Cryptopsy will compete in both hands and feet of the NAMM WFD World Championships in Anaheim. Since he will already appear at one of the NAMM booths, his participation does seem likely. Tom also said that it was not anything he was told to keep confidential, and with all the Internet buzz this was getting anyway, his people had to already be leaking it in promotion of his new DVD. Besides, knowledge of Flo's participation can only encourage more advance WFD buzz.

I wish I could go to this thing. It should be an amazing gladitorial spectacle. As some know, I am not such an advocate of this contest staying with the adults. And with that said, I will be pulling for the young guys whose fortunes (with some luck) could be forever positively changed. We are officially past the stage of contest detraction and/or judgement in regards to this event. It's going down whether you are a speed kills guy or a WFD Kool Aid drinker. With that said we can only sit back and enjoy the fun.

[ThomasDee]

Tom Smith, the coordinator of Michigan WFD told me today that he has in fact heard that Flo Mounier of Cryptopsy will compete in both hands and feet of the NAMM WFD World Championships in Anaheim. Since he will already appear at one of the NAMM booths, his participation does seem likely. Tom also said that it was not anything he was told to keep confidential, and with all the Internet buzz this was getting anyway, his people had to already be leaking it in promotion of his new DVD. Besides, knowledge of Flo's participation can only encourage more advance WFD buzz.

I wish I could go to this thing. It should be an amazing gladitorial spectacle. As some know, I am not such an advocate of this contest staying with the adults. And with that said, I will be pulling for the young guys whose fortunes (with some luck) could be forever positively changed. We are officially past the stage of contest detraction and/or judgement in regards to this event. It's going down whether you are a speed kills guy or a WFD Kool Aid drinker. With that said we can only sit back and enjoy the fun.

HAHA! elvin4ever, that's total BS. I don't know Tom Smith, nor do I care, but I have and do do work intermittently for several years with the production team that created and conducts WFD World Final Events. Because it is a small tight knit group and since we recently had a production meeting on the upcoming WFD World Finals, I can assure you that your previous post and Tom Smith's prediction have absolutely NO MERIT!

YES! Flo's name has been bounced around for years as a possible contender for WFD, but not as you state. Players of this caliber ex: Mike Mangini, Tim Waterson, Art Verdi, Johnny Rabb, Thomas Lang etc....ONLY DO WORLD RECORDS, not compete with 16 year old kids for Grand Prize drumsets that they already posess tons of. Believe me, Boo knows this is no way to build a contest. It's been this way from the very beginning. If Mangini and Waterson could compete, there would be no reason to have a WFD Event. These guys are considered WFD World Champions and can not compete except to break and set WFD World Records.

Specifically, As I said, Flo's name has come up several times in the past even in WFD production meetings, but only as a contender to set or break WFD World Records, not to take a Pearl Drumset away from any kid. Having said that, if Flo does show up at WFD and YES it would be totally awesome for all to see, it would only be to go for a WFD Title. Boo would not even let him compete, I guarantee you this is the case. Flo would be treated the same as a 'Mangini'.

These topics come up all the time in what you have referred to as 'internet buzz'. Believe me, it is merely 'internet bull'. Please anytime you see this kind of crap and if you know where there's stuff like this about Mangini, Waterson or Flo taking drumsets away from kids, do the WFD a respected favor and simply cut and paste my post from here. OK?

We are all, as you say "a WFD Kool-Aid Drinker", but only because that Kool-Aid taste good and leaves us with a POSITIVE AFTER EFFECT! Not a negative one as these senseless rumors create.

I apologize for being so strong in my post, but this negative crap has been going on about WFD for years now and needs to stop. Please take the time to read Ed-Uk and NJ's post back a few before this and you will better understand. Since it's obvious, you probably have never see an official WFD World Championship these guys explain, it is only positive.

OK, well I will simply attempt one more time, to put a senseless rumor to rest. Flo will NOT be competing at WFD for drumset prizes. No Way, Period, END OF STORY!

TD
ps. I apologize to all for seeming angry, but yes this crap gets me and it is always by folks who don't know the hearts of the WFD Family.

[NUTHA JASON]

i second all that. WFD is a very positive phenomenon. i'm grateful to all the prganisers who put the work in upping the profile of our instrument and inspiring us to new heights.
j

[Perky]

I was thinking what you just said Thomas Dee

Flo is in the catagory of breaking records like Mike Mangini and Art Verdi

He probably has many new drum sets

[Elvin4ever]

HAHA! elvin4ever, that's total BS. I don't know Tom Smith, nor do I care, but I have and do do work intermittently for several years with the production team that created and conducts WFD World Final Events. Because it is a small tight knit group and since we recently had a production meeting on the upcoming WFD World Finals, I can assure you that your previous post and Tom Smith's prediction have absolutely NO MERIT!

YES! Flo's name has been bounced around for years as a possible contender for WFD, but not as you state. Players of this caliber ex: Mike Mangini, Tim Waterson, Art Verdi, Johnny Rabb, Thomas Lang etc....ONLY DO WORLD RECORDS, not compete with 16 year old kids for Grand Prize drumsets that they already posess tons of. Believe me, Boo knows this is no way to build a contest. It's been this way from the very beginning. If Mangini and Waterson could compete, there would be no reason to have a WFD Event. These guys are considered WFD World Champions and can not compete except to break and set WFD World Records.

Specifically, As I said, Flo's name has come up several times in the past even in WFD production meetings, but only as a contender to set or break WFD World Records, not to take a Pearl Drumset away from any kid. Having said that, if Flo does show up at WFD and YES it would be totally awesome for all to see, it would only be to go for a WFD Title. Boo would not even let him compete, I guarantee you this is the case. Flo would be treated the same as a 'Mangini'.

These topics come up all the time in what you have referred to as 'internet buzz'. Believe me, it is merely 'internet bull'. Please anytime you see this kind of crap and if you know where there's stuff like this about Mangini, Waterson or Flo taking drumsets away from kids, do the WFD a respected favor and simply cut and paste my post from here. OK?

We are all, as you say "a WFD Kool-Aid Drinker", but only because that Kool-Aid taste good and leaves us with a POSITIVE AFTER EFFECT! Not a negative one as these senseless rumors create.

I apologize for being so strong in my post, but this negative crap has been going on about WFD for years now and needs to stop. Please take the time to read Ed-Uk and NJ's post back a few before this and you will better understand. Since it's obvious, you probably have never see an official WFD World Championship these guys explain, it is only positive.

OK, well I will simply attempt one more time, to put a senseless rumor to rest. Flo will NOT be competing at WFD for drumset prizes. No Way, Period, END OF STORY!

TD
ps. I apologize to all for seeming angry, but yes this crap gets me and it is always by folks who don't know the hearts of the WFD Family.

Thomas Dee,

I don't think I ever once criticized WFD on this forum, not one single time. In fact I have seen WFD events, and from these observations I became interested in what I believed was a wonderful phenomena for kids. Back in November I actually even defended it here on Drummerworld. As for the Kool Aid drinker line, that refers to any fanatic of any genre, and WFD has theirs just like any other format positive or negative. I think that you could agree that this was true. Still, my wording could have been better.

As for my post, you are probably right. When T. Smith told me about Mounier's participation (we sometimes exchange emails) I probably read something into it. I should have better considered the exhibition angle. FYI the Smith family are good people and are very loyal and supportive of WFD, and because I respect them, I have no reason but to remain positive. They don't pass stuff around and are class acts. The incorrect interpretation was mine and mine alone and for that I apologize.

[sound zap]

I would love to see Flo meet with Mike Mangini and Art Verdi
That's like a monster movie
Frankstein meets the wolfman because these guys are drumming monsters and Johnny Rabb also

[ThomasDee]

elvin4ever, thanks for the apology. It's fully accepted. Please just know there are 1000's of threads, topics and post on the internet about WFD. Most arguing over wheteher it's Lars, Joey, Travis, McBrain, Flo, Mangini, Waterson on and on. As NJ has said WFD is a positive phenomenon. Probably the first and only in drumming and in it goes over to x-sports and even mainstream sports.

Here is just one of thousands of example at BlabberMouth and RoadRunner Records check it out at http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=46523

It has much of the usual crap that ranges from who's faster Joey of SlipKnot to everyone including Ringo and yes once again, Flo is mentioned as a WFD contender. I do know first hand that Ringo has checked out the WFD. Is Ringo going to compete against Flo in the upcoming WFD in Anaheim? Enquiring minds want to know.

Although all these battles of metal drummers against punk drummers and punk drummers against mainstream rock drummers and so on, is very much entertaining, the truth is WFD is an event that no one really knows what is going to happen. WFD is truly a grassroots movement and no one knows who is going to show up and what they are going to do.

As NJ says WFD is a positive phenomenon and because of that NONE of us know who is going to show up or what they are going to do. Ringo may honestly prove to be faster than Portnoy. Who really knows until they get to WFD?

As far as drumming monsters, I would say please visit www.JasonFarmer.com This is the original drumming monster. Billed as 'The Freddy Krueger of Drumming!' Jason is so obessed with being the WFD (as it seeems many are) that he attempts to kill all the WFD Champs. As director of Jason Farmer, I fully have learned that what started as a video metaphor has become real life in the simple fact that WFD is such a phenomenon, many have taken it grossly out of context.

As they say in Hollywood, "MAY THE FASTEST DRUMMER WIN!"

[ThomasDee]

Hey can anyone here at DW translate this page at http://cifraclub.terra.com.br/noticias/skhz-feira-de-musica-tera-concurso-do-baterista-mais-rapido-do-mundo.html

????

I tried and it looks like standard WFD press copy except possibly dude in the photo. Is he coming to do WFD? If so who is he? Does anyone know?

I apologize for asking for translation, but it looked exciting! AND google is not the best for translating. Thanks in advance for any help!

TD

[techristian]

I have a feeling that someone is going to beat Tim Waterson's singles feet record this year, possibly by only a narrow margin of 20 strokes or less. I have a feeling.

Dan

http://teachmedrums.com

[ThomasDee]

I have a feeling that someone is going to beat Tim Waterson's singles feet record this year, possibly by only a narrow margin of 20 strokes or less. I have a feeling.

Dan

http://teachmedrums.com
Dan, how's it going? Are you going out to WFD Finals next week? I believe we met a couple of years ago at a WFD. One of the the beauties of these events is at anytime someone can step up and break a world record and it happens a great deal with the battle of the hands. With the feet it seems that Tim set a huge bench mark with the 1030 that's been tremendously difficult for anyone to surpass. Tiger Bill has come the closest with a 1019 only 11 strokes off to tie. Since you say 'someone' is going to break Tim's record, I assume you are not predicting that Tim himself will break his own record. If this a correct assumption on my part?

If so, do you mind telling us who you predict to break Tim's amazing record? 1050 would be 1/32nds at 132bpm.1/16th at 263. This is extremely difficult to hold for the full minute run. Not inpossible by any means just extremely difficult.

I'll make a prediction: If your prediction is correct then this will be 'the shot heard around the world!' As far as foot speed records are concerned.

HAHA! one thing I have learned over the years is that anything can happen at a WFD.

DogBreath, are you going to be doing any coverage or update news from WFD for DW? If so this would be awesome. Have fun, because I'm having to stay home an edit Drumometer footage from PASIC. Pat Petrillo (?) set a new wfd flams record of 502 flams (that's 1004) strokes in 60 seconds, plus tons of other stuff that they want me to get out in next couple of weeks. A crew from Ca. will shoot finals, so it will be a month or so before I get to see what happens.

NJ, Anything new with WFD-UK?

TD

[British Boy]

I have got 800 s/pm down. Just pushing it to 840 :-/

[ThomasDee]

Well I just went from midly depressed over not going to WFD to a full 'slit the wrist' mode. Has anybody else seen the new Miss WFD's 2006?
http://www.extremesportdrumming.com/Images/Photos/Girls/MissWFDLoraStarkman.jpg
http://www.extremesportdrumming.com/Images/Photos/Girls/Miss%20WFD%20STEPHANIE%20RATCLIFF.jpg

DogBreath, I think some pics would be in order, don't you? It's a dirty job, but someone going this year has to do it!

Atleast I'll get to see the out-takes!

HAHA!
TD

[Ultimo]

Sorry for not being more detailed.

My question ultimately is:

Are there valid and invalid strokes for speed drumming? I can hit the drumometer up to about 1400 times a minute using two hands & two drum sticks holding them with my thumbs (standard i think) - but i want to know if there are common ways in which others do this that aren't considered correct. The reasoning being that it's obviously unusual that i'm hitting it that fast - which is why i'm curious to know.

I really don't know much about drumming, hence the question. I only tried to copy a number of videos i saw.


Here's the pic again just so i don't look like a crazy person:

http://www.iamskill.com/yup.JPG

[NUTHA JASON]

well double bounces aren't allowed. onlyclean single strokes. even with double bounces this is a very high score so what does that mean?
either...
a) you exaggerated how little you know about drums. why would you do this? to look impressive? achieving a speedof 1400 with double bounces takes years of study. (this is twelve (that's 6 per hand) double bounces per second - 24 strokes in all every second)
b) you set the drumometer at 100 seconds (ie much more than 60). then getting a high score and photographing it. why would you do this? what do you hope to gain?

i'm at a loss for what you hope to achieve here. if you had posted that you knew nothing about drums and got a score of 800 i would be extremely impressed and would encourage you to work on your technique, but as your post stands i have little respect for you at the moment. prove me wrong...
j

[funked_up]

Actually Nutha, 3 lots of double strokes per hand, per second, is fast, but it is actually not too hard...But yeah, for a non-drummer to post this thread, I would have to wonder...

[NUTHA JASON]

yes three not too hard, but do the math this guy is claiming six doubles in each hand...if...IF he is even claiming doubles...he seems to be claiming singles...nearly 200 strokes faster than mike mangini...come on.

j

[Ultimo]

Well i'm not looking for respect cos quite frankly i don't deserve any anyway because it's an accident that i score this.

It was set at 60 alright (was first time i used it - belongs to my housemate).

Did it 3 times, 837, 1289 and 1262 were my scores. I estimate up to 1400-1500 max because it was coming out in slightly faster splurts at different times. Was counting at about 100 every 4 secs at one stage. Took the picture on my phone to send to my housemate (whose an actual drummer and big into the speed drumming thing who said all he could manage was 807) who now wants to see exactly what i'm at and will be precisely able to tell me exactly what i've been doing.

The reason i posted is simply out of curiosity, not because i want to achieve anything. Simply wanted to see if maybe i was doing something illegal or something. Thanks for answering my question. Will post later again.

[NUTHA JASON]

i'm sorry but i still will not believe this score.

you still haven't answered if you were double bouncing or buzzing the strokes.

even if you were, you would be laying down 6 doubles in each hand per second.

i challenge you to prove what you claim... film yourself playing 15 seconds and then show the reading in the same take and we can multiplyit by 4. if you even genuinely cross 1000 as an amateur i'll take my hat off to you and admit i'm wrong. until then i have to believe you are just a gross exaggerator.

j

[NUTHA JASON]

http://www.themusicedge.com/moxie/moxiepix/b6_863.jpg
Seth Davis is the current World Record holder for double stroke rolls. He executed 1,200 double stroke rolls in sixty seconds. Davis also holds the prestige of being the first drummer ever to complete 1,200 clean double strokes.


you claim to better than this guy?

[Ultimo]

Fair enough. I'll record a clip of me doing a full 60 later tonight and a 15 sec clip also. Will post/send it tomorrow.

[Ultimo]

http://www.themusicedge.com/moxie/moxiepix/b6_863.jpg
Seth Davis is the current World Record holder for double stroke rolls. He executed 1,200 double stroke rolls in sixty seconds. Davis also holds the prestige of being the first drummer ever to complete 1,200 clean double strokes.


you claim to better than this guy?

Oh no, i can't actually drum. i'm useless at it. All i'm saying is that i can make the drumometer move really fast so in other words hit it really quickly.

[aahznightsky]

achieving a speedof 1400 with double bounces takes years of study. (this is twelve (that's 6 per hand) double bounces per second - 24 strokes in all every second)
j


it really isnt as fast as it seems ... last time i was on a drumometer i could do 1476 with doubles ... my singles still are pretty bad though. yes when you divide by strokes per second it seems fast. BUT. 1476 strokes is approximately 32nd notes at 180 bpm ...

just think of it as playing 16th note single strokes at that speed. Easy right? then just learn to double it ... that makes it much easier to comprehend how fast you need to do it

is that guy really the world record holder? that seems kindof slow. at the little competition i went to there other guys that could get 1200 in a minute. I think the world record right now is 1599 strokes (doubles), by this guy from ohio.

[NUTHA JASON]

probably. i pulled that off a WFD archive...1400 in doubles is fast...not for guys like you or i you understand but for a guy who claims he doesn't know drums its a ludicrous claim i think.
j

[aahznightsky]

oh yeah well that makes sense

cool

guess we'll find out later

[finnhiggins]

Having played with a Drumometer, it's quite easy to set it false-triggering at an amazing rate by just mashing the sticks into it and doing a "scratch roll" (as so loathed by GL Stone). Not hard to do, not worth discussing seriously. If you do it on drums it'll sound like arse.

I really don't like the Drumometer as a practice tool. It'll too easy to fake out, doesn't care if you tense up, the only goal is to beat a certain number. It takes a very disciplined person to actually use it to practice correctly, and I'd argue that if you have that level of discipline you don't need a drumometer in the first place...

Edit: Also, 1400 is extremely fast for me :) My singles are more than half that, but my doubles don't go anything like twice the speed of my singles...

[NUTHA JASON]

yes. scratch rolling (a new term to me) is it similar or the same as press rolling?

I really don't like the Drumometer as a practice tool. It'll too easy to fake out, doesn't care if you tense up, the only goal is to beat a certain number. It takes a very disciplined person to actually use it to practice correctly, and I'd argue that if you have that level of discipline you don't need a drumometer in the first place...


actually there are plenty of great drumometer exercises.it has helped me loads with my technical accuracy and speed. almost half the time i practice with it i don't even turn the machine on. for example i'm working on this one A LOT...
Gordy Knudtson (http://gk-music.com/) ON PAISTE http://www.paiste.com/artists/

this link should open it:
http://www.paiste.com/artists/videos/open_close_video.wmv

[aahznightsky]

ahh the open closed technique gives me great singles! i'm pretty fast with it, but i've been working alot on just finger rebound, which is what i really wanna use for single stroke rolls. i use the push pull sometimes if i want a fast 8th note ride figure, like with drum n bass stuff or something. and with slow stuff, it conserves energy! but its not the ultimate technique for control, ya need to combine it with moeller for accents n stuff

[finnhiggins]

yes. scratch rolling (a new term to me) is it similar or the same as press rolling?


I'll quote the intro to Stick Control, as it's something of a classic bit of written distain:

The "closed roll" notated on page 12 and thereafter, is the one commonly used in light orchestral playing. It has several rebounds to each stick movement, instead of just one, this being produced by a slight additional pressure, applied to the sticks as the roll is executed. This closed roll is not to be confused with that exaggerated type of roll known as the "scratch roll," produced by digging the sticks down into the drumhead with muscles tense, at a ridiculously high rate of speed, for which neither the author, nor indeed any musician, has any use.

.. except, obviously, faking out drumometers.

[JohnMunsey]

Actually, returning from the drum kit for a second it seems there's a much more useful contest you could have:

Who can play the first exercise from "The New Breed" (16th notes in unison with both hands, reading with the feet in 16th notes) at the highest tempo all the way through the last page of reading without making any mistakes?



This is a great idea. Maybe it will evolve to this!

[Capitaine Quebec]

i'm at a loss for what you hope to achieve here. if you had posted that you knew nothing about drums and got a score of 800 i would be extremely impressed and would encourage you to work on your technique, but as your post stands i have little respect for you at the moment. prove me wrong...

I think Ultimo just want to know what is he doing wrong? as he said in his post its obviously not normal

The reasoning being that it's obviously unusual that i'm hitting it that fast - which is why i'm curious to know.


As finnhiggins pointed out , it might be doing the scratch roll

[Stu_Strib]

How about we tell the guy how to perform a LEGAL stroke instead of confusing him with buzz, double, scratch etc.?

So here is the simple rule. You have to hit the pad once with one stick, the once with the other stick. Back and forth for a minute. You can only hit the pad once per stick (so no bouncing the stick...i.e. double, scratch, buzz). If both sticks hit at the same time, the drumometer ignores it.

So here is where it seems you stand:

1 - You are using an illegal technique. I doubt you are playing clean doubles, since you aren't a drummer, and double can be harder than singles to perfect.

2 - Your drumometer is broken, or set wrong

3 - You are a freak of nature and are the world's fastest drummer

4 - You are an insecure sociopath seeking redemption on Drummerworld (doubt this, but had to put it out there)

_______________________


Post a 10 second video and I bet you'll get a lot more constructive criticism.

I've been working on increasing singles speed for a month now and I've only increased by about 50 beats per minute, so it takes forever to get fast.

[toteman2]

it really isnt as fast as it seems ... last time i was on a drumometer i could do 1476 with doubles ... my singles still are pretty bad though. yes when you divide by strokes per second it seems fast. BUT. 1476 strokes is approximately 32nd notes at 180 bpm ...

just think of it as playing 16th note single strokes at that speed. Easy right? then just learn to double it ... that makes it much easier to comprehend how fast you need to do it

is that guy really the world record holder? that seems kindof slow. at the little competition i went to there other guys that could get 1200 in a minute. I think the world record right now is 1599 strokes (doubles), by this guy from ohio.


I really do have to call this 1476 mark into question. Thats 276 strokes over the official WFD record. aah, are you sure you were playing actual clean doubles? Anyone on this planet who has 2 arms could walk up to a drumometer and buzz the crap out of it for 60 seconds and come up with something around 1300-1400. The difference is you have to play a clean double stroke roll. The speed you would have to be playig at is ridiculous to acheive a mark of 1476. A true freak of nature, and you could be making a good chunk of change.

Seth Davis established his record @ NAMM 2004.

Check out this clip and he will explain why it's so hard to get 1200 double strokes in 60 seconds. You can really see just how fast and clean you would have to play. I can only keep something going for a few seconds, nevermind 60.

http://www.extremesportdrumming.com/WFDTV/Seth%201200%20broadband.wmv

[Stu_Strib]

It was my understanding that double strokes aren't allowed in WFD? Don't they have a camera on it for just that reason?

edit: well the video is double strokes...is that another event?

[Raymond Bloom]

or example i'm working on this one A LOT...
Gordy Knudtson (http://gk-music.com/) ON PAISTE http://www.paiste.com/artists/

this link should open it:
http://www.paiste.com/artists/videos/open_close_video.wmv
If I'm not wrong I brought up that link, so Nutah, you owe me a beer :D

[Raymond Bloom]

As for the thread - he has to be buzzing, 1400 is not possible without buzzing, except he's a supertalant and master of technique who has practiced all his life :-)

[Ultimo]

http://www.iamskill.com/short_clip.wmv


I took a vid with my phone... - stuck it between the cymbals :-) ....... Went much faster now... (clip shows 15-16 secs at a rate of approx 1850/min) -could hit 2000. I doubt i'm doing properly though. I think i'm bouncing it.

Hopefully the sound gives an idea (i couldn't set up the phone to take everything in - nowhere to put and noone to hold).

[Raymond Bloom]

Yeah it's a buzz roll (press roll etc call whatever you want) and actually a very sloppy buzz roll :P

[NUTHA JASON]

Well that is fast but just from the sound i can hear you are buzzing orpressing the roll. still it is an impressive score. why don't you try playing single strokes (RLRLRLRLRLRLRLRL ... no bounces) and give us your score.

j

[hook & lateral]

I'll quote the intro to Stick Control, as it's something of a classic bit of written distain:



.. except, obviously, faking out drumometers.

Great quote by G.L. Stone. I think it was C.E. Gardner, in an intro to one of his books, who suggested that drum teachers should go ahead and allow new students to do the scratch roll, in the interest of having fun with the instrument and with the understanding that they'll be instructed (and eventually be able) to do the closed roll properly.

[Stu_Strib]

I timed your playing, and it is roughly 16th notes at 140 bpm...giving you a grand total of roughly 560. The extra 1000 beats or so are from really sloppy buzz rolls.

So what I'm saying is that if you take out all the multiple bounces per arm stroke, your score is a pretty slow 560.

When I get my video camera here maybe I'll post something that is much more clear.

[aahznightsky]

I really do have to call this 1476 mark into question. Thats 276 strokes over the official WFD record.



that's the old record! we already said that ....

the current one is 1599 i'm almost positive

as i said before ... double strokes! thats like playing sixteenth note singles at 180 bpm and doubling it ... it doesn't take years and years of practice like singles do

my singles still suck!

[Sticksman]

Good score, nonetheless, from someone who claims to not know much about drums. And yes, that was a buzz roll, and a kinda sloppy one at that, but you have the concept down. Try doing, like NJ already said, just clean RLRLRL single strokes; start slow, and work your way up by increasing the tempo by 20 BPM everytime you get comfortable and the strokes come easy.

Note: TENSION IS THE ENEMY!!! The last thing you want in your fast single-stroke rolls is tension in your wrists/arms; try doing it as comfortably and effortlessly as possible at first, then just work your way up. Use as little energy as possible.

I really need to try out this drum-o-meter, and see where I stand... right now, I'm guessing I'm probably at 700 or so... not terribly fast, but not bad either :p. I'll just have to see what the drum-o-meter has to say...

[toteman2]

that's the old record! we already said that ....

the current one is 1599 i'm almost positive

as i said before ... double strokes! thats like playing sixteenth note singles at 180 bpm and doubling it ... it doesn't take years and years of practice like singles do

my singles still suck!


You may be almost positive, but you would be wrong. That record was not recorded by camera or at a WFD event. Did you see the clip i posted? Are you still claiming you can do 279 clean double strokes faster than that. Seth Davis the "official world record holder". ahh, I respect you and everthing, but you are claiming to be able to do something that is quite near "impossible".

Do give you an idea. Playing 1200 stokes a minute, would be 16th notes @ 300 BPM. Do you have any idea how insainley fast that is? I think you may be confused. Watch the clip one more time.

[aahznightsky]

but you are claiming to be able to do something that is quite near "impossible".

Do give you an idea. Playing 1200 stokes a minute, would be 16th notes @ 300 BPM. Do you have any idea how insainley fast that is? I think you may be confused. Watch the clip one more time.

impossible??? you keep forgetting these are
double strokes we're talking about!

again. So that's like playing 32nd notes at 150 right? So you can play straight sixteenth notes, single stroke, at 150 right? I sure hope so. All you have to do is learn to double your strokes at that speed, and keep it clean (and quiet and low helps with the minute endurance)

i've seen 16 year old marching drummers do 1200 double strokes in a minute! With a drumometer, and their hands came up a good foot in the air!

[toteman2]

impossible??? you keep forgetting these are
double strokes we're talking about!

again. So that's like playing 32nd notes at 150 right? So you can play straight sixteenth notes, single stroke, at 150 right? I sure hope so. All you have to do is learn to double your strokes at that speed, and keep it clean (and quiet and low helps with the minute endurance)

i've seen 16 year old marching drummers do 1200 double strokes in a minute! With a drumometer, and their hands came up a good foot in the air!


Yes quite near impossible to play 1400 + doubles in a minute clean. I didn't forget we were talking about doubles. Again doubles can be counted as 16th notes, and if you set your tempo @ 300BPM and were acurate, you would get 1200 double strokes in a minute run. Using 300BPM in 16th notes as a tempo makes much more sense than 150 BPM in 32nd notes because you can keep track of your acuracy better because your keeping track of 4 strokes per beat, instead of 8.

Again your talking about this like it was nothing special. Not that hard. When i beleive you are a little confused. I don't buy the 16 year old marching drummers doing 1200 on the drumometer for a second. I use to compete agaist "The Dartmoth HS Drumline". They've been featured on Modern Drum Fest 97 or 98 (not sure which one). They are THE BEST High School drumline in the Country and have been for many years because of their fatastic music and drum program. Tom Augnst (Cadets of Bergon County) who is the most respected drum corp drumline instructor in the world is their instructor. While they could always play a 32nd note roll @ 150 BPM, they couldn't come near holding for 60 seconds. Not many people in the world can do that.

Watch the WFD clip one more time. Are you sure you want to stand by saying this is not that fast?

[Stu_Strib]

Well I can do the 150 double stroke thing pretty easily...I get tired with 20 to go....
It's simply 16th notes with the arms at 150 bpm. All you have to do is play single strokes at 600 bmp. Getting the doubles is tiring and is an endurance thing, but nothing really technically difficult.

That's not nearly as hard as even 800 single strokes for me. I dont' even possess the physical capability of getting 800 singles yet. I'm up to 750 after starting at about 640 a few weeks ago. (keep in mind, I'm not training for WFD, just seeing what natural speed I have).

If you were into rudimental snare at all, the doubles aren't as hard. If you are purely a drumset player than yeah, the clean doubles is probably hard.

[toteman2]

Well I can do the 150 double stroke thing pretty easily...I get tired with 20 to go....
It's simply 16th notes with the arms at 150 bpm. All you have to do is play single strokes at 600 bmp. Getting the doubles is tiring and is an endurance thing, but nothing really technically difficult.

That's not nearly as hard as even 800 single strokes for me. I dont' even possess the physical capability of getting 800 singles yet. I'm up to 750 after starting at about 640 a few weeks ago. (keep in mind, I'm not training for WFD, just seeing what natural speed I have).

If you were into rudimental snare at all, the doubles aren't as hard. If you are purely a drumset player than yeah, the clean doubles is probably hard.

Rudimental snare is my bread and butter. I think eveyone may be a little confused between BPM and strokes per minute. 600 BPM? Do any metronomes go up to 600 BPM? Not many go to 300.

Lets say you're going to play 16th note singles at 150 BPM for 60 seconds. You will get exactly 600 strokes. (something i can do)

Now someone asks you to do the same thing only in doubles strokes. You will get the same number 600 strokes. (somthing i can also do)

I think thats what Stu was trying to say.

Anyway lets get deal with the world record pace.

Instead of 150 BPM take it up to 300 BPM and you will get 1200 strokes.

Keeping up with that is anything but easy. If you can do it. You're the worlds fastest drummer. And you have to do it clean and crisp.

Ahh is claiming he can do 276 stokes faster than that. Not only that but 16 year old drummers are doing it with ease with sticks flying 1 foot above the drumhead.

Do you see why I call all of this into question. Clearly there is some misunderstanding.

All you have to do is watch the clip I posted to see just how friggn fast you have to play for 60 seconds. I can play a roll that fast and also clean. Keeping it up for more than a few seconds is a whole different story.

[Stu_Strib]

err, yeah, exactly. I meant 150 bpm , 16th notes, gives you 600 strokes per minute, which is really easy. Its holding your hands tight and keeping the strength to produce the doubles that is not technically difficult, just takes a lot of endurance.

Actually though what I was saying: playing 16th note single strokes at 150 bpm gives you 600 strokes per minute. Keeping you arms moving the same rate, but bouncing the stick gives you 32nd notes = 1200, if you get exactly 2 strokes per bounce. Playing double strokes 16th notes at 150 bpm is actually extremely easy too.

For those who aren't tracking the whole 16th and 32nd note stuff, think of it this way. Put your metronome on 150. Then play RLRL to each beep (ONE EE AND UH). 600 strokes per minute. If you grip the fulcrum tight, and produce exactly two notes per RLRL (moving your arms at the same speed), you get 1200 strokes per minute. It isn't too terribly difficult. What was cool, was the guys timing in the video and his bounces were so perfect that he hit 1200 exactly!

To recap.

800 single strokes in a minute is difficult and takes some training (let alone the 1000 gold standard that nutha suggested)
600 single strokes is really pretty easy, and any intermediate drummer can do this, or beginner with some technique pointers
1200 strokes achieved by bouncing the single strokes takes a lot of endurance and hand strength, but not as much technique as getting 800 straight singles.

Like the guy on the video says, people think its easier to do double strokes, which it isn't, but at this speed, the bouncing of the stick is easier than say really fast singles (technique wise). It is difficult to get clean doubles at this speed though, but for WFD, they don't have to be musically appealing, they just have to not hit at the same time.

And therein lies the whole problem of WFD. There is nothing musical about it. Just play as many erratic notes as you can in one minute!
__________________________________________________ ______________________________________________

Thanks for 'clearing' that up for everyone, heh.

[aahznightsky]

right on stu!

i've actually also been working on mysingle stroke rolls ... i havent tried a minute yet but i dont think i could hit 800 strokes using just fingers. wrists, maybe. but who wants to do that?

[Stu_Strib]

800 is a pretty good target. I can do even faster but only in 6, 8, 12 and 16 bursts (which just happens to be perfect for most musical applications).

The 800 for a full minute is tough though. I am approaching it like weight lifting...if I can do 800 for a full minute then doing really fast single 32nds or big fat doubles around the kit should be easy!

[aahznightsky]

yeah the bursts arent incredibly hard, ive been able to do that at 125 bpm even (1000 strokes / minute) but keeping it any longer for me is still not do-able. im working on that right now, and double strokes with double bass

[toteman2]

Excellent, I think we're all understanding whats going on now. I know it can be confusing. 1400 + strokes is just INHUMAN and I imediatly knew there was some type of misunderstanding by Ahhznightsky.

[toteman2]

[QUOTE=aahznightsky]right on stu!QUOTE]


Not for nothing aahznightsky, but I've been trying to point this out to you for a few days. Why no love?

[aahznightsky]

Not for nothing aahznightsky, but I've been trying to point this out to you for a few days. Why no love?

what were you trying to point out to me? that 1400 is impossible in a minute even when you're allowed to do doubles? because stu was saying it is humanly possible, therefor i was saying, "exactly right!"

i still have love for ya tote, don't worry

[toteman2]

what were you trying to point out to me? that 1400 is impossible in a minute even when you're allowed to do doubles? because stu was saying it is humanly possible, therefor i was saying, "exactly right!"

i still have love for ya tote, don't worry


Yes, 1400 would be a possible if buzz rolls were allowed in the WFD, but to play a clean open stroke roll is a different story, and thats pretty much my point. Anyone can walk up to a drumometer and buzz the crap out of it for 60 seconds and get somewhere around 1400. But to play something that would be considerd to qualify as a WFD run (a clean open stroke roll) and hit 1400+? Pretty much out of question or somebody would've done it already. The record (1200) was set back in 2004 and nobody has touched it since that date. So i don't see a mark of 1400+ being realistic at this time or the distant future. That was pretty much my point as I thought the video would explain.

But heh, if you really can play 1400+ doubles in a minute? Why not go make some money, endoursments, and a name for yourself in the WFD?

[aahznightsky]

But heh, if you really can play 1400+ doubles in a minute? Why not go make some money, endoursments, and a name for yourself in the WFD?

ah no way! I'm not into the sport of drumming, I'm into the art of drumming. You'll see me around for doing stuff much cooler than double stroke rolls on practice pads.

[toteman2]

ah no way! I'm not into the sport of drumming, I'm into the art of drumming. You'll see me around for doing stuff much cooler than double stroke rolls on practice pads.



I'm really not into WFD either. What i would like to know is if you still really want to stand by your claim that you can play 1476 doubles in 60 seconds? Extaordinary claim. You wouldn't want to make thousands of dollars and get tons of free gear, make a name for yourself so exploring the art of drumming would be better and easier to obtain? Being the WFD will get that stuff. Not interested?

Not trying to bust balls aahsnightsky, but comming out publically and stating you're the worlds fastest drummer takes some balls. Especially when there is no proof whatsover. Just trying to clear some things up.

[finnhiggins]

I must admit, 1476 sounds awfully high to me for doubles. Mine come in somewhere around 900 on a good day. And my singles go to a hair over 800. So by my ratio you'd have to be well into WFD territory with your singles before you can even think about getting your doubles up there.

[aahznightsky]

well yeah but i'm not claiming to be the world's fastest drummer ... i know there are doubtlessly a bunch of drummers out there faster than I that just don't wanna be known for being fast

even if the guy who did 1599 wasn't caught on tape, i still don't doubt it happened ... and i don't plan on getting my doubles faster, what's the point?

what i have planned will make me a lot more money than any WFD paycheck ever could

[toteman2]

well yeah but i'm not claiming to be the world's fastest drummer ... i know there are doubtlessly a bunch of drummers out there faster than I that just don't wanna be known for being fast

even if the guy who did 1599 wasn't caught on tape, i still don't doubt it happened ... and i don't plan on getting my doubles faster, what's the point?

what i have planned will make me a lot more money than any WFD paycheck ever could


Well you said that the last time you played doubles on a drumometer you got a total of 1476 strokes in 60 seconds which is far far faster than the WFD record. In other worlds, you're claiming to be the WFD. Then you said that the official record (1200) seemed pretty slow and pretty easy to do. Clearly there was a misunderstanding, which i felt the need to clarify in the intrest of acurate information being exchanged on this message board.

If there is anyone on the planet who can beat the record they would be doing it for obvious reasons. Who on this planet would not want all the things that comes with being TWFD?

There is nothing wrong with setting the bar high for yourself. I really do hope you become rich while exploring drums. But why dismiss a venue that would make you a great chunk of change, have a bunch of companies offering you free gear, and make a name for yourself. All these things will help you in your quest to make lots of money in the music industry. I don't see it as a bad thing to be known as the fastest drummer in the world.

I don't know how you can possible take the 1599 claim seriously after all the information that has been exchanged and video's and facts posted. Do you have any idea how fast you would have to play to reach that? 400 BPM! Thats right 16ths at 400BPM. I like to think all barriers can be broken but that pushing it too far. When i see it and it's posted as a record then I will beleive it.

Ask Tim Waterson, Mike Mangini, or Seth Davis what they think about someone playing that fast. Think about it. An open stroke roll played clean at 400 BPM for 60 seoconds? No way.

[Tempro_Pro]

I don't think this guys gonna come back with a video, it's been like two days, he was obviously making it all up, no matter what anybody says that is ridiculus, 1400 is crazy!

[NUTHA JASON]

i agree. but he sparked an excellent debate. so kudos to him. hopefully he is trying to correct his stroke and we'll hear more from ultimo.

j

[Jeff Almeyda]

Can someone help me? I've just started playing yesterday and I've finished Marco Minneman's book. Is that normal?

Give me a break.

No way, No way, No way are those speed numbers correct

[NUTHA JASON]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...weeps. hoooo. Wicked Knevildrummer...you have my sense of humour...


now give it back.

J

[Stu_Strib]

After checking out the WFD stuff on the web....that's a big NO THANKS for me. I can't believe the sheer number of people on there that aren't even drummers. All they do is train for 1 minute bursts of singles.. ..seems like a total waste of some obvious chops...maybe they have the physical part down, but don't possess the artistic, cranial side of music?

[NUTHA JASON]

and that is really their own loss. would be great if WFD somehow also found a way of promoting musical drumming. sort of, 'okay, so you're fast, here's a basic kit, now show us some drumming'

j

[Jeff Almeyda]

I feel it's hard enough to convince people that drummers are real musicians without some nonsense like the WFD around. C'mon, imagine a contest to see which sax player could hold the longest note. You could train for that too.

[NUTHA JASON]

i disagree. read the whole thread above... i'm going to merge it with the debate of the value of WFD. speed is an element of drumming...only a part of it, but perhaps the only measurable part.

j

[OZjazzer]

I feel it's hard enough to convince people that drummers are real musicians without some nonsense like the WFD around. C'mon, imagine a contest to see which sax player could hold the longest note. You could train for that too.


It's been a long time coming but here is my point about the silliness of WFD being very well put by Knevildrummer. I hope he's ready to be called into the administrator's office.

Also interesting to learn that a lot of WFD competitors don't even play a kit and that it's actually called an 'extreme sport'. MY GOD .... THEY DON"T EVEN PLAY DRUMS!!!

Don't get up, I'll let myself out.

[NUTHA JASON]

actually that is nonsense. most wfd competitiors especially the ones entering the pro category are real drummers. the amateur division is just for fun, friends and family. i don't think you should knock it until you've been to a WFD competition. it great.but read this thread through...all of this has been well reasoned out already.

j

[mattsmith]

My name is Matt Smith. I am in the tenth grade from Flint Michigan. This is the first time I have written on this forum but i have enjoyed the videos a lot. I have been kind of lucky in a lot of drum contests including WFD. Sometimes people are nice to say good things about me even when I do not agree with all of it. I wanted to take a minute to say some things about WFD in general and my participation in it in particular because I think some people have the wrong idea about this.

This past weekend I was in the WFD final. I stayed the whole weekend and the people with it were very nice. Boo McAffee is very friendly and cares about everybody. I came with my dad because I am not allowed in the NAMM show under 17 without an adult. A few weeks ago I saw my dad's name brought into some argument about WFD on this site when all he does is give me advice when I ask for it. Some people on the Internet act like he is my manager or something which is kind of crazy. But if your father had played with Buddy Rich, Louie Bellson, Max Roach and Danny Gottlieb what would you do?

I did good in my Saturday runs with 1061 being my best. Even though only the finals count for the championship everything done at a world championship counts in the rankings. So Boo and Craig approved my 1061 as 9th overall between Johnny Rabb and Brad Bloomfield's tie and Tiger Bill. I was third in traditional grip behind Mangini and Art Verdi. So this was an honor of course because I think Art is very great. I have not met Mike yet.

I blew the finals to a good guy. I faded off at the end and did not do what I needed to do and Reece was too strong to mess up against. Plus my technique has always been sloppy and I should have cleaned it up better like everybody said. Reece was the better guy that day. So I got out so he could have his moment.

I have to tell people that those who put down WFD just don't understand the whole thing. First of all those people that talk bad about Boo, Craig, Jotan, Tim Waterson, Randy Briggs and Seth Davis don't know what they are talking about. first of all they are super, super people. Anybody who thinks these other guys you talk about are more talented than these guys need to see them up close. You would respect what they do a lot more.

A lot of drum forum writers like to say speed isn't everything like we never thought of that before. Everyone of these guys is a monster set player and anybody who doesn't think Art Verdi isn't one of the best doesn't listen. I don't want to be rude but this is true. Art was so nice to me taking me to all the company reps introducing me and stuff. I just wish I had listened to him more on Sunday and I would have won that gear. The second place guy gets nothing.

I have learned my lessons from this experience. I plan to get on the practice a lot harder than I have been lately. Turning 16 last month I still have a lot more to learn. I want to do a jazz trio CD as soon as possible and today I picked up my brushes again. I want to have that out by the summer. WFD is about cleaning up your technique so you can be a better all round player. It has given me discipline and can help all drummers. I'm telling the truth.

[DogBreath]

Great post, Matt. Remember that a lot of us here are fans of the WFD and we enjoy the competitions and appreciate the talent of the drummers involved.

[NUTHA JASON]

to anyone who doesn't know who matt smith is, here is some archive stuff from 2005:


'15 YEAR OLD DRUMMER TOPS 1000 MARK AT WORLDS FASTEST DRUMMER CONTEST

Matt Smith, a 15 year old jazz drummer from Flint, Michigan bested all comers in the hands competition, of the Ohio Worlds Fastest Drummer Contest, held at Riverview Park in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. With his performance of exactly 1000 evenly placed single strokes in sixty seconds, Smith scored one of the fastest times in the world this year, easily taking first place by nearly 100 strokes over his closest competitor, a man twice his own age. Smith also won his preliminary heat with a score of 1008, averaging out to nearly 17 strokes per second.

The Ohio WFD Competition was part of a series of competitive events sponsored by George's Drum Shop of Cuyahoga Falls. Smith received a custom snare drum for his trouble and an invitation to the World Championships to be held in Nashville, Tennessee sometime in January 2006.

"Matt was awesome today," said Johnny Rabb, himself a former world champion, and a man listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as one of the world's fastest drummers. Young Smith surprised the large crowd in attendence by out performing Rabb in an unscheduled exhibition. "He didn't get a chance to warm up. He's really a lot better than me," said Smith.
Since their inception five years ago, these wildly popular WFD Competitions (sometimes known as "extreme drumming") have recieved periodic criticism for what detractors claim is sport at the expense of music. Hand strokes are measured by a mechanical device called a Drumometer, which measures evenly placed stroke speed against a clock. The elusive goal is a score of 1000, the magical equivalent of a .400 hitter in baseball. Although critics do not discount the importance of drum speed, the concern is that competitors become specialists in the genre without developing sufficient musicianship."In Matt's case, this could not be farther than the truth," said Smith's father Tom Smith, a Senior Fulbright Professor of Music. "Just three weeks ago Matt took on several hundred teenagers to place second in the Louie Bellson National Drum Set Competition, arguably the most musically competitive drum set competition in the world. Matt has wonderful musical instincts for jazz music. If these contests were all he was about than I might have another opinion. But I have to say that Matt has improved a great deal this summer because of his interest in these competitions. As educators, I thought we were supposed to advocate the celebration of sound fundamentals. WFD competitions provide this."

Matt Smith is a student of Jim Coviak and attends Grand Blanc High School, where he participates in the wind ensemble and the marching band. He is also a member of the primary Mott Community College Jazz Combo.

http://www.thsmith.com


so its not important to keep up with the joneses...its better to keep up with the smiths. lovely to have you on DW matt. please do stick around (scuse the pun).

j

[JohnMunsey]

Everyone of these guys is a monster set player and anybody who doesn't think Art Verdi isn't one of the best doesn't listen. I don't want to be rude but this is true.

Matt, sounds like you're doing great

that was great insight, I agree with you about how people see some of these guys.

[Hanky12]

I think it's great Matt can learn and be involved with great drummers like Mike Mangini and Art Verdi
How great will Matt be at 25?

[Elvin4ever]

I think it's great Matt can learn and be involved with great drummers like Mike Mangini and Art Verdi
How great will Matt be at 25?

That kid is great right now. I have only been aware of him since Summer 2005, and I have rarely been as impressed with anyone so young.

To clarify...over the past ten years, there have been several young percussionists who have made giant impressions, with Royster probably being the best known. Admitedly, several have arrived with their technique seemingly close to qualified professional perfection. Matt does have a small number of youthful flaws, and no one is going to say he gets around the set with the adept skill of Royster, although many of us who have seen him up close, think he might be faster. I mean let's face it, 1061 single strokes in one minute, and in public, is unbelieveable for someone who has yet to reach full physical maturity.

But the elements that stun me are his MUSICAL instincts and maturity. If you get past the teenager part and close your eyes, you would think you were listening to a man with 30 years of gigs under his belt. I think some of these young ones are just great. Still from the perspective of what matters, I put Matt above all of them. People like to compare him to a young Tony Williams, and I don't think that's too far off the mark.

Moreover, you would think with the help of people like Art Verdi, he will probably rise to the top even faster.

[Tex12]

I'm sure Art Verdi helped Matt but any videos of this kid playing set?

[sound zap]

If a kid age 16 can do over 1000 beats in a minute's time than that's not failing in my books

[speedmaster]

Hey guys i been getting better i played 912 the man for me is JOTAN AFANADOR
this kid is amazing his techque is the most cleanist and smooth of all i saw him in PR
setting his new world record of 1219 and he played it in second a tempt never seen any
one do that he has cool clip at his site i also bought his DVD in PR he's also an amazing
drummer !!!!! JOTANAFANADOR.NET

does any know if jotan or mike went to the namm?

[speedmaster]

HEY u have to check out JOTAN AFANADOR he is the fastest i saw his DVD
he played 1219 he has a cool clip at his site JOTANAFANADOR.NET

[Tex12]

If you only do 912 you have a long way to go before you master speed ha ha ha only kidding
Yea I think Jotan Afanador and Mike Mangini are 1 and 2 or should I say Mike and Jotan
I think Art Verdi is 3 and Johnny Rabb is 4

[mattsmith]

If you only do 912 you have a long way to go before you master speed ha ha ha only kidding
Yea I think Jotan Afanador and Mike Mangini are 1 and 2 or should I say Mike and Jotan
I think Art Verdi is 3 and Johnny Rabb is 4

This is the top 10 for hands after this last NAMM. I was told this is right during NAMM.

Mike Mangini 1247
Jotan Afanador 1999 (but he said he just did 1213 at another event)
Art Verdi 1116
Dan Barnat 1106
Sam LaCompte 1096
Eric Okamoto 1085
Johnny Rabb 1071 tie
Brad Bloomfield 1071 tie
Matt Smith 1061
Tiger Bill Meligari 1060

912 is real good. The WFD guys say that any score over 900 is world class. You will win most WFD contests that aren't NAMM with that.
Congratulations.
Jotan was at NAMM. Mangini was at Berklee doing exams and could not go. He teaches there.

[Tex12]

I thought Johnny Rabb was 4th after Art Verdi
7th?

[GAZZASCOTLAND]

840 for me......gonna push for the 900,will be tough tho

[averypoordrummer]

probably about 600 at best, i need lessons!

[Tex12]

It looks like Mat is saying Jotan Afanador is one stroke from 2000 ha ha
What a mistake that is unless he's superman ha ha ha

[mattsmith]

It looks like Mat is saying Jotan Afanador is one stroke from 2000 ha ha
What a mistake that is unless he's superman ha ha ha

Yeah, better fix that 1199 before Mangini sees it LOL.

[Tex12]

Hey Matt: You don't have to worry
Nobody will ever be that fast unles they relly are a superman

[mattsmith]

Well I have learned alot about the drum speed debate stuff from you guys, as well as alot of really usefull tecnical stuff. I also like how most people are trying to be nice to the people who feel like they have concerns. It seems like drumerworld tries to leave a door open for the speed issues even if it does draw in some of the speed haters AND speed freaks. When you look at the WFD posts on forums from like a year ago, it seemed like it was all a big fist fight. This has changed a little bit now.

Well its been great. I'm probably getting off the forums for awhile to clean up school work and practice more. Thanks again everybody for the nice things said. I have been proud of my association with WFD as I am with any group with so many good musicians. I will be interested to find out how those contests in England turn out. See ya around.
-Matt

[Tim Waterson]

I was under the impression this kid Matt is as fast as Art Verdi and almost as fast as Mike Mangini Sorry

MATT is a great drummer and a great person.Also VERY fast but,,,,
For those of you who don't know Art has an official 220 beats in 10 seconds record.
That is equall to a 1300 speed if it could be held for 60 seconds.
MIKE is a WHOLE other story
I have video of Mike fooling around on a pad and alternating 8's with each hand at 184 bpm
Thats just under a 1480 pace.
NOW he is over 200 but does not think It can be held for a minute without possible damage to oneself.
CAN WE SAY SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION!!!!
God Bless
Tim
www.timwaterson.com

[Tex12]

The Jotan Afanador site is cool

[Tim Waterson]

The Jotan Afanador site is cool

Jotan Afanador is an AMAZING drummer.
God Bless
Tim
www.timwaterson.com

[ThomasDee]

Hey Gang, Apologies to all for not staying in touch more, but WFD has had me slammed for months now editing stuff. Many things have come and gone and I just couldn’t get in to update and even get updated. You guys know more about what has happened WFD wise than me. HAHA! I come in here to get caught up. lol

NJ, are you doing the WFD in UK next week? There’s an announcement about it at www.drummerbuzz.com I believe it is in Woburn Sands next Saturday right? We had a meeting last night and Boo said also WFD will be at MusikMesse (sp?) in Germany also March 29th- April 1st I believe. I think Messe is like NAMM.

We’ve finished tons of short videos and now working on World Finals. The two I most recently worked on are Glen Caruba’s World Fastest Hand record on a cajon and can be seen at http://www.pearldrum.com/06wnamm-video.htm we did it for Pearl Drum company and shows Glen doing 1140 bare handed. Cool technique.

The second is from PASIC and is an overview of the excitement this machine creates everywhere it goes. The PASIC recap can be seen at www.drumometer.com it has some cool wacky records. Pat Petrillo does a new flam record that is really cool and some split or tag team records and such.

If anyone goes to WFD-UK or WFD Messe in Germany please post some news. NJ is this your time to WIN IT?

OK, well now to go back to checking out the DW updates.

TD
ps. Oh, we also recapped the Art Verdi high speed internet commercial for those who haven't seen it at http://www.extremesportdrumming.com/WFDTV/WFD%20Comcast%20256k.wmv

Some of the above rambling may be old news, but just giving a belated up date from latest production gathering.

TD

[ThomasDee]

hey guys, what's up? I posted on another wfd thread that I have to come in here and find out what's going on WFD wise. HAHA! We had a meeting this week and WFD is truly going gang buster in the UK, Asia and Australia. Dates are posted on wfd site plus UK dates are at www.drummerbuzz.com

Jotan Afanador is a true WFD Champion in every sense of the word as all these guys are. They are not only good drummers, yes and FAST, they are also real decent human beings that just happen to be extremely dedicated to their craft. That's all.

Boo always says "do people really believe that just because Dale Earnhardt Jr. or Jeff Gordon drives 198 miles an hour for 4 hours on race day that they can't drive a passenger car to the grocery?" Kinda down right silly question right? Well it's the same when you see all these crazy comments in the forums about can any of the WFD Champs actually play drums?

One good thing is as WFD gets bigger and bigger the work is defending itself and who knows before long all this silly questioning may simply disappear.

[ThomasDee]

WOW! I thought I was loosing me mind! HAHA \! It took me awhile to figure the whole archived topics thing out, sorry I guess that means I should get my butt in here more. haha! Anyway here is a WFD update that I duplicated on archived thread:

Hey Gang, Apologies to all for not staying in touch more, but WFD has had me slammed for months now editing stuff. Many things have come and gone and I just couldn’t get in to update and even get updated. You guys know more about what has happened WFD wise than me. HAHA! I come in here to get caught up. lol

NJ, are you doing the WFD in UK next week? There’s an announcement about it at www.drummerbuzz.com I believe it is in Woburn Sands next Saturday right? We had a meeting last night and Boo said also WFD will be at MusikMesse (sp?) in Germany also March 29th- April 1st I believe. I think Messe is like NAMM.

We’ve finished tons of short videos and now working on World Finals. The two I most recently worked on are Glen Caruba’s World Fastest Hand record on a cajon and can be seen at http://www.pearldrum.com/06wnamm-video.htm we did it for Pearl Drum company and shows Glen doing 1140 bare handed. Cool technique.

The second is from PASIC and is an overview of the excitement this machine creates everywhere it goes. The PASIC recap can be seen at www.drumometer.com it has some cool wacky records. Pat Petrillo does a new flam record that is really cool and some split or tag team records and such.

If anyone goes to WFD-UK or WFD Messe in Germany please post some news. NJ is this your time to WIN IT?

OK, well now to go back to checking out the DW updates.

TD
ps. Oh, we also recapped the Art Verdi high speed internet commercial for those who haven't seen it at http://www.extremesportdrumming.com/...ast%20256k.wmv

Some of the above rambling may be old news, but just giving a belated up date from latest production gathering.

TD

HAHA! double ps. I forgot to add Tim Yeung just won the BAttle of the Feet at the last WFD World Finals, so please spare the world of asking "Yea, but can any of these WFD guys play?" Google for Tim Yeung, first please!!!!!!!

[Ramsh]

I'll be at the Musikmesse in Germany at the 1st April
(already got 1104 on a drumometer 2 years ago, but who cares?)

[NUTHA JASON]

i'm so upset because i cannot make it to the competition as i am gigging. i'll have to catch the next one. please can anybody who goes to any event like these take photos and write a report for the rest of us to read.

i'll try very hard to be at the next one.

darn!darn!darn!

j

[Ramsh]

I'll try to make some (not flurry blurred) photos, na I'll ask my brother to make some.
A report shouldn't be a prob

Ramiz

[thumper]

Well, I can't really speak for speed, or learning fundamentals at an early age...I'm self taught, (started at 14-I'm now 38)
I just like to play, damnit! LOL!!!
(no offense intended)
;)

[TitanSound]

i'm so upset because i cannot make it to the competition as i am gigging. i'll have to catch the next one. please can anybody who goes to any event like these take photos and write a report for the rest of us to read.

i'll try very hard to be at the next one.

darn!darn!darn!

j


Think of it just as more time to practice and blow 'em away the next time!

[NUTHA JASON]

lol, yeah. actually i have owned my own drumometer for nearly two months now and my speed has not significantly increased inspite of practicing with it almost every day. the reason is that i am not trying to go faster yet but rather get my finger technique right. after all this time i can say that i can always play more than 800 with even strokes and the left hand never resorting to tensed up wrist playing. now that the technique is corrected the muscles are starting to develope. i anticipate that i will now be able to cross the 1000 mark in the next year.

j

[ThomasDee]

Whoa, no school in the morning so I get to hang at the computer in the late hours looking at drummerworld vids and scope the forum. Our family might be in London for a couple of days in June. Does anybody know about a UK WFD going on then? It would be cool to get in a strong contest with good competitors before summer NAMM if I get back the next month. You look at the UK website and it looks like those guys are pretty all out and intense.
Matt, I aam working on the last WFD World Finals in which you are a large part of. I have to say great freaking job dude! You are truly amazing for any age, much less 16 years old.

Secondly, I second or third some one getting some shot, footage and report of the WFD events going on in the UK fo us unlucky ones. Please!!!!

Who going to WFD in Woburn Sands?
How about MusikMesse?

Oh, names and scores are important if you can get them. Please!!!

TD

[mattsmith]

Matt, I aam working on the last WFD World Finals in which you are a large part of. I have to say great freaking job dude! You are truly amazing for any age, much less 16 years old.

TD
I really like the WFD guys but I'm not interested in ever seeing a minute of those last WFD finals. Who wants to see a screwup like that? Let Rees Bridges enjoy it. It was his day not mine and he's a nice guy anyways. I was an idiot at the NAMM finals. I thought I had it and didn't even try to warm up properly. I deserved what happened. Going down 59 strokes. It was rediculous. That won't happen again.

I'm not going to NAMM again unless I am averaging 1100s at home. For the first two weeks when I got back I got away from my usual speed practice of about a half hour a day and got serious about gettin faster. My family just said to forget about it and move on since it never was a big part of my life anyways. But i sort of needed to finish this. Actully I spend most time on the set and I just really got into mallets a few months ago. But I was still mad with the last outcome and got it past 1100 a couple of times. Then I chilled out last month and stopped it for a while. When I thought about speed it was to work on my feet, that are only average.

A couple of weeks ago I got back to the half hour practice and have averaged 1070s to 1080s. But its not like some obsession anymore. I would like Mangini's trad grip record, but if I don't get it the world won't end. Its not as important as honoring guys like Tony Williams and Elvin Jones and figuring out my own style. But if I go back to NAMM it won't be for the visit. If you decide to be in a competition theres nothin wrong with being competitive. Even guys my age don't want unfinished bizness lyin' around. But thanks for the compliments. Boo and Craig and Tim, Randy and Jotan. All good guys with really great skills. Their takin me in has been very cool.

[OZjazzer]

You see, I read all of this. He spends the whole time praising people like Buddy Rich, Portnoy, Flo Mournier, Travis Barker while somehow suggesting than other drummers who don't play fast are somehow inferior and could do better if they worked more on technique. Personally, all of those drummers impress me to some extent (apart from Mike Portnoy, but that's another issue) but not as musicians (aside from Buddy Rich when he stops playing solos and just plays time). Then at the end he asserts that Buddy Rich had a lot of ideas because he had fast hands and feet - that technique is the source of great ideas.

Doubtful.

I mean, how do you explain somebody like Matt Chamberlain? Sure, he's got great chops. But the key thing that separates him from other drummers - and gets him a lot of work - is that he also has great ideas, great tone and a very original and grooving approach to time playing. He doesn't play fast unless the rest of the song is fast. He is the drummer Art Verdi describes who "holds himself back" from his full spread of technique when playing, and he's about 100x better for it.

I agree with Art that proper technique is important and useful. I work pretty hard on that, and yes I use a metronome and clock myself with it. You just won't see me doing that stuff on a stage. I disagree with him that technique automatically conveys merit. Anybody can get technique. That's just practice. The difference between an average drummer and a great drummer is how well that technique gets deployed musically, and practicing fast single strokes quite simply does not develop that skill whatsoever. It's like spending decades getting the strongest little finger that any human has ever had. Sure, you can win in a pinky-wrestling match should some weirdo care to start one. But it's not going to develop anything else particularly useful.

His whole argument basically reduces to "Look! All these great drummers used metronomes! Therefore you're all hypocrites for hating WFD!". He's missing the point. Those great drummers left their metronomes behind when they went out, forgot all the technique licks that they were working on and just played from the heart and played with feel. Technique helped give them the control to do that without fighting with the sticks. WFD is an abomination for me not because it involves using a metronome and clocking yourself, but because it removes music from the equation entirely in favour of pure speed competition. Which as far as I'm concerned is just missing the point on a grand scale. If you want to inspire people to use a metronome and practice, go do some gigs and play some great music in front of people. If the drummers in the audience are impressed, they'll come up and ask how you did it. Then you can talk about metronomes. WFD is just creepy.

Agree totally. Many musicians I know just fall about laughing when they see one of those WFD videos - one guy said "do drummers want to be thought of as musicians or athletes?" It's a good question.

[Ramsh]

Agree totally. Many musicians I know just fall about laughing when they see one of those WFD videos - one guy said "do drummers want to be thought of as musicians or athletes?" It's a good question.
I play only metal, so I can call myelf a metal drummer and it's athletic work, as faster you can play relaxed as better for a 240 bmp blast :)
I don't wanna be a allround drummer yet, I love the physical ability to use my body on drums like an athlete because my body is in shape for that.

[ThomasDee]

I really like the WFD guys but I'm not interested in ever seeing a minute of those last WFD finals. Who wants to see a screwup like that? Let Rees Bridges enjoy it. It was his day not mine and he's a nice guy anyways. I was an idiot at the NAMM finals. I thought I had it and didn't even try to warm up properly. I deserved what happened. Going down 59 strokes. It was rediculous. That won't happen again.

I'm not going to NAMM again unless I am averaging 1100s at home. For the first two weeks when I got back I got away from my usual speed practice of about a half hour a day and got serious about gettin faster. My family just said to forget about it and move on since it never was a big part of my life anyways. But i sort of needed to finish this. Actully I spend most time on the set and I just really got into mallets a few months ago. But I was still mad with the last outcome and got it past 1100 a couple of times. Then I chilled out last month and stopped it for a while. When I thought about speed it was to work on my feet, that are only average.

A couple of weeks ago I got back to the half hour practice and have averaged 1070s to 1080s. But its not like some obsession anymore. I would like Mangini's trad grip record, but if I don't get it the world won't end. Its not as important as honoring guys like Tony Williams and Elvin Jones and figuring out my own style. But if I go back to NAMM it won't be for the visit. If you decide to be in a competition theres nothin wrong with being competitive. Even guys my age don't want unfinished bizness lyin' around. But thanks for the compliments. Boo and Craig and Tim, Randy and Jotan. All good guys with really great skills. Their takin me in has been very cool.
Matt, those feelings are very normal. But all I'm saying is the footage of you is really impressive. I talking footage and looks, excitment, not how one feels or who wins. Come on second place and two world records at WFD World Finals and only 16 years old? That's freaking incredible! You are the first to do all that. Congrats!

My bet is next time you go you will win, but as I have said here before the one main thing about WFD is you can never predict what is gonna happen. Yhou just can't, evertime something different happens. Not sure exactly why that is except that stage just has something about it that is totally different from one's bedroom and the whole nerve factor takes over and boom, it's over before you know it.

Well, it's WFD-UK this weekend and next weekend, Woburn Sands and MusikMesse. There's propbably gonna be some high scores. I think Rees Bridges is the fastest from the UK lot with a 1007. Not sure on Terl Bryant's highest score seems like he had an unofficial 1013 on Richard and Judy Show.

Please if anyone catches any of these WFD-UK events would you be so kind as to pass along some coverage or updates.

TD

[mattsmith]

I play only metal, so I can call myelf a metal drummer and it's athletic work, as faster you can play relaxed as better for a 240 bmp blast :)
I don't wanna be a allround drummer yet, I love the physical ability to use my body on drums like an athlete because my body is in shape for that.
Ramsh, I don't care at all about metal and you probably don't care about my styles of music. But I bet we can agree on this. If these WFD putdown guys were fast, they would have the white WFD t-shirt on their backs quicker than anybody. Its like these trumpet players who say they don't want to play high. Yeah, doin' it all the time is stupid, but if Miles Davis had Maynard Ferguson high chops he would have used them at some time. I used to try to figure why some drummers hated other drummers with speed. Then I thought about it and the answer was pretty obvious. If we have speed then they say "well you didn't get grooves down." If you got speed and grooves then they "well are your speed and grooves in good taste?" If you have all that then they say "is this how drummers want to be seen?" Speed drummers are the only people who are supposed to take a multiple choice test to make bitter people happy. they do this with Art Verdi all the time. Please.

You sure don't need speed to be great. Danny Richmond with the Charles Mingus band had no chops at all but he was awesome. But its not supposed to be evil to use a skill you have or to have fun with it in a event that has nothin' to do with music.

[Ramsh]

Right, right
I play a long time clarinet, on drums I tried a different thing because I play enough march, polka, waltz and other classical music here with our musical society.

WFD is a different thing that's also ture, I'm not impressed by myself and other metalos doing a fast roll on the drumometer because I do it every day on my drumkit.
I impressed by Art Verdi and Tim because they're unique, but it takes a long time to get as good as they are, I respect that

[ed-uk]

Hey guys, Woburn results and pics are in, will be published on the drummerbuzz.com (http://www.drummerbuzz.com) site shortly.

A few good runs in the 900's by Mark McLaughlan, numerous guys hit the late 800s.

A new category for hand drummers was introduced, exciting stuff - we utilised a Remo Acousticon Djembe, tons of laughs all 'round and a good day was had by all.

Attendance was lower than expected taking into account the marketing for the event, but overall it proved a super start for the WFD UK 2006 tour. Loads of new dates will be posted soon.

Ed
WFD UK

[Elvin4ever]

Hey guys, Woburn results and pics are in, will be published on the drummerbuzz.com (http://www.drummerbuzz.com) site shortly.

A few good runs in the 900's by Mark McLaughlan, numerous guys hit the late 800s.

A new category for hand drummers was introduced, exciting stuff - we utilised a Remo Acousticon Djembe, tons of laughs all 'round and a good day was had by all.

Attendance was lower than expected taking into account the marketing for the event, but overall it proved a super start for the WFD UK 2006 tour. Loads of new dates will be posted soon.

Ed
WFD UK
This Mark McLaughlan appears to be a consistent performer, always scoring in the lower/mid 900s. I also notice in the newly posted drummerbuzz photograph, that he utilizes traditional grip, and that his sticks are very, very high. This guy may be another candidate for Art Verdi's assistance. So apparently Reese Bridges remains the class of WFD UK, until Terl Bryant officially steps in again, Nutha starts cracking 1000s, or another top tier professional decides to go for it. Matt, if you go to the UK with your folks this summer, I would love to read about your Reese Bridges grudge match ha,ha.

[Scatman]

The video on Art Verdi's page has his sticks very high also
Art plays a very powerful single roll
What do you mean about Art's assistance?

[ThomasDee]

This Mark McLaughlan appears to be a consistent performer, always scoring in the lower/mid 900s. I also notice in the newly posted drummerbuzz photograph, that he utilizes traditional grip, and that his sticks are very, very high. This guy may be another candidate for Art Verdi's assistance. So apparently Reese Bridges remains the class of WFD UK, until Terl Bryant officially steps in again, Nutha starts cracking 1000s, or another top tier professional decides to go for it. Matt, if you go to the UK with your folks this summer, I would love to read about your Reese Bridges grudge match ha,ha.
A re-match between the USA's Matt Smith and Britian's Rees Bridges would be an awesome event. Great for video!

Maybe it will happen.

TD

[ThomasDee]

Who went to musik messe today? Any WFD news of sorts. Pics, names, scores, etc. ?

TD

[ThomasDee]

For once I may be ahead of the game! I just got this email from Tammy at WFD that has the following first day winning score.

"First day winner is Thomas Sporrer with 856. I have shots of him
being awarded his prize by Simon Phillips. Also have a shot of Steve Lukather
(famous guitar player) trying his hand at the Drumometer."

Pretty cool winning 1st. day of WFD and having Simon Phillips award you the prize! Isn't Steve Lukather the guitar player for 'toto' ? Makes sense I guess since Simon is the drummer, duh! HAHA!

Wonder what Steve's score was? Did any one else from here get pics, etc ? I'll try to get the shot of Simon from their webmaster.

TD

[Ramsh]

Great, I'll see my favourtie band (because of this one drummer's work) at the Musikmesse.
Dimmu Borgir, but first I'll try at WFD

[ThomasDee]

Great, I'll see my favourtie band (because of this one drummer work) at the Musikmesse.
Dimmu Borgir, but first I'll try at WFD
Cool! Hey is Reno Kiillerich (sp?) playing with them? He won the WFD fastest feet a few years back, awesome speed with the feet.

TD

[Ramsh]

Nope, it's Nick Barker and his work on the P.E.M. album, this album started my drum career.
Never heard something like that again

Now they have Hellhammer, don't like him so much

[ThomasDee]

Just in from WFD "Winner for day 2 at MusikMesse was Volker Polo with an 899. BJ Genten was the presenter. Does any one know much about BJ?

OK, NJ, 899 you have to be kicking yourself because you are all over it right? Ramsh what did you claim 1104? BUT who cares right? Looks like if you are anywhere near 1100 you might take the entire event.

Can you do it?

Anybody with news or photos of WFD @ MusikMesse?

TD

[ThomasDee]

Ramsh sounds like a real guy for WFD. I don't think he will get to 1100. But he might get to 1000. He sounds like he's real by the way he talks. I think you can tell stuff like that.
OK, HAHA! I honestly couldn't tell with the whole 1104 BUT who cares comment. Back in the day all these punk kids used to say stuff like WFD is a dying fad but who cares? Kinda of silly stuff like that. Sometimes you still see these kind of silly comments on various boards etc. Most ask if Art Verdi or Tim Yeung can actually play a drumset etc.

Ramsh, I apologize. BUT have to ask are you training or just going in to win the whole event? Or can you tell me really who cares? HAHA

Good luck, I can't wait to hear how you do? :)

TD

[ThomasDee]

RAMSH, did you go? Did you win? How about the hit by hit report of WFD @ Messe? Anybody have anything to report? I think today was the last day and maybe like open to the public. (?)

TD

[ThomasDee]

Ramsh?, come on dude, 1104 or what? Did you go? WFD report or what?

Anybody?

TD

[Ramsh]

Hello everybody, thanks for asking so nicely.
It toook 6 and an half hour to get home at saturday night, so I was a bit sleeping.
However, I didn't win at all, my highest score was 892 and a second guy, I didn't see him had first also 892 and then 954, but I didn't go to the final or whatever it was because first nobody told me a time and I also didn't ask.
They had a few practice pads with rubber for warm up and I was in a good shape after driving a night with train and not more than 3 hours of sleep and I got really fast.

Then I tried on the Drumometer too. ouch, it was very low, never played with my arms almost straight down, I like to play with about a 90 degree angle.
The head had also a low pitch, very very little rebound, so I could do fast for 20 seconds and then I lost the grip and my arms got burning and the last 40 seconds were only fighting to get some strokes together.
So I tried a few times on the drumometer, but I couldn't hold a fast tempo (I wanted 270-280bmp) for 60 seconds.
Now I think why I didn't try to play at 220-240bmp for 60 seconds to get a nice even playing for 60 seconds, but on Saturday I was disappointed, a bit angry too, but I went on and tried cyms, drums, met two Dimmu guys and I'll add a report next :)
See ya, Ramiz

[Ramsh]

My brother got one run on camera:
http://members.linznet.at/contamination/Ramsh835.avi
You can't really see the count, but at the end someone made a photo and there's the count very bright.
I see that I used a stupid position to play 60 seconds.
At the freestyle competition someone got more than 1600 strokes.

[Ramsh]

At the event there was the red remo pad with a black head, I think it's in the package with the Drumometer II.
Here at home I have my good old Remo 10" practice pad, dark blue practice shell and a rubber ring on the underside for tables with a white head.
I forgot to say that the pad in Frankfurt was in a flat angle and I asked for changes, the officials changed the height of the pad, but nothing else got changed.
BJ said "This is life" and I said "I know it's sh*t"
he said "If it is, you would be dead"
I answered "I still live", I wanted to add because of drumming, but he was busy with something.

[mattsmith]

At the event there was the red remo pad with a black head, I think it's in the package with the Drumometer II.
Here at home I have my good old Remo 10" practice pad, dark blue practice shell and a rubber ring on the underside for tables with a white head.
I forgot to say that the pad in Frankfurt was in a flat angle and I asked for changes, the officials changed the height of the pad, but nothing else got changed.
BJ said "This is life" and I said "I know it's sh*t"
he said "If it is, you would be dead"
I answered "I still live", I wanted to add because of drumming, but he was busy with something.
Well, if you go to this link http://www.extremesportdrumming.com/previous/NAMM/winter06/winternamm06.htm there is a picture of me and Jim Kilpatrick the pipe drum champion, at NAMM WFD in Anaheim. The pictures show that Jim likes to play a kinda flat pad. But you can see that they let me compete with the pad at a slanted angle that you would have liked and how most people like. Looks like the European officials didn't know you could do that.

[Ramsh]

Also 954 is a real strong highest score at a final and your 893 is extra good. .

Really? I made a short movie that I actually can play more than 220bmp
http://members.linznet.at/contamination/Ramshat280bpm.avi

Do you have picture and sound?

Thanks Matt for the Infos, Ramsh

[mattsmith]

Hey everybody. I'm gonna post this on the latest WFD thread and the double bass thread. It's the same stuff, but IMO it applies to both threads.

I'm just wondering why the double bass virtuosos of metal don't just take the drumometer test and get it over with. I think there is something kind of fishy here when Tim Waterson goes out on the limb and proves his point with a machine that measures all this exactly, while some of these guys seem to take a different road by letting their fans go out and brag for them instead.

If one guy is supposedly faster post a drumometer vid, then actually attend the contests like everybody else.

If I have learned anything watchin' musicians all my life its how they handle their public images. For instance, some of these guys have people who are kind of like publicity people pass around rumors to get somethin' started.

Now alot of metal guys for instance have strong and good fans but they don't have super gigantic audiences. So alot of these guys aren't rich or anything, so they get some close friends, or a girlfriend or some loyal fans to get things started. Then the guy just says "oh I don't have time to be thinkin' about such things." When this happens alot, its usually them who are feedin' the frenzy. Then when you have a group of fans who are really loyal, its very easy to keep talk like this going.

This isn't just about metal either. They do this in jazz too. It's just the way business is in music that is not at the very top of popularity.

Now, despite what people want to say about how speed isn't important, measurable fast speeds and such are very important in metal. So don't think these big guys don't think about it. After all it really is a big part of what they do.

Not long ago, I was lurking on the Virgil Donati site and saw some guy asked if this known metal drummer ever tried a drumometer since he's one of those guys whose fans insist is the fastest metal drummer. Now this drummer hangs out at that site alot and many of those guys hang on his every word and that's cool. Well, one day he talks about how when he was in top shape he could get 1080 with hands on a drumometer, then said "but WFD and speed times really aren't important to me." I thought this was kinda strange. After all, if its no big deal, why did he quote a drumometer score in the first place?

Well then over several more posts he makes these issues about how music isn't a contest and his fan base from the site supported that. Then I notice a new guy from Detroit chime in and assume that those speed runs probably are important to him since he had mentioned exactly how fast he was before. Then the famous drummer goes off on this guy screaming how WFD wasn't important and how he didn't think in those terms. This was followed by the obvious fan backup.

In other words, speed is not important to me in my metal music, but just in case you want to know here's my speed. Hmmmmm. That came off like code to his fans to please spread this rumor even if I don't officially support it.This kind of stuff is less than honest to me.

Metal guys do care about their speeds and exact speed numbers make them more important in the eyes of their fans which helps them sell stuff, mostly themselves and their bands. There is nothing wrong with being this way.

I just feel that some of these guys should just step in front of their fans for a change and settle the issues once and for all in a measurable way like Tim Yeung did. But you know I don't think this will happen in most cases, since its easier to keep this mystery going and nobody gets hurt except for guys like Tim Waterson who actually stick their neck out.

So until that happens, how can anybody say that the fastest double bass drummer isn't Tim Waterson? He has an actual score and until the rest of these metal guys acheive a score as well, its all just alot of talk. Isn't this the right thing to do?

I have always thought that WFD is often disrespected more by those who are afraid of it and not those who are digusted by it. How many times have we seen on this site a guy say he plays ten million beats a minute, then gets on a drumometer, and instead turns out closer to average.

Is this discussion important within the bigger world of all music? No, of course not. But again, it is a big deal in some outside cases. I mean you go to some of these threads and its like the major topic. So why the mystery? Hey guys, Tim's just standing there and I have never seen him discorage anyone from going after his records a single time.

So why isn't there a line forming? No offense to the heroes of metal, but I wouldn't want to face him either.

[ThomasDee]

Hey everybody. I'm gonna post this on the latest WFD thread and the double bass thread. It's the same stuff, but IMO it applies to both threads.

I'm just wondering why the double bass virtuosos of metal don't just take the drumometer test and get it over with. I think there is something kind of fishy here when Tim Waterson goes out on the limb and proves his point with a machine that measures all this exactly, while some of these guys seem to take a different road by letting their fans go out and brag for them instead.

If one guy is supposedly faster post a drumometer vid, then actually attend the contests like everybody else.

If I have learned anything watchin' musicians all my life its how they handle their public images. For instance, some of these guys have people who are kind of like publicity people pass around rumors to get somethin' started.

Now alot of metal guys for instance have strong and good fans but they don't have super gigantic audiences. So alot of these guys aren't rich or anything, so they get some close friends, or a girlfriend or some loyal fans to get things started. Then the guy just says "oh I don't have time to be thinkin' about such things." When this happens alot, its usually them who are feedin' the frenzy. Then when you have a group of fans who are really loyal, its very easy to keep talk like this going.

This isn't just about metal either. They do this in jazz too. It's just the way business is in music that is not at the very top of popularity.

Now, despite what people want to say about how speed isn't important, measurable fast speeds and such are very important in metal. So don't think these big guys don't think about it. After all it really is a big part of what they do.

Not long ago, I was lurking on the Virgil Donati site and saw some guy asked if this known metal drummer ever tried a drumometer since he's one of those guys whose fans insist is the fastest metal drummer. Now this drummer hangs out at that site alot and many of those guys hang on his every word and that's cool. Well, one day he talks about how when he was in top shape he could get 1080 with hands on a drumometer, then said "but WFD and speed times really aren't important to me." I thought this was kinda strange. After all, if its no big deal, why did he quote a drumometer score in the first place?

Well then over several more posts he makes these issues about how music isn't a contest and his fan base from the site supported that. Then I notice a new guy from Detroit chime in and assume that those speed runs probably are important to him since he had mentioned exactly how fast he was before. Then the famous drummer goes off on this guy screaming how WFD wasn't important and how he didn't think in those terms. This was followed by the obvious fan backup.

In other words, speed is not important to me in my metal music, but just in case you want to know here's my speed. Hmmmmm. That came off like code to his fans to please spread this rumor even if I don't officially support it.This kind of stuff is less than honest to me.

Metal guys do care about their speeds and exact speed numbers make them more important in the eyes of their fans which helps them sell stuff, mostly themselves and their bands. There is nothing wrong with being this way.

I just feel that some of these guys should just step in front of their fans for a change and settle the issues once and for all in a measurable way like Tim Yeung did. But you know I don't think this will happen in most cases, since its easier to keep this mystery going and nobody gets hurt except for guys like Tim Waterson who actually stick their neck out.

So until that happens, how can anybody say that the fastest double bass drummer isn't Tim Waterson? He has an actual score and until the rest of these metal guys acheive a score as well, its all just alot of talk. Isn't this the right thing to do?

I have always thought that WFD is often disrespected more by those who are afraid of it and not those who are digusted by it. How many times have we seen on this site a guy say he plays ten million beats a minute, then gets on a drumometer, and instead turns out closer to average.

Is this discussion important within the bigger world of all music? No, of course not. But again, it is a big deal in some outside cases. I mean you go to some of these threads and its like the major topic. So why the mystery? Hey guys, Tim's just standing there and I have never seen him discorage anyone from going after his records a single time.

So why isn't there a line forming? No offense to the heroes of metal, but I wouldn't want to face him either.

Fabulous post Matt! You are so observant much past your 16 years. As Boo always tells us, "Ahhh, sometimes it can be a very obscene site when one peeks into the castle and sees just how little clothing the emperor is actually wearing."

WFD is not for emperors with skimpy clothing. WFD and Drumometer have a distinctive way of undressing the self proclaimed kings in front of the public and especially their fans. The problem is they are not really kings as Waterson and Yeung truly are. Remember it is much easier to shoot the king than to be the king.

TD

[mattsmith]

Not only what you say, but it is a big put down to read "Oh I heard that Michigan kid scored 1061 at WFD and claims to be hitting 1100s now," but my hero would never go so low as go on a stupid WFD. But if he did he would smoke the kid blah, blah." If I get to Austin and have the chops to get near or past Mangini's trad grip record, I don't want to hear this stuff, and I don't think I'm supposed to have to.

I can deal with the "he probably can't be musical on a set" garbage which is usually the next thing that is said. Those people don't know what they are talkin' about and you can learn alot from Art Verdi by the way he just ignores those people. But a person certainly doesn't have to listen to some person's silly speed opinions when there is a machine right there sayin' something definite.

[linzstef]

Anybody around the UK as fast as Mike Mangini, Johnny Rabb and Art Verdi?
yes stefan khacheturian british record holder for single stroke rolls,

[averypoordrummer]

I worked out yesterday that the fastest I can play single stroke rolls (relaxed) is 720 strokes a minute, or 16th note triplets at 120bpm for a whole minute.

Thats so much faster than i thought i could manage so I was well pleased, especailly because I've only been playing a year and a bit.

When I finally become more comfortable with the free stroke i'll be keen to see what I can get.

[averypoordrummer]

YEAH! finally hit 756bpm! i can't believe it, gladstone technique seems to be coming on!

[Mediocrefunkybeat]

It's a good technique, no? I find it frustrating that most of rudiments are up to scratch, for me at least. I nailed paradiddles at 180 the other day- but my single strokes just simply refuse to progress. Don't worry, I'm not going to ask for advice, there are hundreds of other threads dedicated to that; but the single strokes have such a hugely different feel to them compared to say doubles. I love doubles.

[averypoordrummer]

It's a good technique, no?

yeah its a cracking technique, just nearly impossible to master, i doubt i ever will, but im happy with my current speed.

iv just started working on finger technique and i can do 8th note triplets at 132bpm with just my right hand but not my left. as soon as i get it with my left i'll be able to play 16th note triplets at 132bpm. thats 792 bpm, i'll be well chuffed if i get that.

i can't play 16th notes very fast though, only at about 180bpm max, and only in short bursts.

i find playing triplets quickly much easier, duuno why.

[mattsmith]

yes stefan khacheturian british record holder for single stroke rolls,
No he isn't. Khacheturian has been discredited by just about everybody. He uses a cheap variation of a drumometer to judge himself that has no relationship with WFD. Now this guy goes all over the UK with this thing claiming he does this or that. He was even claiming that his 1054? single stroke score was a world record. All that stuff's a joke. He has no affiliation with WFD UK whatsoever and they're the only guys legally capable of verifying UK records. His claims were even corrected on Wikipedia.

Besides if he wanted to become official, all he would have to do is appear at any number of WFD UK events. But he doesn't seem to want to do that. I wonder why?

The current UK speed drumming record holder is Rees Bridges at a very strong 1007.

Since my involvement with speed drumming 9 months ago, I have been amazed by both the fakers who will do anything to be called the fastest and the ones who say speed doesn't matter, but try to get others to tell people how fast they are while they pretend to be something else. I think if WFD could get rid of the fakers and the hypocrites, people would leave it alone.

[mattsmith]

Well, I've narrowed it down to three possibilities: Travis Barker, Joey Jordison or Danny Carey... which one do you reckon it is ;)



I get this. I really do. And as an environment I can really, really see the merits of this. But similarly, I think that the structure for the whole enterprise is just plain wrong. As you said, you've got an insane amount of attention for this. Why? Because it's an easy hook - the World's Fastest Drummer! - and it's pretty memorable. That hooky concept is what people remember, and what people think of.



I'm going to say it.

Let's try to turn this around. Are you going to say that a guitarist with strong technique isn't going to come up with a great part to fit any piece of music? I certainly am. You wouldn't believe how many "shredders" I've played with in my time - particularly at music school. You see them in the practice room and all they do is practice blazingly fast double-picked scales and arpeggios ALL DAY. Eight, nine hours... they're still at it. Then you do a live performance with them and something like "The thrill is gone" by BB King gets called. They fluff the entire tune, rush incessantly, miss chord changes, forget their place, and then when the solo comes along... they undo that top button on their shirt and SHRED - horribly, inappropriately, and until they realise that they've over-run the solo by four bars and the singer has already come back in.

Don't get me wrong, their fingers look great flying everywhere. And while they're busting out the stuff they've actually practiced then they have a lot of fire and energy. But as expressive musicians they utterly, utterly suck. And I've seen some guys like that in bands, too, and the parts that they write are hideously sophomoric - chord progressions are tailored to whatever they can shred over in the most impressive manner, and their understanding of rhythm is frequently just plain dodgy.

Sorry, but technique is a very, very small part of what makes up a musician. Sure, without good technique it's hard to play a good-sounding consistent groove. And sometimes I find timing or co-ordinational issues that are down to technical problems and I have to practice to correct them. But technique alone? Useless.



Anybody who takes away the idea from the Kenny Werner book that they don't need to practice is clearly illiterate. The whole idea of the book from my reading was to present an approach to practicing that negates common obstacles caused by ego or depression sourced from an excessive personal entanglement with your own playing, and therefore delivers more effective results. OK, it was a touch heavy on the hippy claptrap, but that didn't stop it having some excellent points.

And if you think that establishing a groove is a function of chops alone then I'm going to have to feel a little sad about that. Building a groove requires control of your limbs - that's the chops bit - but beyond that it's all about ears, taste and musical understanding.



I don't believe people lack respect for drummers. But if you haven't noticed whole styles of music evolving with drummers replaced by machines then I'd suggest your jazz background may be affecting your perspective. Quite simply, drummers are *expensive*. At a time when the trend in the recording industry is away from major studios and towards a lot more home-based recording drummers are becoming a very expensive thing to accommodate - we're basically the only thing in a home studio that requires more than four good preamp channels and a couple of nice microphones.

If we can be replaced for many recordings by software costing less than it costs to buy the gear to record us then it absolutely will happen. Here's the thing, while people enjoy watching drummers I don't think generally speaking we deserve a lot of respect from a general musicianship point of view. Outside jazz, how many drummers are there who are renowned band leaders or songwriters?

We have to keep ourselves valuable to other musicians, and basically my view is that as the technology evolves we have to keep on top of that - we have to be able to use it, and to do what it does ourselves. That does require a lot of technique, but we also have to convince other people we're not just obsessed with spending years learning to do something they can program in 30 seconds flat.



It doesn't. But I do feel it cheapens the image of drummers as creative musicians, which is already a pretty poor one to be honest. This at a time when drummers need to be raising our profile in this respect to avoid losing yet more paid work to keyboard players and software developers.

The next big style will be along sometime soon. I don't know what it will be, but I hope drummers are involved in it - unlike so many times in the last 20 years. We really, really missed the boat with hip-hop, similarly there's very little live dance music featuring drummers. If you're worried about where YOU are supposed to earn income from then WFD might have some potential, but if you're worried about where drummers as a whole are going to be earning it from then having us publically represented by a competition for who can wiggle their fingers the fastest is probably a go-nowhere idea. You reckon that's going to entice any aspiring hip-hop acts to go "Hey, why don't we get one of those drummer guys?".

It's not. If they get one it's probably more down to somebody like ?uestlove, who would probably lose a WFD singles drum-off with ME, for crying out loud. And last time I checked I don't clock any faster than 820. No offence to Mike or Art, but I think he's a much more positive force for drummers as a whole standing a chance of getting profitable gigs in a popular style than they are - he makes drummers cool to a whole lot of people who might actually hire us.

1. Finn there isn't a 6th grade drummer on the planet who pieces together the Ludwig rudiment book with any of those drum star guys. Your'e off on that.

2. Finn, like alot of good guys who don't get this, your'e all tied up in the stereotype stuff. You know I think one of the best technical drummers ever was Shelly Manne. You know he had all that stuff because he showed it with the early Stan Kenton thing. But his best grooves and his best most beloved playing was the brush work when he held back. But you know you can just hear that little thing in his use of space that showed what control and domination he had over his instrument and he did that with little brushes playing kinda soft. About your guitars, people say Wes Montgomery had lots of chops but chose not to show them for the same reason. Morello could do that too back in the day when he wasn't showing off.

3. Technique/groove. The same can be said for the new thought sweeping the planet that says my interpretation of a good groove can substitute for ALL things. No chops at all is nothing and I think people in their hearts know that.

4. Sadness issue. Aaaaarrgh...Finn, you knew perfectly well what my point was. Supposedly my musical understandings are pretty decent for my age. Again another stereotype.

5. Drummers obsolete and expense That didn't happen for any other reason than that the drummer of the 60s and 70s was usually the worst behaved and worst to control in the band. In that part I agree. But we as drummers share the responsibility for that problem. In regards to my jazz perspective, I think jazz drummers survived because they made themselves indispensible. I think our metal brothers have learned that lesson too.

Why do we have to be on all the time? There are people in my house who know about professional wrestling. Its just a fun diversion. So is this. You ought go to one sometime. They're a blast and the little kids go nuts. Good clean family fan. And yaw the girls all wear clothes (lol).

[theduke86]

I thought I'd post this here too. I think it's relevant to both....also in DB thread.

WFD isn't this alien terrible concept, or the second coming of Satan like Matt says. I actually think a lot of good can come from WFD. We got a drumometer at school, and it pushed my peers and even my teacher harder. It turned into a little competition to work on hand rudiments, not just singles. The first time, I went in there with my bud who's a drum corps guy and played singles and doubles for a minute. For singles, I tested around 930 in a minute, he tested in the low 800's. For doubles, he was almost at 1000. I don't want to give public description of my score because I didn't score as well. My endurance isn't where it should be.
Anyways, the central point is that after that, I went home and shedded doubles a little while, went back three weeks later and scored quite a bit better. That sort of thing is very healthy. I didn't kill myself with trying to get better than my bud, but it was nice for a little healthy competition. That's why I think WFD can be healthy in some ways. Matt, it certainly hasn't hurt you. Or Mangini, or Rabb, or Jotan or whatever ape-freak drummer man! Those guys are all great players. I think the bad thing is when people become totally consumed in speed and use it just to be speedy. I have known guys who just blastbeat all day. I hate that sort of stuff- they're just trying to get past 250 bpm or whatever, it's pretty ridiculous. nevermind playing any sort of music, they're just shedding metal speed chops. I don't like that kind of jibber-jabber. As Finn said, this turns into the same thing with metal guitarists. I hate it.
Now Finn, in regards to the Werner book (which I read and liked) it seems that everyone takes something from it. I think you, as an example, would get much more out of it- you're a more mature musician and person than most people and you'd definetly benefit from it. Some of the ideas discussed in the Werner book seem very esoteric to me. I don't know if anyone's familiar with Abraham Maslow, but it seems like his hierarchy of needs idea... Before you worry about say, self actualisation or something, it makes a lot more sense to worry about getting food to eat for dinner. Same thing applies here. If you don't have the chops... let me rephrase. If you don't have the abillity (who gives a shite about fast snare technique or whatever) it's not going to matter if you truly realise that competition is a weakness among musicians. I think Effortless Mastery is more a philosophical treatise for the already strong musician. Like Matt said, there are SO many people I know who read that book and then turn it into an excuse not to practice at all. It's that whole "hip cat" thing, if you're into Werner, then you never need to run scales. There's a player (who plays a lot around town here for a variety of reasons, very little to do with good musicianship) who's very, very into this book and turns it into an excuse not to do anything. Because practicing is a sorts of competition, right? At least, that's what he tells me. I want to tell him to start running major scale patterns in thirds because he's not clean anymore.
However, this isn't to diminish the worth of the Werner book... to bring up a historical situation, it reminds me of Neitzche's "Superman" ideas being corrupted into Nazism. Not that I'm making a direct comparison between the two situations, just pointing out the similarites; a subjective well informed philosophy that's been corrupted and applied wrongly by evildoers. Except this new "Ubermensch" listens to only free jazz (not that there's ANYTHING wrong with free stuff), wears berets, carries bongos around everywhere, has a stupid goatee, smokes pot a lot and waxes philosophical about situations they are not aware about. That's why some view Effortless Mastery as bad. I'm now the Matt Smith apologist, haha.

[finnhiggins]

1. Finn there isn't a 6th grade drummer on the planet who pieces together the Ludwig rudiment book with any of those drum star guys. Your'e off on that.


As somebody who initially started studying drums seriously because Danny Carey (and indeed, there's another in the thread) I'd suggest that no, I'm not off. I've also had any number of students initially approach me asking about rudiments after reading interviews with Travis Barker, too. OK, so those kids don't learn the rudiments from those guys, but they provide the motivation to get it done and they do talk up clean rudimental playing in interviews. I'd suggest that it's more likely you're going to end up with a kid motivated to learn clean rudiments from Travis Barker, John Theodore or Danny Carey than Tommy Lee or Dave Grohl, which might explain the current upwelling of cleaner rudiments in the younger generation of players. Keep in mind the fact that I'm seeing this here in New Zealand too, and we have no WFD here whatsoever. So I don't buy your reasoning.


2. Finn, like alot of good guys who don't get this, your'e all tied up in the stereotype stuff. You know I think one of the best technical drummers ever was Shelly Manne. You know he had all that stuff because he showed it with the early Stan Kenton thing. But his best grooves and his best most beloved playing was the brush work when he held back. But you know you can just hear that little thing in his use of space that showed what control and domination he had over his instrument and he did that with little brushes playing kinda soft. About your guitars, people say Wes Montgomery had lots of chops but chose not to show them for the same reason. Morello could do that too back in the day when he wasn't showing off.

The existence of a number of tasteful players with chops does not prove that chops make a player tasteful. It merely proves that the two are not mutually exclusive, given the right approach. I don't deny technical players can be tasty, and I don't deny tasty players can be technical. But I do deny that technicality has anything to do with MAKING you tasteful, and it can be a major distraction from learning to be because the ego comes into play and you want to "show your stuff".


No chops at all is nothing and I think people in their hearts know that.


Right, but it's a long way from "No chops = bad" to WFD.


4. Sadness issue. Aaaaarrgh...Finn, you knew perfectly well what my point was. Supposedly my musical understandings are pretty decent for my age. Again another stereotype.


No stereotype, I was just responding to how I read what you wrote. If I misunderstood then I apologise.


5. Drummers obsolete and expense That didn't happen for any other reason than that the drummer of the 60s and 70s was usually the worst behaved and worst to control in the band. In that part I agree. But we as drummers share the responsibility for that problem. In regards to my jazz perspective, I think jazz drummers survived because they made themselves indispensible. I think our metal brothers have learned that lesson too.

Only live. On record metal drumming is much easier to replace with sampled drums than almost any other style, because ever since Fear Factory metal listeners have become very comfortable with hearing (triggered) sampled drums on their records. Again, I refer you to "Catch 33" by Meshuggah. All programmed. By the guitarist.

But I think my point flew by a little. Drummers have become a minority thing in dance music and hip-hop not because of attitudes of rock star band drummers. There were all manner of technical reasons (acoustics for a start - it is hard to mix live drums with electronic music without a full miking spread, while a DJ can work with just technology and go straight into the PA), musical reasons (electronic beats SOUND GOOD) and so forth that drove that particular revolution. It was always going to happen. Just like amplifiers made bands able to play bigger venues with less musicians the music technology that started becoming available in the 80s made it easier to get drum sounds without an actual drummer.

Now we have to justify our place a bit more. We're never going to be entirely obselete, but how big a slice of the pie we have is certainly down to us and how we approach music. I personally think that WFD is really, really bad marketing in this respect.

[finnhiggins]

I think Effortless Mastery is more a philosophical treatise for the already strong musician. Like Matt said, there are SO many people I know who read that book and then turn it into an excuse not to practice at all. It's that whole "hip cat" thing, if you're into Werner, then you never need to run scales. There's a player (who plays a lot around town here for a variety of reasons, very little to do with good musicianship) who's very, very into this book and turns it into an excuse not to do anything. Because practicing is a sorts of competition, right?


Well, if he tries to pull that out again then you might care to ask him for me why exactly Werner would bother to write an entire chapter on practice methodology if you're not supposed to practice...

What I took away from it was simply that practicing can and should be designed to be personally rewarding and fulfilling rather than just ticking off boxes on a list. I must admit that after reading the book I stripped my practice routine down to almost nothing - but, as a result, I've been doing on average double the amount of practice I was doing beforehand, including a lot of stuff that used to be on the list that I never got done. Basically I took his core advice to be to focus on quality rather than quantity - and he's right, in that by boosting the quality of my practice of the most extreme basics (single stroke rolls at 50-60bpm, say) I'm finding that the practice on actual pieces I do subsequent to this sees me much more able to concentrate on tiny details of timing, deliberate technique and articulation that I was missing before.

He's also very right on the issue of personal attachment to your playing. I do, personally, find it very easy to get depressed on playback when I hear all of my mistakes that I didn't realise were happening. I've only been fired from a job (a non-musical one, in this case) once in my life, and that didn't depress me even slightly compared to how much a bad take can. So I do see his point that negative, fear-based practicing can actually be detrimental because it builds up this antagonism towards practicing. His book was great for me in that it helped me find a way to get back to enjoying practicing the drums, while simultaneously improving the quality of focus I was dedicating to it. In the past I've found that quality of focus and enjoyment have often been somewhat mututally exclusive.

That's not to say the book was any kind of magic bullet, merely that it has spurred a line of thinking that I've found quite productive so far.

[mattsmith]

The existence of a number of tasteful players with chops does not prove that chops make a player tasteful. It merely proves that the two are not mutually exclusive, given the right approach. I don't deny technical players can be tasty, and I don't deny tasty players can be technical. But I do deny that technicality has anything to do with MAKING you tasteful, and it can be a major distraction from learning to be because the ego comes into play and you want to "show your stuff".
Right, but it's a long way from "No chops = bad" to WFD.

This is an irony I think. WFD supporters have been saying that as you say given the right approach speed and musicianship are not mutually exclusive, and one of the most intelligent WFD detracters makes the point for us. Thanks man. This is a big first step. usually the ones who don't like it just say "shut up you're stupid, die, die," or somethin' like that. This has been a breakthrough in how the debate can be run as far as I'm concerned.

See Finn, when you go to other forums the speed does not equal musicality people are usually guys my age who just bought their first Vinnie CD, or just realized that Bonham is better than Travis, a close minded teacher who hasn't heard anything new in 20 years, a dumb college freshman tryin' to impress the student a year older who impresses him with big talk and all that. They really only say that because they want to show off that they now realize that letters can make words.

Then there are the guys like you who I think are super influenced by the show biz part. I agree with you about how you think. If this thing came in a different box, I think smart guys like you might give it a different look. See, I think you're fair and you can tell by the way you show yourself that you are a super good musician. I think its too bad that the girls and the website put you off.

Then there is the largest group. The I don't have these skills and I'm mad people. There the ones who claim WFD competitors are little bugs with no brains, and they say it because they wish they could do it. I believe that most WFD haters are actually metal guys who are mad that they can't cut it. They are the ones who use the real elementary arguments and they're always real loud, 'cause they want to be a part of it but can't.
When I see a guy from some band called Eat My Intestines or somethin' stupid like that, try to talk to me about musicianship and slam WFD, you just have to laugh.

Remember elvin4ever? I used to pm him alot. He was kinda like this teacher from that old TV show Kung Fu. He said "never stop tryin' to figure out music by remembering that for every two sides to discussion there are the 1000 other sides that you will find out about later, and the guy arguing with you most times doesn't want to know that anyway." That was like breakthrough for a guy like me with alot to learn.

I agree of course that you have to be in the correct mind, develop listening skills, have music in your head and all that. And from what I have seen from the main WFD guys they all have that. And I'll tell you somethin' else I think Weckl for instance often fails there where guys like Art Verdi succeed. Gettin' back to the Shelly Manne thing. His chops were so together that he could play technicle or show space if you chose. Of course his mind was already in the right place so he chose space.

I want the skills to have the choice. I don't want to be a guy callin' myself deep pockets, when all I'm really doin' is tryin' to fool people that I have thought out my reasons for not having skills. That's the emporer with no clothes deal, and I think many WFD haters are these people.

[Tex12]

Hey Matt:
In what way does Art Verdi suceed and Dave Weckl fails?
I'm lost on this

[mattsmith]

Hey Matt:
In what way does Art Verdi suceed and Dave Weckl fails?
I'm lost on this
It's a fair question Tex. IMO and just IMO, I think Weckl became so much of a chops hound that he is cold. He lacks the immediate emotion to play well with other members of his band. And his chops make him selfish about what they really need.

Not even Buddy Rich had a shut up and listen to me band. His playing made the whole group sound better. When I hear Weckl I am thinking that he feels like he can suck the blood out of anyone he plays with. He even tried this with Chick Corea. I mean you had a great one like Pattatucci standing next to him on bass and Weckl wouldn't even let him have any space. I also think this is one reason why people think he is a great player but don't always like his music that much.

Not the same with Art, who has great rep with band members as a unselfish groover who only uses his chops to help his band memebers. Everybody sees the videos of him playing at his house and they think that's all there is, or they already made up their mind because of what they already thought about WFD before.

[finnhiggins]

This is an irony I think. WFD supporters have been saying that as you say given the right approach speed and musicianship are not mutually exclusive, and one of the most intelligent WFD detracters makes the point for us. Thanks man. This is a big first step.


I don't think anybody with eyes can claim anything else. Vinnie has enormous technique and he has a lot to offer beyond speed. Ditto Tony Williams. Or Joe Morello. Or, as you suggested, Shelly Manne. The issue is not whether becoming faster is necessarily detrimental, it's really more one of asking whether a certain structure of technical development is the best one for bringing out musicianship in young players.


usually the ones who don't like it just say "shut up you're stupid, die, die," or somethin' like that. This has been a breakthrough in how the debate can be run as far as I'm concerned.


Well, I don't want to pull out any particularly nasty generalisations... but it's not usually the best idea to debate serious subjects with people who're capable of taking metal too seriously. Don't get me wrong, I love the music and I find it downright hilarious lyrically. But it does seem that the smarter the metal fan the less they tend to take it too seriously - see Devin Townsend as an example.

Since WFD is an actual practical test of an argument (IMHO a really, really stupid one) that has been going on in the extreme metal drumming community for years - who is faster - it is always going to attract people from that spectrum when you have discussions on it, and they're not always capable of being too coherant. Sometimes you do just have to give up ;)


Then there are the guys like you who I think are super influenced by the show biz part. I agree with you about how you think. If this thing came in a different box, I think smart guys like you might give it a different look.


Well, yeah. Change the name, remove the emphasis on speed and "extreme sport drumming" and make it an educational event rather than a competitive one. That'd do it for me - hell, I'd probably want to be involved! But it's kind of hard to say that I've been blinded by the show-biz part when in reality the event has named itself "World's Fastest Drummer", has a ranking leaderboard, videos of people cheering some guy playing a pad for 60 seconds at ludicrous speed and so forth. You get upset by guys like Derek Roddy sending in tapes to WFD and then later turning around and saying "Actually, I don't care about speed!". For me that's not too far different from having a competition and then immediately turning around later and saying "Actually, it's all about education"... see what I mean? If it's about education and inspiration, make it about education and inspiration. If it's about competing, make it about competing. See what I mean?


See, I think you're fair and you can tell by the way you show yourself that you are a super good musician. I think its too bad that the girls and the website put you off.


There are girls? I may have to reconsider my stance here...


When I see a guy from some band called Eat My Intestines or somethin' stupid like that, try to talk to me about musicianship and slam WFD, you just have to laugh.


Right. But then, I have the same issue with WFD - as referenced above. If you're about education, educate. If you're about being a competition to see who is the fastest then be a competition. But I don't think it's really fair to 100% market and present yourself as "we're a competition" and then turn around and say "No, it's about education!" when challenged on that particular part. I think the idea of a competition for speed is possibly less related to music than a band like Cannibal Corpse is to musicality. But it's clearly a pretty close-run thing.


I agree of course that you have to be in the correct mind, develop listening skills, have music in your head and all that. And from what I have seen from the main WFD guys they all have that. And I'll tell you somethin' else I think Weckl for instance often fails there where guys like Art Verdi succeed.


But on the inverse, guys like Art Verdi have so far failed where Weckl has succeeded - in getting themselves down on high-profile recordings for people to make judgements about. My main problem with Art is that for every posting I've read praising him as a great, tasteful jazz player I've seen precisely zero examples of him doing great, tasteful jazz playing. It's kind of hard to verify such claims at this stage, because all we have are horrible, horrible sounding videos of him playing frighteningly unmusical stuff in his living room.


Gettin' back to the Shelly Manne thing. His chops were so together that he could play technicle or show space if you chose. Of course his mind was already in the right place so he chose space.


We've got a lot of agreement here. We clearly do both agree that there are two entirely separate parts that go into making up an extremely capable musician:

1) Technical control
2) Musical ideas, taste, restraint and big ears.

I'll go back to my money analogy on this one. #1 is like money. #2 is what you can do with your money. I'll give you a little compare-and-contrast here by outlining two people. They're both real, but I won't name one of them for fear of legal action ;)

1) A man who has made a lot of money in a hurry. He's one of those seminar junkies, the kind of people who go along to every one of those "THE SECRETS THE RICH DON'T TELL YOU!" type events. He's so inspired by one of these that he decides to get rich himself... by starting a seminar company. He markets extremely aggressively, sells people stuff that is basically just common sense for several thousand dollars an pop over the weekend. Thanks to the old high-pressure, intensive approach taken by the likes of the Landmark Forum (run over a weekend, tire people to exhaustion and keep telling them you have the answers... magically, after a while they start believing you) he wins a lot of converts. He charges $2000 an hour just to have a casual chat with him and get his advice. He gets rich. Quite quickly. What does he do with his wealth? He buys the cheapest Porche, as soon as he can afford to. He wears big, chunky gold chains and rings. He buys a big expensive SUV. He buys tacky houses and puts framed Playboy covers on the walls.

2) Another man who has made a lot of money in a hurry. Mark Shuttleworth, this time - I pick him because I have a great deal of respect for what he's done, and he's astonishingly rich given his background - much richer than the unnamed guy above. He founded an internet company (Thawte, who were a big part of the growth of digital certificates - used in security for e-commerce) in 1995, when he was what... 22? Four years later he sold it to Verisign for about 3.5bn Rand (he's South African). Again, got rich very fast. Since then he's been into space (he paid the Russians to take him up), and has ploughed his money back into a venture capital / business incubator firm, an excellent free Linux distribution (http://www.ubuntu.org) and a whole bunch of very responsible community/education efforts in South Africa.

Now, if you compare those two approaches in life the conclusion that stands out, to me, is that the guy who has both made more money and achieve much more in life (at a younger age, too) is the guy who was primarily driven by what he wanted to do, and the money came as needed and is then dispersed into other things that he wants to do. The world is a richer place as a whole because of guys like this - they bring things to the rest of us, and they get rewarded for it.

Then you have the other guy. His motivation is quite clearly just making money. And all he can think to do with it is tacky, showy, lowest-common-denominator junk. Frankly, the world would be a better place if this guy just had nothing, he doesn't achieve anything other than More Money all the time and he'll never do anything socially meaningful with it.

My issue with WFD is that it is more "The secrets the fast don't tell you", fast-for-the-sake-of-fast than it is about people having specific ideas that they want to achieve and working towards those goals, hand in hand with the technical development required to achieve them. I don't think it is a good idea to be imbalanced as a musician - all technique and no expressive ideas is no good, all expressive ideas and no ability to execute them is no good. But when I see Art Verdi seemingly arguing that good technique CAUSES idea development (not my experience!) then I get quite worried about WFD. It seems too close to the "You should make money because you deserve to be rich" school of thinking, rather than the "Hey, I have this great idea I want to bring to the world" one which actually results in people getting better results in the long run... and inflicting less obnoxious, tasteless junk on the world!

Sorry for the epic rant, but that's how I tend to see it all. Does that make a degree of sense?

[OZjazzer]

Finn that's a very well put argument and not surprisingly I agree with it lock stock and barrel. However Matt, who is one of my favourite people is also a formidable opponent so don't let your guard down.

My (biased) musician mates still think that clip of Mike Magini 'winning' should be on World's Funniest Videos. But I've been in the ***** over this issue before for saying what I think. But well done Finn, If this was a competition debate I think you have the edge.

By the way guys wasn't Shelley Manne famous for 'never' practising and only having very ordinary chops, but a fabulous musical sense. Mel Lewis was another. I still admire the much copied Shelley Manne drumming on Peggy Lee's famous recording of 'Fever". Evidently it was just ad-libbed as part of a normal three hour call where they recorded four other finished takes of other songs as well. Now that's my idea of 'fast' drumming.

[finnhiggins]

No rant at all. This is maybe the smartest WFD debate in history, and it aint me bein' the smart one. Like alot of boxers out there, I'm just counter punching.


Mate, I can assure you that you are being the smart one. I'm enjoying this massively, firstly because when it comes to discussing reasons for involvement and achievement we're not actually talking abstracts - you've been there, done that and your results speak for themselves - I'm the one watching your TV spots, remember. But I do think this is an interesting topic that goes to crux of what interests me about music, and I'd rather be having this conversation with you than almost anybody because you're taking a very informed path in an opposing direction.


Let me ask you this Finn. What do you do for a living? The reason I ask is that I bet it isn't music. I bet you have some decent payin' day gig that makes you comfortable so you can do your music like you like. And theres nothin' wrong with that. In fact in some ways its smart. But see I want to do this full time. There really isn't anything besides this that interests me right now and to be honest my grades could be alot better. IMO, with all respect I think its easy to talk about sell out stuff when its not your main income.


I quite agree. And you're right, I'm not a full-time musician. I'm self-employed and my income arrives from a variety of sources - I write for magazines, I design and develop web sites, teach drummers and do drum programming for singer-songwriters. And play drums, but that's basically bonus income rather than core - there's not a lot of money going here unless you're willing to go aggressively after the corporate market, and fundementally I'd rather work on things that appeal to me on another level. So while a good 50% of my time goes on my drumming and playing with other musicians it's certainly nowhere near 50% of my income.

But my argument here is not about selling out. I have no arguments with any musical project for financial gain. I won't curse Aaron Spears for playing with Usher, or even Charlie Adams for Yanni. Actually, in all honesty, my argument is more along the lines that I'd imagine you'd be wanting to consider if you're into this line of work for life. More on this in a second.


Yeah, music is art, but if don't think on at least some stage that it's also buziness, then you won't be in it very long, or you will be in it for awhile before you find out you're manager ripped you off. The main part of this is that somebody just made some money. Why shouldn't be the actual deserved person?


Right. I get this. But my questions about WFD and money are twofold:

1) Are they doing anything to help enlarge the overall pool of money available to drummers?
2) Is the pool of money that is going towards WFD warranted given the skills required to achieve in that particular field?

Now, without an accurate study (which off the top of my head I'd have no idea how to do) it's impossible to judge on the first. But let me return to a subject that has been discussed heavily on the jazz thread: Wynton.

Wynton is greatly disliked by a lot of people in the jazz community, because it is felt that he both has an unfair market share given his merits and that he controls that market share in a way that diminishes the income available to other jazz musicians - that his public profile is damaging to jazz as a whole. He does not enlarge the market for other people, yet he is enriching himself in the process.

Is that also true of the WFD structure? Here's my question about income: What are we, as drummers? Are we:

1) "Traps the wonder drummer", who can wow crowds with his amazing stick tricks; or
2) Musicians, who can contribute creatively to music in the same way that other instrumentalists do.

If the answer is #1 then WFD might be doing useful marketing in enlarging the market. The problem is, that market hasn't actually been big enough to support a good living for an industry of any size from the general public since my grandmother's time. If it supports anybody's living (Mangini, for example) it does that off the backs of drummers who hold down other jobs and pay to see his clinics. Not particularly sustainable in the long term, because it relies on other drummers to enlarge the market - at the moment, that's guys like Travis Barker and Joey Jordison. Fundementally that makes drumming a net cost to drummers rather than something that can be a reliable job: it removes the "those who can, do" part from the "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach" part from the equation.

It the answer is #2 then we have as good a chance as anybody at making money from the actual music industry, rather than the entertainment-for-musicians industry. In that situation we have a certain pool of work available to us: Any situation where percussion is used on a recording or in a performance. That means that while we have a current slice of the market, a HUGE portion of the money that could otherwise be ours is going to DJs, keyboard players and so forth - people who've learned the technology and have made a better case for their employment than we have. This ratio could go either way from now on, depending on trends in popular music: We could become a larger part of the wider music market (as we have as a result of the whole Strokes/White Stripes rock-revival movement) or we can become a smaller one (as happened with the growth of dance and hip-hop as popular forms, sans drummers).

Personally I think the best option going for drummers in terms of enlarging the market is to insinuate ourselves into popular music, everywhere. I think what Jojo Mayer has been doing is a spectacularly good idea, even if he's a few years out of date with his style now: If a style comes along that features strong rhythm but predominantly does not feature drummers, start a band playing that style and show other musicians that drummers can do the job better than the machines can. Ditto ?uestlove, or Matt Chamberlain - they've both been making great inroads in showing that drummers can do everything a DJ or programmer can do and more, and they've been making good money at it. That kind of thing works to expand our market by making sales to the people who make the decision about who gets the "Drum money" - a drummer, or a keyboard player/programmer/remix artist or whatever.

My worry is that by working in the #1, "Traps the drum wonder" market the WFD *does* provide publicity to drummers... but it provides negative publicity to other musicians, and particularly to the people who have the choice whether to give us more money or not. Being the WFD certainly wouldn't hurt you if you want to get hired by a pop act or a metal band, where proven technical ability is more important than image as a whole musician. But in hip-hop or dance music? Do you really think that WFD is going to encourage any hip-hop or dance people to change their minds about whether they should hire a drummer or a DJ? As OZJazzer mentioned below, most other musicians I know consider WFD more like a competitor for "World's funniest home videos" rather than a positive image thing.


Lastly about competition. I come from a family of competitors. Jazz music was born out of the competition and I agree with alot of people that American school music lost its edge when people started saying that music isn't a contest.


Right, but this is not music. This is a technique contest - one major feature of most of (not all!) the high-ranking WFDers is that in the MUSICAL contest out there they are not notable winners - although some are certainly notable competitors. Jotan is maybe an exception, but Mangini, Verdi? They're certainly nowhere near Gadd, Colaiuta, Matt Chamberlain, ?uestlove etc in terms of the actual number of successful albums they play on. It seems less like the WFD is about winning over musical competition as a drummer than it is about succeeding as a drummer by moving the goal posts so you win by default.

I don't have an issue with people seeing music as a competition. I prefer not to, which is probably both why I get to work on what I want rather than trying to keep up with the joneses (the positive) and why I have to work partially in other industries to pay the bills (the negative). But WFD is not about seeing music as a competition. If it was, my problems with it would be much, much smaller. It's about seeing competition for pure technical merit as a valid activity, which I feel is unwarranted and hard to justify - and all the arguments I've seen from the WFD guys on this front have fallen very flat.

Your arguments are more along the lines of the benefits to you, as a competitor. I see a lot of sense in that, but my issues are elsewhere. So yes - I don't dispute your choice to do what you've done. But I do worry that WFD could potentially be more damaging to our industry as a whole than it is beneficial to the drummers who are involved in it. Is it a good thing if it increases your personal income by 25% while decreasing the average income of every other drummer out there by 2%? Isn't that the argument with Wynton?

[ThomasDee]

Mate, I can assure you that you are being the smart one. I'm enjoying this massively, firstly because when it comes to discussing reasons for involvement and achievement we're not actually talking abstracts - you've been there, done that and your results speak for themselves - I'm the one watching your TV spots, remember. But I do think this is an interesting topic that goes to crux of what interests me about music, and I'd rather be having this conversation with you than almost anybody because you're taking a very informed path in an opposing direction.



I quite agree. And you're right, I'm not a full-time musician. I'm self-employed and my income arrives from a variety of sources - I write for magazines, I design and develop web sites, teach drummers and do drum programming for singer-songwriters. And play drums, but that's basically bonus income rather than core - there's not a lot of money going here unless you're willing to go aggressively after the corporate market, and fundementally I'd rather work on things that appeal to me on another level. So while a good 50% of my time goes on my drumming and playing with other musicians it's certainly nowhere near 50% of my income.

But my argument here is not about selling out. I have no arguments with any musical project for financial gain. I won't curse Aaron Spears for playing with Usher, or even Charlie Adams for Yanni. Actually, in all honesty, my argument is more along the lines that I'd imagine you'd be wanting to consider if you're into this line of work for life. More on this in a second.



Right. I get this. But my questions about WFD and money are twofold:

1) Are they doing anything to help enlarge the overall pool of money available to drummers?
2) Is the pool of money that is going towards WFD warranted given the skills required to achieve in that particular field?

Now, without an accurate study (which off the top of my head I'd have no idea how to do) it's impossible to judge on the first. But let me return to a subject that has been discussed heavily on the jazz thread: Wynton.

Wynton is greatly disliked by a lot of people in the jazz community, because it is felt that he both has an unfair market share given his merits and that he controls that market share in a way that diminishes the income available to other jazz musicians - that his public profile is damaging to jazz as a whole. He does not enlarge the market for other people, yet he is enriching himself in the process.

Is that also true of the WFD structure? Here's my question about income: What are we, as drummers? Are we:

1) "Traps the wonder drummer", who can wow crowds with his amazing stick tricks; or
2) Musicians, who can contribute creatively to music in the same way that other instrumentalists do.

If the answer is #1 then WFD might be doing useful marketing in enlarging the market. The problem is, that market hasn't actually been big enough to support a good living for an industry of any size from the general public since my grandmother's time. If it supports anybody's living (Mangini, for example) it does that off the backs of drummers who hold down other jobs and pay to see his clinics. Not particularly sustainable in the long term, because it relies on other drummers to enlarge the market - at the moment, that's guys like Travis Barker and Joey Jordison. Fundementally that makes drumming a net cost to drummers rather than something that can be a reliable job: it removes the "those who can, do" part from the "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach" part from the equation.

It the answer is #2 then we have as good a chance as anybody at making money from the actual music industry, rather than the entertainment-for-musicians industry. In that situation we have a certain pool of work available to us: Any situation where percussion is used on a recording or in a performance. That means that while we have a current slice of the market, a HUGE portion of the money that could otherwise be ours is going to DJs, keyboard players and so forth - people who've learned the technology and have made a better case for their employment than we have. This ratio could go either way from now on, depending on trends in popular music: We could become a larger part of the wider music market (as we have as a result of the whole Strokes/White Stripes rock-revival movement) or we can become a smaller one (as happened with the growth of dance and hip-hop as popular forms, sans drummers).

Personally I think the best option going for drummers in terms of enlarging the market is to insinuate ourselves into popular music, everywhere. I think what Jojo Mayer has been doing is a spectacularly good idea, even if he's a few years out of date with his style now: If a style comes along that features strong rhythm but predominantly does not feature drummers, start a band playing that style and show other musicians that drummers can do the job better than the machines can. Ditto ?uestlove, or Matt Chamberlain - they've both been making great inroads in showing that drummers can do everything a DJ or programmer can do and more, and they've been making good money at it. That kind of thing works to expand our market by making sales to the people who make the decision about who gets the "Drum money" - a drummer, or a keyboard player/programmer/remix artist or whatever.

My worry is that by working in the #1, "Traps the drum wonder" market the WFD *does* provide publicity to drummers... but it provides negative publicity to other musicians, and particularly to the people who have the choice whether to give us more money or not. Being the WFD certainly wouldn't hurt you if you want to get hired by a pop act or a metal band, where proven technical ability is more important than image as a whole musician. But in hip-hop or dance music? Do you really think that WFD is going to encourage any hip-hop or dance people to change their minds about whether they should hire a drummer or a DJ? As OZJazzer mentioned below, most other musicians I know consider WFD more like a competitor for "World's funniest home videos" rather than a positive image thing.



Right, but this is not music. This is a technique contest - one major feature of most of (not all!) the high-ranking WFDers is that in the MUSICAL contest out there they are not notable winners - although some are certainly notable competitors. Jotan is maybe an exception, but Mangini, Verdi? They're certainly nowhere near Gadd, Colaiuta, Matt Chamberlain, ?uestlove etc in terms of the actual number of successful albums they play on. It seems less like the WFD is about winning over musical competition as a drummer than it is about succeeding as a drummer by moving the goal posts so you win by default.

I don't have an issue with people seeing music as a competition. I prefer not to, which is probably both why I get to work on what I want rather than trying to keep up with the joneses (the positive) and why I have to work partially in other industries to pay the bills (the negative). But WFD is not about seeing music as a competition. If it was, my problems with it would be much, much smaller. It's about seeing competition for pure technical merit as a valid activity, which I feel is unwarranted and hard to justify - and all the arguments I've seen from the WFD guys on this front have fallen very flat.

Your arguments are more along the lines of the benefits to you, as a competitor. I see a lot of sense in that, but my issues are elsewhere. So yes - I don't dispute your choice to do what you've done. But I do worry that WFD could potentially be more damaging to our industry as a whole than it is beneficial to the drummers who are involved in it. Is it a good thing if it increases your personal income by 25% while decreasing the average income of every other drummer out there by 2%? Isn't that the argument with Wynton?
The debate you and Matt are having is no doubt one of the most intelligent WFD conversations ever held on a message board and I commend both of you on each of your individual strengths, considerations and respect..

When you saysuch things as "Right, but this is not music. This is a technique contest - one major feature of most of (not all!) the high-ranking WFDers is that in the MUSICAL contest out there they are not notable winners. *AND* But I do worry that WFD could potentially be more damaging to our industry as a whole than it is beneficial to the drummers who are involved in it" I am reminded of 100's such arguments such as the INDY car (road coarse) guys going after the NASCAR drivers because they simple only have to learn to turn a stock car to the left. Has NASCAR hurt racing drivers as a whole? Or simply broaden awareness for racing in general?

How about the early print publishers saying radio would be the death of the music industry?

Same with WWE, has WWE really hurt legit wrestling? Or simply brought more attention, awareness and excitement to the sport? Has wrestling enrollment at the middle and high school level increased or declined in the past 20 years?

How about Robot Wars? Did it really harm the legitimate robot movement or get more kids involved? Have the X-Games really hurt bikers and skaters as a whole?

Good or bad, love or hate, I think we can all agree that WFD does engage drummers and non drummers of all ages. Look at the size of any thread that simply mentions WFD. Is this a bad thing?

TD

[DrumNut]

But on the inverse, guys like Art Verdi have so far failed where Weckl has succeeded - in getting themselves down on high-profile recordings for people to make judgements about. My main problem with Art is that for every posting I've read praising him as a great, tasteful jazz player I've seen precisely zero examples of him doing great, tasteful jazz playing. It's kind of hard to verify such claims at this stage, because all we have are horrible, horrible sounding videos of him playing frighteningly unmusical stuff in his living room.


Failed? The guy was playing with jazz greats before Weckl was probably even alive, or was a small boy. And I'm sure people including Art didnt bring fancy video cameras to these gigs like today.

So this is now about technology huh? Instead of true musicianship where Art was playing gigs without fancy recording equipment?

[mattsmith]

Finn, First of all you can't compare the percussion industry to jazz. There are millions more drummers in the world than jazz musicians. And yeah all the tech and people accepting that, has made percussion a smaller industry. But sizewise, compared to jazz its the sun compared to a meteor.

To think that WFD has the same power in our craft as Wynton has to jazz has no merit. WFD is an entertaining sideshow in the craft of percussion, while in jazz when you want to talk about the money share Wynton is the show.

But just a side note. Yeah it would be great to have Colautia or Chamberlain in WFD contests, but they would have nothing to gain by winning, since its already expected by those on this site and other places they would smoke everybody anyway. But now just suppose something did happen and both lost, and not to Mangini but to one of the others in the top 20. I can understand why they would not want to be a part of that. I mean its just a one minute run.

Look what happened to me in Anaheim. I did something like ten preliminary runs there and nine of them were in the midrange 1000s, while only one other person slipped in a low 1000 run in the whole three days. That was the guy who won the final when I slipped by 59strokes. Anything can happen, and most times it does. At 16 and with no name, I can take the humiliation even though I didn't like it. Vinnie on the other hand would have seriously damaged rep.

But you know something? I bet Colautia's sponsors at Remo would kill to see him in it, and if there was a way to make that happen without him being part of a public contest, it would happen. Maybe you didn't know, but that's a Remo pad that comes with a drumometer.

As for Gadd, Why at all? With great respect, these kinds of speeds are not what he is known for. So that's all kind of a fantasy point. In fact there are alot of big names who have gotten on a drumometer and have been shocked to find they were not nearly as fast as they thought. Actually there is one of the most famous respected technical drummers in the world whose score was low enough for me and dad to be sworn to secrecy about it. Now he disses the contest of course.

Another thing I'm learning about buizness is that when people are nice to you, they get loyalty back. The WFD crowd have been super nice to me, so I'm showing support and I will continue to.

[DrumNut]

Hey Matt:
In what way does Art Verdi suceed and Dave Weckl fails?
I'm lost on this

How about in the fact they he plays more with feel and doesnt complicate the music with some obscure complexity and fusion-based music that less than 5% of the population listen to. But rather played jazz in an era where the houses were packed and the room was swinging.

[DrumNut]

But when I see Art Verdi seemingly arguing that good technique CAUSES idea development (not my experience!) then I get quite worried about WFD.

Art has always said at clinics that the more technique a drummer has the more he can express himself. And a drummer is limited, especially at up-tempos with bad technique. It’s common sense. If you use good technique musically, you can do much more on the kit. If you machine gun everyone out of the room than that sucks.

I attended his clinics and that's what he said. Dont take it out of context.

[ThomasDee]

"In fact there are alot of big names who have gotten on a drumometer and have been shocked to find they were not nearly as fast as they thought."

No truer words have ever been spoken!

TD

[Tex12]

Dave Weckl is one of the greatest drummers in the world
Lets not wack him like this
I have no comments on Art Verdi's playing becuase I never saw him play
I learned a lot about developing a better technique from Art and other great drumming technicians on the net
Sometimes Weckl can go off the wall but don't knock the man's talents as a drummer
Art has some of the best chops I ever saw but Dave developed a great name as a top all around drummer
When I see some video clips of Art grooving I will comment on Art's playing
I read he does really groove though

[ThomasDee]

Most people probably don't realize how far reaching the WFD really is or just how much it has grown. For example, just this week alone, Boo has assigned me to do a video mention of the new article in Wired magazine which if you haven't seen is awesome, coverage of the WFD on CBS news this week, plus if you haven't seen the fantastic WFD piece featuring Johnny Rabb on MTV's 'Call 2 Greatness' check it out. Really funny and typical Rabb!

So this week alone, Wired, CBS and MTV. This is in no way a dieing fad.

TD

[mattsmith]

Hey guys, let's don't pile on Finn too hard here. He's being great to show a fair debate for a change. I Know we all have alot of frustration, having to carry all this burden with us (lol). I mean even Ozjazzer showed up and was nice. I know we're all not used to this. So lets just relax and enjoy the moment before Derek Roddy finally gets around to showin' up.

[mattsmith]

Dave Weckl is one of the greatest drummers in the world
Lets not wack him like this
I have no comments on Art Verdi's playing becuase I never saw him play
I learned a lot about developing a better technique from Art and other great drumming technicians on the net
Sometimes Weckl can go off the wall but don't knock the man's talents as a drummer
Art has some of the best chops I ever saw but Dave developed a great name as a top all around drummer
When I see some video clips of Art grooving I will comment on Art's playing
I read he does really groove though
Fair enough man. Good comments all.

[ThomasDee]

"fast-for-the-sake-of-fast"

Dude, I'm so sorry, but there is no such thing. Speed or ‘fast’ is only a result, a derivative. Sorry, but it does not exist as in your above context.

TD

[DrumNut]

Roddy has incredible feet!

[finnhiggins]

Art has always said at clinics that the more technique a drummer has the more he can express himself. And a drummer is limited, especially at up-tempos with bad technique. It’s common sense. If you use good technique musically, you can do much more on the kit. If you machine gun everyone out of the room than that sucks.

I attended his clinics and that's what he said. Dont take it out of context.

I'm not trying to take it out of context. But in his piece of writing "Art Verdi on the WFD" he says:


I believe that no matter how great a drummer plays he's limited to his ideas and technique. The more technique he has the more ideas he can play. That's why Buddy Rich had so many ideas. His technique with his hands and feet were the answer.

That's establishing clearly a cause (massive technique) and effect (a lot of ideas). It also, I hope you notice, doesn't actually make sense logically:

1) A drummer is limited by his ideas and his technique. (true)
2) The more technique he has the more ideas he can play. (true)
3) Therefore (.."that's why"..), the more technique a drummer has the more ideas he has (does not follow from premises!)

I don't see that reflects reality, as well as not making sense. Yes, there are some great technicial drummer with great ideas. But similarly, there are some great technicians who seem to have rather technical, self-absorbed ideas which are uber-difficult to execute cleanly but actually rather uninteresting. My standard question: would that be cool if you heard it programmed on a computer, where no pattern is more difficult than any other?

My bass player rang me up the other day. He wanted to know the name of a Roots track he heard at my house the previous week (it's called "It's Coming", a live track). In the process he commented that it was the coolest drumbeat he'd heard in ages. Do you know the only, single simple difference between that any any other drum beat? It has a cymbal crash at the start of each bar. But it's a two bar pattern. The first bar lets the crash ring out. The second chokes it. Other than that it's a completely straightforward hip-hop beat. But when you try it, it's actually really catchy and fun to listen to. How much technical development does it take to play? Virtually nothing versus the beat without that idea.

The key difference is the idea. And that idea was enough to get a non-drummer to phone me up and ask for the song name because he was impressed by the drumming.

What you are saying is, clearly, common sense. But Art seems to be going a step further in his defence of the WFD and actually asserting that improved technique inspires improved musical ideas. Anybody who has been to music school and watched players around them in the early stages of developing new techniques should know the issue with that idea - while the techniques might make the drummers more theoretically capable, they also tend to program the muscle memory with a large amount of amusical technical drilling.

There's nothing wrong with that, assuming the drummer has the sense to realise this is potentially a problem and makes a specific effort to balance their practice with more musically-oriented material. I'm sure Matt does - I've seen his playing and it's bloody great. But my issue is that as a source of inspiration the WFD does not provide that, and worse you have Art seemingly saying quite clearly that he feels that improving your technique IN AND OF ITSELF improves your range of ideas. I'm really not sure what the basis for that is, and I can't agree.

[ThomasDee]

"and worse you have Art seemingly saying quite clearly that he feels that improving your technique IN AND OF ITSELF improves your range of ideas. I'm really not sure what the basis for that is, and I can't agree."

finnhiggens, are you by any way trying to say, to not only us here at DW, but to kids around the world that if you don't learn the fundamentals of whatever 'art form' you 'can' possibly have more creativity?

What are ideas worth without the 'means' (technique) of expressing them?

TD

[Tex12]

I see twisting of words here but just a guess
I don't believe a drummer with as much knowledge and ability as Art Verdi would say the more technique a drummer has the more ideas he gets
That makes no sense
Someone must be twisting Art's comments for sure
I don't think a first year drum student would say such a hog wash thing

[finnhiggins]

finnhiggens, are you by any way trying to say, to not only us here at DW, but to kids around the world that if you don't learn the fundamentals of whatever 'art form' you 'can' possibly have more creativity?

What are ideas worth without the 'means' (technique) of expressing them?


About the same amount that technique is worth without any ideas to express with it.

And there's a big difference between learning the fundementals of something and aspiring to play more than 1000 single strokes in a minute.

[finnhiggins]

I see twisting of words here but just a guess
I don't believe a drummer with as much knowledge and ability as Art Verdi would say the more technique a drummer has the more ideas he gets
That makes no sense
Someone must be twisting Art's comments for sure
I don't think a first year drum student would say such a hog wash thing

http://www.artverdi.com/artfav/wfd.html

Down the bottom of the page.

I quoted it verbatim.

[ThomasDee]

About the same amount that technique is worth without any ideas to express with it.

And there's a big difference between learning the fundementals of something and aspiring to play more than 1000 single strokes in a minute.
Your falsely is in "how could someone play 1000 single strokes in a minute without not only learning, but yet 'MASTERING' the fundamentals?"

To prove your point, name me 5 examples in the world who has done such........

TD

[finnhiggins]

Your falsely is in "how could someone play 1000 single strokes in a minute without not only learning, but yet 'MASTERING' the fundamentals?"

To prove your point, name me 5 examples in the world who has done such........

TD

You misread me. What you're arguing is "How could somebody become a great Formula 1 driver without first learning to drive on residential streets?"... and you're now asking me to name five people who have done so.

I am saying "In order to achieve the goal of getting from A to B it is not necessary to be a formula one driver".

[ThomasDee]

You misread me. What you're arguing is "How could somebody become a great Formula 1 driver without first learning to drive on residential streets?"... and you're now asking me to name five people who have done so.

I am saying "In order to achieve the goal of getting from A to B it is not necessary to be a formula one driver".
finnhiggens, No, what I'm simply asking is "how could someone play 1000 single strokes in a minute without not only learning, but yet 'MASTERING' the fundamentals?"

To prove your point, name me 5 examples in the world who has done such........

finnhiggens, Simply name 5 drummers that know nothing about fundamentals that have played 1000 single strokes in one minute. Simple question, right?

How DOES one get from point A to point B without knowing any fundamentals? Pure luck?

TD

[ThomasDee]

"to achieve the goal of getting from A to B it is not necessary to be a formula one driver."

Maybe I misread you, but I thought in earlier posts you were trying to say formula one drivers didn't have to get from point A to point B. Am I wrong on your attempted point?

Not only do they have to get from point A to point B, they have to get there first. right?

Without knowing the fundamentals they actually decrease their chances. Follow me?

TD

[finnhiggins]

Thomas, that's a total straw man and you should really be able to credit me with a bit more intellect than that!

Of course you need fundementals to be able to achieve a higher than average level of technical execution. I thought we'd got the argument a bit more advanced than that!

Again, an analogy. I have a little sister, she's fifteen years younger than me. When she was a toddler she used to come home from a day out and she would be trying, for all her heart, to explain her day to me - going on a bus, going shopping... whatever. She couldn't do it though, she didn't have the vocabulary or control to express herself in English, so it just came out as gesticulations and noises - I could get the idea if I really concentrated, but it wasn't articulate.

Flash forward to now. She's got those fundamentals down. She can speak the language, she can express her ideas. What matters now is what she has to say, not the physical and mental plumbing required to make that actually happen.

So my question is: Is there a difference between having the fundamentals down, and actively aspiring to be the World's Fastest Talker?

That's what I'm trying to say. Of course the basic stuff is important. But is a speed contest really necessary to teach those? Of course not. As does speed have merit without ideas? Equally, of course not. Saying something stupid at four times the regular speed doesn't make it any less stupid, even if it requires stronger fundamental control to achieve.

[Jeff Almeyda]

I really don't have such strong opinions on the WFD as my man Finn but I will pose a few questions and raise a few points:

1: Why are there no "World's fastest pianists" or "guitarists" contests?
2. Why is there not a "World's loudest drummer" contest too? It also would also require alot of training and it could be measured with a DB meter.

I'll tell you why: Because it would be stupid!!!

If the WFD is around and popular in 10 years I'll eat my hat. It's already played out. I'm a technique freak and even I can't stand to watch it anymore. It's totally boring to me. It'll probably be a niche thing like arm-wrestling contests.

I might be more interested in WFD if it wasn't just singles and doubles. How about all of the 26 rudiments? Or how about setting a minimum dynamic level or stroke height?

BTW, I'm at about 750-800 strokes/min with my hands and about 700 with my feet and I never practice specific "WFD" stuff. With some work (2-3 years) I could probably crack 1000 but why? Is all that effort going to be worth it or can I better spend my limited practice time on more appropriate subjects? I find that I need things like control and dynamics more often than blistering speed. The speed is coming but as a side effect of control rather than as a goal in and of itself

What one must realize is that, like athletics, a large portion of raw talent (strength, speed, dexterity etc) is genetic. Most people will never be able to run a 10 second 100 meter dash no matter how much training they do. I suspect the same is happening at the top levels of WFD. These guys are genetically gifted for speed and that combined with intense training is the only way to be at the very top of the WFD.

But drumming is music and not athletics!!!

If I were a genetic marvel like Mr Smith or if I had 8 hours a day to practice I might think differently but that's not the case. I have to deal with the everyday reality of making music within my means so I must choose where to best concentrate my efforts and playing singles for a minute a half inch off the drum is not where it's at for me.

Here are some drummers that would get wiped out in a singles contest by our young WFD champ:

Steve Gadd
Elvin Jones
Max Roach
John Bonham
Pretty Purdie
Neil Peart
Dave Weckl
Louie Bellson
Josh Freese and...
Jeff Almeyda (me!)

The list is enormous and I have no problem being on it.

If you are into the WFD, cool. It's just not that thrilling to me.

[linzstef]

hi everybody! ok!
my name is STEFAN KHACHETURIAN, drummer,
some guys told me that i have fraudulantly claimed that i am the british/european record holder at speed drumming, recording a speed of 1048bpm playing clean single stroke rolls [wrist action],
and also i used a cheep version of an american device that counts drum strokes,! and that i claimed I was the worlds fastest drummer,!!!?,
IF I MAY PUT THE RECORD STRAIGHT FOR ALL TO READ, [WORLDWIDE]
SO YOU GUYS CAN HEAR THIS FROM THE HORSES MOUTH,
when i was in california about 2 yrs ago i walked into a drum shop for some stixs and supplies, in the corner of the drum shop was this device that one of the drummers had, I said what does this do, he said it counts the number of times you can play in 60 seconds,
i said cool, i warmed up and recorded 1000bpm, the guy said wow you should be a candidate for the WFD, i said who are they??, he said the worlds fastest drummer competion,[ORGANIZATION] and there are not many drummers in the world that can play as fast as what you just did,
SO, WHEN I GOT BACK TO ENGLAND, i checked out the WFD on the internet, and saw all the scores, and i noticed that i had a strong possibility of taking them on, to put it politely as drummers do!!!, because i had done 1000bpm back in california, i also noticed that ALL the candidates where american, [as of around 2 yrs ago] so i got intouch with the WFD, and asked if the drumometer was available,[in the uk] and they said no its out of production, so i asked if they had any plans of comming over to great britain and they e,mailed me back and said we have no plans of comming over in the near future,
coincidentally i was doing some tv and radio appearances for the BBC on the subject of speed drumming and the technique that is required to play fast single stroke rolls,
[fri 29th april 2005 the phil connal show/bob warmsley show], i was useing just snare drum to demonstrate technique, i also put a good word in for the WFD aswell to promote speed drumming in great britain, THEN one of the producers said to me HOW fast do you know your actually playing?????, THATS IT YOU DONT KNOW,
a week later i was introduced to DR, ian symonds BSC, at leeds university, and i said i need your help,?, i need you to build me a device that can count the number of strokes that i can play in 60 seconds,so over the following months we developed the BEATCHRON
or drum chronometer, this machine has a scanning speed of 4 MEG, and is a mains powered unit, so it can scan at 4,000,000, times per second,!!!, and it was not cheap to develop, the BEATCHRON was strictly just a one off, and was developed for reserch use only, and was never intended for resale,
as off may 2005 the british speed record was 965bpm single stroke rolls,AROUND that time i made it public that i would attempt the british/european speed record in september 2005,
useing the beatchron/or beatchronometer, but during september we had to cancell because of time sceduals between myself and ian symonds, we then aquired the remo pad from new york in mid september 2005,
the gig/attempt was rescedualed for wednesday 26th october at leeds university uk, where it would be ajudicated by engineeres of electronics and ian symonds of leeds university,
the final score would then be submitted to guiness world records, the event was also set up by the BBC and the leeds university staff, for a live broadcast on that day, the event was also attended by yorkshire post newspapers,
ON WEDNESDAY 26TH OCTOBER i set a new speed record of 1048bpm playing clean single stroke rolls useing wrist action,
IF ANYBODY WANTS TO UPLOAD THE DVD OF WHAT I DID TO THE NET LET ME KNOW, and you can see for your selfs pic in pic with the beatchron results,
as of claiming that i was the fastest drummer in the world is not true, as of wed/26th/oct/2005, i was the fastest drummer in the world OUTSIDE the usa, and i think the PRESS may have made a mistake on the printing of the story, [IT HAPPENS],
the fact is that i have approached ed, friatis of the WFD uk a few times on holding an event up in yorkshire, where i will GLADLEY attend, and compete,
SO YOU GUYS, make of it what you like, but think on this before you put down a fellow british drummer down,
WHAT WAS I SUPPOSE TO DO???????,
to my knowlage you still CANNOT buy the drumometer in england???????,
you still cannot buy the remo pad??????????????,
WHY???????????
both of these are essential tools for the development of speed drumming,
if you guys have any further veiws you can get intouch with me,
like i said if any of you guys want to upload the dvd to the net i will submit it ,
so all can see 1048bpm wrist action,
ALL THE BEST GUYS STEFAN KHACHETURIAN,

[Ramsh]

Fast, but not the fastes in Europe.
I did 1104 strokes on a drumometer in 2004, it wasn't an official competition of the WFD organisation, but the "Drumhouse" is still a serious Drumshop here in Austria, we have two here, one in Vienna and one in Gmunden, the Drumometer worked fine, you can email the guys in Gmunden because they were witnesses of my run.
Here's the thread:
http://www.drumhouse.at/forum/thread.php?id=578&start=31&seuser=&sepost=fastspeed%201104#34

Ramiz

[mattsmith]

I really don't have such strong opinions on the WFD as my man Finn but I will pose a few questions and raise a few points:

1: Why are there no "World's fastest pianists" or "guitarists" contests?
2. Why is there not a "World's loudest drummer" contest too? It also would also require alot of training and it could be measured with a DB meter.

I'll tell you why: Because it would be stupid!!!

If the WFD is around and popular in 10 years I'll eat my hat. It's already played out. I'm a technique freak and even I can't stand to watch it anymore. It's totally boring to me. It'll probably be a niche thing like arm-wrestling contests.

I might be more interested in WFD if it wasn't just singles and doubles. How about all of the 26 rudiments? Or how about setting a minimum dynamic level or stroke height?

BTW, I'm at about 750-800 strokes/min with my hands and about 700 with my feet and I never practice specific "WFD" stuff. With some work (2-3 years) I could probably crack 1000 but why? Is all that effort going to be worth it or can I better spend my limited practice time on more appropriate subjects? I find that I need things like control and dynamics more often than blistering speed. The speed is coming but as a side effect of control rather than as a goal in and of itself

What one must realize is that, like athletics, a large portion of raw talent (strength, speed, dexterity etc) is genetic. Most people will never be able to run a 10 second 100 meter dash no matter how much training they do. I suspect the same is happening at the top levels of WFD. These guys are genetically gifted for speed and that combined with intense training is the only way to be at the very top of the WFD.

But drumming is music and not athletics!!!


Before I start I just want everybody to know that Dad is here helping me come up for info on this. Some of this stuff I really don't know.

Jeff, first off I don't want to misrepresent. Even though I was the fastest overall hands competitior at the lastest world championship by setting a couple of world records, and led the qualifiers by a long way, I blew the actual one minute world final and got second. Rees Bridges, the UK champion is currently the world champ. But thanks for the promotion (lol).

My father, who is only lukewarm about a million adults bein' in WFD, sees the value in WFD on a much younger level, and has talked to Boo alot about this. This isn't saying that he objects to Art, Mangini and Tim being part of WFD. Not at all. He thinks ALL the serious adults are important to the greater education part, and that their advanced skills and striving to be the best at something can motivate kids. He's just tired of 35 year old guys hacking away at a drumometer pad with no interest in really being good. I think that's fair.

A long time ago when he was a teacher of beginner band students, he and my grand dad before him were ticked that young kids were'nt interested in rudiments. They wanted to go straight to set and bam. Dad sees the single stroke as the beginning of everything, especially in taking care of endurance issues which as a band leader he feels is not thought of enough by us drummers. I wrote alot of other stuff about this already.
Also with like 6th graders, they aren't gonna sit there and take it slow, clean it up to get things even, the dynamics and such, unless there is a carrot at the end.

Of course, it's not those other contests you talk about, because I agree they would be stupid. They have no long term value. High note contests for instance cause damage seen by all. I mean your'e older than me and you obviously have the knowledge, but please tell me of a single drummer who has mastered all his rudiments without first mastering a single stroke. Well alot of band directors are sayin' kids don't want to go there.

This is why not only is WFD not going to go away, it will be a whole lot more a part of school drumming, especially during marching season. I agree, the music store WFD stuff can't sustain forever.

The very first real education based contest like this was held last November at my dad's college and it was the biggest event that day in a city of 200,000 people. We had 500 people on TV going in out of that event for over 8 hours. While the contest was going on, there were big time classical and jazz percussion ensemble performances and clinics, and alot of new high tech stuff for the really little kids who went insane. Hundreds of people were sayin' stuff like "man we didn't know there was other drumming like classical, steel drums and such."

This was the model. Now think ahead about how this spreads to individual band parent groups all over America, as fund raisers using the Flint model. This was always the biggest audience anyway. You know this will happen. And WFD has already expanded into paradiddles and flams and through these new school events that will only get larger. So now that's just starting and I bet that's 99% of the WFD fans anyway.

Most important, Dad especially has thought hard about how WFD can be part of the Special Olympics for mentally handicapped people or roped into some part of this music therapy stuff that he's interested in, but I don't know so much about. Now can anybody here say they would not support WFD in the Special Olympics? I mean its perfect. The reason there isn't alot of talk about that is because Dad thinks that idiots on some of the other drum forums that aren't Drummerworld would diss mentally handicapped people in their forums, because you know that would happen.

Serious people wanted WFD to be more substantial. Well here you go. So lets see how the next few years play out.

BTW, it was decided by me and family members that I wouldn't be a part of this if I played at un natural volumes or used techniques I would not use in real life situations. So in contests I actually play quite loud, my sticks are high and I generally avoid playing in a way that sounds like an insect flapping its wings..

This is some of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. Just thought you should know since you were nice enough to have a level talk.

[mattsmith]

If I were a genetic marvel like Mr Smith or if I had 8 hours a day to practice I might think differently but that's not the case. I have to deal with the everyday reality of making music within my means so I must choose where to best concentrate my efforts and playing singles for a minute a half inch off the drum is not where it's at for me.

Here are some drummers that would get wiped out in a singles contest by our young WFD champ:

Steve Gadd
Elvin Jones
Max Roach
John Bonham
Pretty Purdie
Neil Peart
Dave Weckl
Louie Bellson
Josh Freese and...
Jeff Almeyda (me!)

The list is enormous and I have no problem being on it.

If you are into the WFD, cool. It's just not that thrilling to me.

Genetic marvel? Give me a break. Great, now I'm an X- Man again. Thanks Finn (lol).

You know, I think this is going to be the new way that people try to argue that you can still be fast and not have fundamentals. It's all advanced genetics huh? Wer'e all just born with it. Oh boy. And this is comin' from one of the nice guys with a level debate. What happens when the imbecile level of detracters start using this as a catch phrase? Got to do some more thinking (lol).

As to your list. Louie Bellson in his prime and Peart would wipe the floor with me at a WFD hands competition. And I would think that Tim Waterson would have respected those super even powerful feet of Louie's for certain.

Some of the others on that list, maybe I do come out on top. But as musicians I am the dead bug stuck to the bottom of their shoes (lol).

UPDATE: Oh great, now check out the Are You WFD thread in the archives section. The most notorious self proclaimed alternative speed drumming world champion ever just showed up to try and explain how he was the victim of circumstance. I know this stuff seems crazy to outsiders, but this is how important being considered this classification is to people. and people want to think this is a dying fad? Not hardly friends.

[mattsmith]

hi everybody! ok!
my name is STEFAN KHACHETURIAN, drummer,
some guys told me that i have fraudulantly claimed that i am the british/european record holder at speed drumming, recording a speed of 1048bpm playing clean single stroke rolls [wrist action],
and also i used a cheep version of an american device that counts drum strokes,! and that i claimed I was the worlds fastest drummer,!!!?,
IF I MAY PUT THE RECORD STRAIGHT FOR ALL TO READ, [WORLDWIDE]
SO YOU GUYS CAN HEAR THIS FROM THE HORSES MOUTH,
when i was in california about 2 yrs ago i walked into a drum shop for some stixs and supplies, in the corner of the drum shop was this device that one of the drummers had, I said what does this do, he said it counts the number of times you can play in 60 seconds,
i said cool, i warmed up and recorded 1000bpm, the guy said wow you should be a candidate for the WFD, i said who are they??, he said the worlds fastest drummer competion,[ORGANIZATION] and there are not many drummers in the world that can play as fast as what you just did,
SO, WHEN I GOT BACK TO ENGLAND, i checked out the WFD on the internet, and saw all the scores, and i noticed that i had a strong possibility of taking them on, to put it politely as drummers do!!!, because i had done 1000bpm back in california, i also noticed that ALL the candidates where american, [as of around 2 yrs ago] so i got intouch with the WFD, and asked if the drumometer was available,[in the uk] and they said no its out of production, so i asked if they had any plans of comming over to great britain and they e,mailed me back and said we have no plans of comming over in the near future,
coincidentally i was doing some tv and radio appearances for the BBC on the subject of speed drumming and the technique that is required to play fast single stroke rolls,
[fri 29th april 2005 the phil connal show/bob warmsley show], i was useing just snare drum to demonstrate technique, i also put a good word in for the WFD aswell to promote speed drumming in great britain, THEN one of the producers said to me HOW fast do you know your actually playing?????, THATS IT YOU DONT KNOW,
a week later i was introduced to DR, ian symonds BSC, at leeds university, and i said i need your help,?, i need you to build me a device that can count the number of strokes that i can play in 60 seconds,so over the following months we developed the BEATCHRON
or drum chronometer, this machine has a scanning speed of 4 MEG, and is a mains powered unit, so it can scan at 4,000,000, times per second,!!!, and it was not cheap to develop, the BEATCHRON was strictly just a one off, and was developed for reserch use only, and was never intended for resale,
as off may 2005 the british speed record was 965bpm single stroke rolls,AROUND that time i made it public that i would attempt the british/european speed record in september 2005,
useing the beatchron/or beatchronometer, but during september we had to cancell because of time sceduals between myself and ian symonds, we then aquired the remo pad from new york in mid september 2005,
the gig/attempt was rescedualed for wednesday 26th october at leeds university uk, where it would be ajudicated by engineeres of electronics and ian symonds of leeds university,
the final score would then be submitted to guiness world records, the event was also set up by the BBC and the leeds university staff, for a live broadcast on that day, the event was also attended by yorkshire post newspapers,
ON WEDNESDAY 26TH OCTOBER i set a new speed record of 1048bpm playing clean single stroke rolls useing wrist action,
IF ANYBODY WANTS TO UPLOAD THE DVD OF WHAT I DID TO THE NET LET ME KNOW, and you can see for your selfs pic in pic with the beatchron results,
as of claiming that i was the fastest drummer in the world is not true, as of wed/26th/oct/2005, i was the fastest drummer in the world OUTSIDE the usa, and i think the PRESS may have made a mistake on the printing of the story, [IT HAPPENS],
the fact is that i have approached ed, friatis of the WFD uk a few times on holding an event up in yorkshire, where i will GLADLEY attend, and compete,
SO YOU GUYS, make of it what you like, but think on this before you put down a fellow british drummer down,
WHAT WAS I SUPPOSE TO DO???????,
to my knowlage you still CANNOT buy the drumometer in england???????,
you still cannot buy the remo pad??????????????,
WHY???????????
both of these are essential tools for the development of speed drumming,
if you guys have any further veiws you can get intouch with me,
like i said if any of you guys want to upload the dvd to the net i will submit it ,
so all can see 1048bpm wrist action,
ALL THE BEST GUYS STEFAN KHACHETURIAN,
Mr. Khacheturian, first of all there is a WFD UK thread listed on page one of the main discussion thread. There, any number of people who would love to have a discussion with you and more people will see your comments.

First of all, you buy the drumometer over the Internet on the WFD website. They ship to the UK by the way. In fact several UK competitors own Drumometers including one of the 2 moderators on this forum. So you already look kind of shallow here.

BtW, the term World's Fastest Drummer is actually owned by WFD, and you have a UK governing body you're supposed to go through. That's why you are supposed to wait for them first, and second you tell them everything you are about to do and correct your self promotion about bein' the world's fastest drummer, stuff you tell people when you try to break your fake records at UK events. Look man, every body knows all this.

Then when you get ready to compete, you don't get to use your own ajudicators. See that would be considered cheating. Then you have to experience the pressure of others competting against you. Man I can't believe I am even having this conversation.

There was only a two month period when Drumometers weren't available.So you are saying that you just couldn't wait, so you went to the trouble of having Leeds University go through a bunch of research and as you say great expense to build you their own model. By the way your people called WFD to ask about Drumometers. But I know that you already know that. Why didn't they just ask, "hey you got a Drumometer you can ship to our guy?" I think we know the reason why.

Pal, you're not legit until you go to one of Ed Freitas' events and he isn't supposed to have to go where you want him to go. You think it was fun for me and my dad to haul our butts all the way to Anaheim? Woburn Sands was a month ago and that's not so far from Yorkshire for a guy who has already gone to the trouble you have.

Look the fact that you tried to sneak in an announcement of your alleged record without first announcing yourself first is what invited this storm on you to begin with.

1048 all wrist action. What's that supposed to mean?

[Symbolic]

I'm not upset at Roddy for what you describe. He is a professional speed demon and now tries to say he's all about art, WFD is stupid, drumometers don't work and so on because he was busted trying to send rigged videos to the same organization he now says is stupid. I challenge anybody to show me any piece of tasteful music he has ever produced. His answer to gettin' caught is to damage the livings of other drummers. McAffee and Waterson didn't do a thing to him except catch him ripping them off.


Tasteful song by Roddy- http://www.derekroddy.com/Dereks_Link_Folder/tr1.MP3

[mattsmith]

Tasteful song by Roddy- http://www.derekroddy.com/Dereks_Link_Folder/tr1.MP3
Thanks Symbolic. That actually wasn't so bad.

[finnhiggins]

Genetic marvel? Give me a break. Great, now I'm an X- Man again. Thanks Finn (lol).


Mr Smith?

Agent Smith, more like...

[mattsmith]

Mr Smith?

Agent Smith, more like...
Finn, if we were doing music together and you had done everything to be super nice to me, I'd be loyal to you in the same way. Besides I believe this stuff just like you believe your end.

[finnhiggins]

Finn, if we were doing music together and you had done everything to be super nice to me, I'd be loyal to you in the same way. Besides I believe this stuff just like you believe your end.

Don't worry man, no offence intended. I was just continuing in my fine tradition of implying you're some kind of super-human fictional character with superpowers.

[OZjazzer]

I really don't have such strong opinions on the WFD as my man Finn but I will pose a few questions and raise a few points:

1: Why are there no "World's fastest pianists" or "guitarists" contests?
2. Why is there not a "World's loudest drummer" contest too? It also would also require alot of training and it could be measured with a DB meter.

I'll tell you why: Because it would be stupid!!!

If the WFD is around and popular in 10 years I'll eat my hat. It's already played out. I'm a technique freak and even I can't stand to watch it anymore. It's totally boring to me. It'll probably be a niche thing like arm-wrestling contests.

I might be more interested in WFD if it wasn't just singles and doubles. How about all of the 26 rudiments? Or how about setting a minimum dynamic level or stroke height?

BTW, I'm at about 750-800 strokes/min with my hands and about 700 with my feet and I never practice specific "WFD" stuff. With some work (2-3 years) I could probably crack 1000 but why? Is all that effort going to be worth it or can I better spend my limited practice time on more appropriate subjects? I find that I need things like control and dynamics more often than blistering speed. The speed is coming but as a side effect of control rather than as a goal in and of itself

What one must realize is that, like athletics, a large portion of raw talent (strength, speed, dexterity etc) is genetic. Most people will never be able to run a 10 second 100 meter dash no matter how much training they do. I suspect the same is happening at the top levels of WFD. These guys are genetically gifted for speed and that combined with intense training is the only way to be at the very top of the WFD.

But drumming is music and not athletics!!!

If you are into the WFD, cool. It's just not that thrilling to me.

Knevildrummer sums up exactly what I have been trying to say in this, and very unsuccessfully in the other WFD threads for some time. My big concern is that when drumming moves away from MUSIC and into athletics it simply helps to confirm what many many people, (and in particular other musicians), really think about drummers.

How many drummer jokes are actually very close to the truth? The image of the, 'hit everything in sight in the least possible time', drummer with the million piece drum kit is one that really makes me cringe. You know the guys I'm taking about, the ones think a chord is something they plug in to their Yamaha Subkick.

Like it or not, when push comes to shove, many musicians have a very low opinion of drummers. It's an image which sadly many drummers seem hell-bent on confirming. When musicians hear about WFD it's just another nail in the 'drummers aren't really musicians' coffin. Who ever tacked the phrase EXTREME SPORT DRUMMING onto WFD ought to be impaled on a Vic Firth 5A.

Maybe it's just me but I believe that the futher we move away from 'music' and simply become flashy noise machines, the further away we are from being taken seriously as musicians. Now many of the young drummers I have met don't care about that - They're not in it for the music, let's cut to the drum solo! That attitude worries me but maybe I'm completely out of step with the demands of music today.

WFD gets the kids playing rudiments? Yes that's a good point, but hell if they are still in it when they are over 20, I would be VERY VERY worried.

However I do think understand where Matt is going with this - he wants to carve a career out of the business of music. His CV won't be any the worse for containing something like "having won the WVD in 2006 at the age of 16, Matt completed his XYZ before joining ABC .... ". Makes sense. Hope you make it Matt, but I for one, reckon you'll dump it way before your 21st.

As I said, Knevildrummer summed up the whole WFD argument very well. Finn is fighting the day to day battles brilliantly. I am still recovering from my first bout with the WFD fraternity. I guess we try because we care about drumming and music.

[mattsmith]

How many drummer jokes are actually very close to the truth? Like it or not, when push comes to shove, many musicians have a very low opinion of drummers.

Q: What's the difference between a professional trombone player and a dead snake in the road?

A: The dead snake was on his way to a gig.

We drummers don't have it so bad.

[Jeff Almeyda]

Before I start I just want everybody to know that Dad is here helping me come up for info on this. Some of this stuff I really don't know.

Jeff, first off I don't want to misrepresent. Even though I was the fastest overall hands competitior at the lastest world championship by setting a couple of world records, and led the qualifiers by a long way, I blew the actual one minute world final and got second. Rees Bridges, the UK champion is currently the world champ. But thanks for the promotion (lol).

My father, who is only lukewarm about a million adults bein' in WFD, sees the value in WFD on a much younger level, and has talked to Boo alot about this. This isn't saying that he objects to Art, Mangini and Tim being part of WFD. Not at all. He thinks ALL the serious adults are important to the greater education part, and that their advanced skills and striving to be the best at something can motivate kids. He's just tired of 35 year old guys hacking away at a drumometer pad with no interest in really being good. I think that's fair.

A long time ago when he was a teacher of beginner band students, he and my grand dad before him were ticked that young kids were'nt interested in rudiments. They wanted to go straight to set and bam. Dad sees the single stroke as the beginning of everything, especially in taking care of endurance issues which as a band leader he feels is not thought of enough by us drummers. I wrote alot of other stuff about this already.
Also with like 6th graders, they aren't gonna sit there and take it slow, clean it up to get things even, the dynamics and such, unless there is a carrot at the end.

Of course, it's not those other contests you talk about, because I agree they would be stupid. They have no long term value. High note contests for instance cause damage seen by all. I mean your'e older than me and you obviously have the knowledge, but please tell me of a single drummer who has mastered all his rudiments without first mastering a single stroke. Well alot of band directors are sayin' kids don't want to go there.

This is why not only is WFD not going to go away, it will be a whole lot more a part of school drumming, especially during marching season. I agree, the music store WFD stuff can't sustain forever.

The very first real education based contest like this was held last November at my dad's college and it was the biggest event that day in a city of 200,000 people. We had 500 people on TV going in out of that event for over 8 hours. While the contest was going on, there were big time classical and jazz percussion ensemble performances and clinics, and alot of new high tech stuff for the really little kids who went insane. Hundreds of people were sayin' stuff like "man we didn't know there was other drumming like classical, steel drums and such."

This was the model. Now think ahead about how this spreads to individual band parent groups all over America, as fund raisers using the Flint model. This was always the biggest audience anyway. You know this will happen. And WFD has already expanded into paradiddles and flams and through these new school events that will only get larger. So now that's just starting and I bet that's 99% of the WFD fans anyway.

Most important, Dad especially has thought hard about how WFD can be part of the Special Olympics for mentally handicapped people or roped into some part of this music therapy stuff that he's interested in, but I don't know so much about. Now can anybody here say they would not support WFD in the Special Olympics? I mean its perfect. The reason there isn't alot of talk about that is because Dad thinks that idiots on some of the other drum forums that aren't Drummerworld would diss mentally handicapped people in their forums, because you know that would happen.

Serious people wanted WFD to be more substantial. Well here you go. So lets see how the next few years play out.

BTW, it was decided by me and family members that I wouldn't be a part of this if I played at un natural volumes or used techniques I would not use in real life situations. So in contests I actually play quite loud, my sticks are high and I generally avoid playing in a way that sounds like an insect flapping its wings..

This is some of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. Just thought you should know since you were nice enough to have a level talk.

Matt,

You are a well thought out individual and I respect your true dedication to drumming and music. Your father seems like a great role model as well. Please don't take the "genetic wonder" remark to heart. I'm actually very impressed by your achievements at such a young age. (and I think that you were being kind when you said that Neil and Louie could both beat you. I have never seen either of them throw down singles that fast)

I don't mean to bash WFD because every WFD'er that I've ever met on this site has been extremely professional and genuinely helpful. I am also glad that it is diversifying as well as focusing on education.

Frankly, I just find it all a colossal bore. I enjoy my techniqe displays in a musical context. I'd rather watch drum corps competitions any day.

While I may not be into the WFD I can certainly say that there are some well-meaning and talented individuals involved in it. There are also some MONSTER drummers involved in it as well. I choose to take a different tack and it's really nothing more than that.

[Jeff Almeyda]

You know, I think this is going to be the new way that people try to argue that you can still be fast and not have fundamentals. It's all advanced genetics huh? Wer'e all just born with it. Oh boy..

Actually I made sure to say that good genetics coupled with intensive training is the key to WFD. And I stand by my point. It's one thing to play 16ths at 190 BPM for a minute. It's a WHOLE 'NOTHER WORLD to play them at 290 BPM. Only a rareified few will ever approach that level.

[Zumba_Zumba]

Actually I made sure to say that good genetics coupled with intensive training is the key to WFD. And I stand by my point. It's one thing to play 16ths at 190 BPM for a minute. It's a WHOLE 'NOTHER WORLD to play them at 290 BPM. Only a rareified few will ever approach that level.

I agree with Knevil's point about genetics. Without getting into facts such as muscle fiber composition and neuromuscular control (etc.), there is an underlying genetic ingredient. Anybody that has studied human performance and/or genetics will agree with Knevil. Couple this concept with dedication and hard training and you get some very impressive performances. Sorry Mr. Smith, Knevil was not trying to insult you, he was actually complimenting you and the rest of the WFD crew. Now go breed (lol).....

[mattsmith]

I agree with Knevil's point about genetics. Without getting into facts such as muscle fiber composition and neuromuscular control (etc.), there is an underlying genetic ingredient. Anybody that has studied human performance and/or genetics will agree with Knevil. Couple this concept with dedication and hard training and you get some very impressive performances. Sorry Mr. Smith, Knevil was not trying to insult you, he was actually complimenting you and the rest of the WFD crew. Now go breed (lol).....
And I hope you and Knevil noticed the (lol) at the end of my statement. Naw, I think everybody's been cool here.

[ThomasDee]

Hey gang, wanted to give you a heads up on some WFD news. I just completed a recap of the WFD piece on MTV featuring Johnny Rabb which can be seen at
http://www.extremesportdrumming.com/WFDTV/jr%20on%20mtv%20c2g%20256k.wmv

If you haven't seen the May issue of Wired magazine that features WFD Champ Tim Yeung please get it, it's awesome. Al Gore on the cover.

I'm now working on converting the CBS News piece which I'll post hopefully tomorrow.

What are your thoughts on 'the king' as they call him? I thought it was a cool piece and great to see WFD on MTV . Your thoughts?

TD

[theduke86]

I smell a fib. No offence intended, but I'll eat my hat if you compete and place well at the WFD.

[NUTHA JASON]

i agree with the top two posts. and whats with all the ????????????????. your wrists still buzzing?

j

[Tim Waterson]

hi everybody! ok!
my name is STEFAN KHACHETURIAN, drummer,
some guys told me that i have fraudulantly claimed that i am the british/european record holder at speed drumming, recording a speed of 1048bpm playing clean single stroke rolls [wrist action],
and also i used a cheep version of an american device that counts drum strokes,! and that i claimed I was the worlds fastest drummer,!!!?,
IF I MAY PUT THE RECORD STRAIGHT FOR ALL TO READ, [WORLDWIDE]
SO YOU GUYS CAN HEAR THIS FROM THE HORSES MOUTH,
when i was in california about 2 yrs ago i walked into a drum shop for some stixs and supplies, in the corner of the drum shop was this device that one of the drummers had, I said what does this do, he said it counts the number of times you can play in 60 seconds,
i said cool, i warmed up and recorded 1000bpm, the guy said wow you should be a candidate for the WFD, i said who are they??, he said the worlds fastest drummer competion,[ORGANIZATION] and there are not many drummers in the world that can play as fast as what you just did,
SO, WHEN I GOT BACK TO ENGLAND, i checked out the WFD on the internet, and saw all the scores, and i noticed that i had a strong possibility of taking them on, to put it politely as drummers do!!!, because i had done 1000bpm back in california, i also noticed that ALL the candidates where american, [as of around 2 yrs ago] so i got intouch with the WFD, and asked if the drumometer was available,[in the uk] and they said no its out of production, so i asked if they had any plans of comming over to great britain and they e,mailed me back and said we have no plans of comming over in the near future,
coincidentally i was doing some tv and radio appearances for the BBC on the subject of speed drumming and the technique that is required to play fast single stroke rolls,
[fri 29th april 2005 the phil connal show/bob warmsley show], i was useing just snare drum to demonstrate technique, i also put a good word in for the WFD aswell to promote speed drumming in great britain, THEN one of the producers said to me HOW fast do you know your actually playing?????, THATS IT YOU DONT KNOW,
a week later i was introduced to DR, ian symonds BSC, at leeds university, and i said i need your help,?, i need you to build me a device that can count the number of strokes that i can play in 60 seconds,so over the following months we developed the BEATCHRON
or drum chronometer, this machine has a scanning speed of 4 MEG, and is a mains powered unit, so it can scan at 4,000,000, times per second,!!!, and it was not cheap to develop, the BEATCHRON was strictly just a one off, and was developed for reserch use only, and was never intended for resale,
as off may 2005 the british speed record was 965bpm single stroke rolls,AROUND that time i made it public that i would attempt the british/european speed record in september 2005,
useing the beatchron/or beatchronometer, but during september we had to cancell because of time sceduals between myself and ian symonds, we then aquired the remo pad from new york in mid september 2005,
the gig/attempt was rescedualed for wednesday 26th october at leeds university uk, where it would be ajudicated by engineeres of electronics and ian symonds of leeds university,
the final score would then be submitted to guiness world records, the event was also set up by the BBC and the leeds university staff, for a live broadcast on that day, the event was also attended by yorkshire post newspapers,
ON WEDNESDAY 26TH OCTOBER i set a new speed record of 1048bpm playing clean single stroke rolls useing wrist action,
IF ANYBODY WANTS TO UPLOAD THE DVD OF WHAT I DID TO THE NET LET ME KNOW, and you can see for your selfs pic in pic with the beatchron results,
as of claiming that i was the fastest drummer in the world is not true, as of wed/26th/oct/2005, i was the fastest drummer in the world OUTSIDE the usa, and i think the PRESS may have made a mistake on the printing of the story, [IT HAPPENS],
the fact is that i have approached ed, friatis of the WFD uk a few times on holding an event up in yorkshire, where i will GLADLEY attend, and compete,
SO YOU GUYS, make of it what you like, but think on this before you put down a fellow british drummer down,
WHAT WAS I SUPPOSE TO DO???????,
to my knowlage you still CANNOT buy the drumometer in england???????,
you still cannot buy the remo pad??????????????,
WHY???????????
both of these are essential tools for the development of speed drumming,
if you guys have any further veiws you can get intouch with me,
like i said if any of you guys want to upload the dvd to the net i will submit it ,
so all can see 1048bpm wrist action,
ALL THE BEST GUYS STEFAN KHACHETURIAN,

QUOTE from KAI ON WEDNESDAY 26TH OCTOBER i set a new speed record of 1048bpm playing clean single stroke rolls useing wrist action,
IF ANYBODY WANTS TO UPLOAD THE DVD OF WHAT I DID TO THE NET LET ME KNOW, and you can see for your selfs pic in pic with the beatchron results,
as of claiming that i was the fastest drummer in the world is not true, as of wed/26th/oct/2005,

KAI,
I HAD HEARD OF THIS CLAIM TO THE RECORD
BUT just to let you know OFFICIALLY Jotan Afanador set a record of 1081 single strokes at an OFFICAIL WFD contest on Jan 2002 and since then the record has been brought up to 1247 by Mike Manginni so the 1048 you scored is a MUTE point.
I scroe 1050 at home with my hands so what does that mean?MAtt smith and Tigerbill run around 1060+
No Offence just setting the record straight.
Tim

[Waterjet]

I don't see anything wrong with it. People love to compete and it's not like it's anything musical. I say so what! It's actually pretty interesting. I like how they made it like wrestling...the girls and such.


Waterjet

[Tex12]

This is a cool thread
Everyone gets their point across with no ugly heat

[Zumba_Zumba]

Thanks TD for the video clips, your hard work and updates. The WFD does offer something different to drummers and it does bring more attention to drummers' abilities. Its not just single and double stroke roll. There's paradiddles, flams, two drummer single stroke (amazing clip I saw) and bare hands. It's entertaining and it seems like a festive time. Sorry clockwork, doesn't seem too many people are joining your all important "point of view" on this one. Try another thread.

[Tim Waterson]

[QUOTE=mattsmith]Hey Tim, Stefan's private noncompetitive score is still good for 11th place (lol), except that my highest unofficial score at home is now 1106 which I guess puts me in 4th place, and your 1050 puts you in 11th...no wait a minute, sorry Stefan. Only problem is NONE of this is official. Man, what a study this guy is.

Boy, they're coming out of the woodwork lately. This guy first then Wallace today. Wow![/QUOTE
]Matt we all have unofficial scores at home but they do not count.
I forgot Art Verdi was doing a Run around 1150 and then he dropped the sticks with 2 seconds left to go.LOL
There have also been other drummers using the drumometer and getting scores at home.
Ps we ALL can break the record at home...
Tim

[mattsmith]

Ps we ALL can break the record at home...
Tim
Absolutely!
Jotan said he got 1213 in public down in Puerto Rico. Eric Okamoto has gone over 1100 at home. I don't know Brad Broomfield, but just lookin' at his chops, you got to think he has done the same. Who on Earth knows what Mangini has done away from the cameras.

And this Stefan guy doesn't even match up on an unofficial measuring instrument. People want to say this stuff has played itself out. Look how some behave just to be part of it.

[finnhiggins]

Q: What's the difference between a professional trombone player and a dead snake in the road?

A: The dead snake was on his way to a gig.

We drummers don't have it so bad.

This is quite a good joke, and actually connects a little to my point.

What happened to the trombone in popular music?

Did it, by any chance, gradually become less and less relevent to musicians as new styles of music evolved? Even if listeners enjoy it?

[NUTHA JASON]

to me trombones just sound too comical too much like a disney cartoon or a clown show.

i hope nobody minds but i've decided to merge all the wfd threads into one.

j

[finnhiggins]

to me trombones just sound too comical too much like a disney cartoon or a clown show.


That's only because they've been rather stereotyped into that role. If you hear them outside that context they can sound great, if played well. Unfortunately now when you show a trombone to most musicians they go "Hah! Clown shows!".

EDIT: Oh, and good call on the merge. It was getting rather confusing...

[ClockworkOrange]

That's a shame........:(

[Stu_Strib]

Ps we ALL can break the record at home...
Tim


I'm so far removed from breaking any records at home that I can't even lie, anonymously, over the internet about it ;-)

I can play the Michigan fight song on a trombone, if that counts for anything.

[Zumba_Zumba]

Hail, Hail to Michigan!!!!! Stu you rock...were you from Michigan originally?

[KLittle123]

I like how they have the bare hands... if they had thumbs I bet I could so own...times like six.

[Tim Waterson]

You know I kinda think there will be some guys from Barbados or someplace down in the Caribbean islands who will take that record someday, especially if they start connecting it to prizes. Glenn Carduba is super fast and deserves his record. But I got to wonder about some Cuban guy who is not allowed in America. Some of those conga players who used to play in bands like Irakere are sic. I think LP or some company like that should get behind that.
I think with having Pearl as a sponsor they cpould Give away Pearl Cahons?
BUT I also think they would have to divideo the division into palm tip disected doubles and straight up singles with the wrists and fingers.
congrats to GLEN Caruba for getting that part of the contest going......
The Rumours are someone Like Hidalgio or Changhitto (sp) could probably break 1400+ doing the palm tip thing.
More resect fot MIKE Mangini doing 1138 with wrists and fingers NOW that is an EXTREME record.
Tim

[ThomasDee]

hi everybody! ok!
my name is STEFAN KHACHETURIAN, drummer,
some guys told me that i have fraudulantly claimed that i am the british/european record holder at speed drumming, recording a speed of 1048bpm playing clean single stroke rolls [wrist action],
and also i used a cheep version of an american device that counts drum strokes,! and that i claimed I was the worlds fastest drummer,!!!?,
IF I MAY PUT THE RECORD STRAIGHT FOR ALL TO READ, [WORLDWIDE]
SO YOU GUYS CAN HEAR THIS FROM THE HORSES MOUTH,
when i was in california about 2 yrs ago i walked into a drum shop for some stixs and supplies, in the corner of the drum shop was this device that one of the drummers had, I said what does this do, he said it counts the number of times you can play in 60 seconds,
i said cool, i warmed up and recorded 1000bpm, the guy said wow you should be a candidate for the WFD, i said who are they??, he said the worlds fastest drummer competion,[ORGANIZATION] and there are not many drummers in the world that can play as fast as what you just did,
SO, WHEN I GOT BACK TO ENGLAND, i checked out the WFD on the internet, and saw all the scores, and i noticed that i had a strong possibility of taking them on, to put it politely as drummers do!!!, because i had done 1000bpm back in california, i also noticed that ALL the candidates where american, [as of around 2 yrs ago] so i got intouch with the WFD, and asked if the drumometer was available,[in the uk] and they said no its out of production, so i asked if they had any plans of comming over to great britain and they e,mailed me back and said we have no plans of comming over in the near future,
coincidentally i was doing some tv and radio appearances for the BBC on the subject of speed drumming and the technique that is required to play fast single stroke rolls,
[fri 29th april 2005 the phil connal show/bob warmsley show], i was useing just snare drum to demonstrate technique, i also put a good word in for the WFD aswell to promote speed drumming in great britain, THEN one of the producers said to me HOW fast do you know your actually playing?????, THATS IT YOU DONT KNOW,
a week later i was introduced to DR, ian symonds BSC, at leeds university, and i said i need your help,?, i need you to build me a device that can count the number of strokes that i can play in 60 seconds,so over the following months we developed the BEATCHRON
or drum chronometer, this machine has a scanning speed of 4 MEG, and is a mains powered unit, so it can scan at 4,000,000, times per second,!!!, and it was not cheap to develop, the BEATCHRON was strictly just a one off, and was developed for reserch use only, and was never intended for resale,
as off may 2005 the british speed record was 965bpm single stroke rolls,AROUND that time i made it public that i would attempt the british/european speed record in september 2005,
useing the beatchron/or beatchronometer, but during september we had to cancell because of time sceduals between myself and ian symonds, we then aquired the remo pad from new york in mid september 2005,
the gig/attempt was rescedualed for wednesday 26th october at leeds university uk, where it would be ajudicated by engineeres of electronics and ian symonds of leeds university,
the final score would then be submitted to guiness world records, the event was also set up by the BBC and the leeds university staff, for a live broadcast on that day, the event was also attended by yorkshire post newspapers,
ON WEDNESDAY 26TH OCTOBER i set a new speed record of 1048bpm playing clean single stroke rolls useing wrist action,
IF ANYBODY WANTS TO UPLOAD THE DVD OF WHAT I DID TO THE NET LET ME KNOW, and you can see for your selfs pic in pic with the beatchron results,
as of claiming that i was the fastest drummer in the world is not true, as of wed/26th/oct/2005, i was the fastest drummer in the world OUTSIDE the usa, and i think the PRESS may have made a mistake on the printing of the story, [IT HAPPENS],
the fact is that i have approached ed, friatis of the WFD uk a few times on holding an event up in yorkshire, where i will GLADLEY attend, and compete,
SO YOU GUYS, make of it what you like, but think on this before you put down a fellow british drummer down,
WHAT WAS I SUPPOSE TO DO???????,
to my knowlage you still CANNOT buy the drumometer in england???????,
you still cannot buy the remo pad??????????????,
WHY???????????
both of these are essential tools for the development of speed drumming,
if you guys have any further veiws you can get intouch with me,
like i said if any of you guys want to upload the dvd to the net i will submit it ,
so all can see 1048bpm wrist action,
ALL THE BEST GUYS STEFAN KHACHETURIAN,
Stefan, nice post. Someone may have already answered you on this, BUT YES! you can buy the drumometer in England and all over the UK. See www.drummerbuzz.com As you said Ed Freitas is the guy in the UK for both drumometers and WFD competitions. Sounds like you are possibly a real contender so get with Ed and go to a WFD event and do it!

Best of luck and keep us posted on how you do. I think Rees Bridges is probably the official fastest in UK with 1007. Not real sure who Ed has in the lead are you?

TD

[DogBreath]

I notice this thread is the first to pass 20,000 views. So much for the dying fad.
Clearly there is no interest in this subject. WFD should disband and convert their website to a service that provides animated smilies to people who can't communicate effectively without them.

[ThomasDee]

Clearly there is no interest in this subject. WFD should disband and convert their website to a service that provides animated smilies to people who can't communicate effectively without them.
DB now that's some funny stuff! Matt, as you probably well know because you are heavily involved in WFD that this whole 'dying fad' thing has been going on for years now. I remember some 4-5 years ago the anti WFD crowd were making insane statements saying stuff like " WFD is a dying fad just like the Hoola-Hoop!"

LOL The Hoola-Hoop? Hasn't that been around more than like 50 years? At this point in the game I wouldn't advise anyone to attempt holding their breath until the WFD dies. Each year it simply gets stronger. This forum is solid proof of that. Even two years ago you couldn't mention WFD on a site without either getting bashed or banned or heck both!

My hat is off to the DW gang for allowing us to discuss this topic and so much more. DW is a wonderful site for education.

TD

[theduke86]

Matt, I'll say it once and I'll say it again (and probably again when I see your stuff), but you have got it going on man. You really do. I look forward to seeing you play sometime (next IAJE in NYC maybe?)

[mattsmith]

Matt, I'll say it once and I'll say it again (and probably again when I see your stuff), but you have got it going on man. You really do. I look forward to seeing you play sometime (next IAJE in NYC maybe?)
Duke, If you come to the next IAJE sign up for the advanced jam session. I'm always over there. Its kind of a non musical free for all, but there is always a bunch of people there and its a cool place to meet new faces, although everybody's got their challenge vibe on (lol).
The New York IAJEs are pretty incredible. Millions of Canadians always show.

As far as this little 5 minute improv solo I laid down today, what I did felt Ok, but I didn't have any mics, just the ones on the cameras. I'm gonna try to clean some of that up. But you never know. I'm not quite ready to go for a "pay somebody some bread fakey sound" just yet. I noticed everybody on youtube was just recording their stuff raw. So why should I be so special?

Now if I can just figure out youtube (lol). Well it looks pretty easy.

[mattsmith]

Hi Guys,

I recorded this drumometer run on high definition, so when I converted to youtube some of the digital definition on the Drumometer was lost. So the score of 1083 is kind of hard to see unless you look at it from an angle. But honestly the score is legit, and you can still see it a little. I will try to brighten it up over the weekend so you can see it better. But not to bother anyway, since I am sure someone will be counting along to make sure there was no cheating.

This 1083 Drumometer run, would unofficially break my age 16 and under world record which currently stands at 1061. My current personal best is 1103. But we know how much that counts.

I also did video of a 2 minute run (2080) and a 3 minute run (3052). When I get the drumometer lit up better, I will release those next week.

Anyway, here's the speed run.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=m9wHxTTdxBA

Also------Here is a clip of me playing in a jazz combo.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HrgHt4fQgIw

And lastly, an improvised drum solo.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9wJEoG-C2VI

[Class A Drummer]

I just thought of something. this has probably been said, but i have no patience to read 10000 posts through 16 pgs. in a thread.

Are those people doing like one handed roles in each hand? or are they just doing what people usually do in closed fast roles, but 10 times better?

Yeah i know thats not the greatest question in the world.

[ernehudspe]

World's Fastest Drummer. What do you think? Personally I think it just brings out the stereotypical drummer. It has little to do with music. But, let me here your thoughts!
peace
I'm waiting for the worlds "Fat but good looking with a good groove drummers contest" I might have a chance there....LOL...Buddy

[Chip]

Mmmmm.... My single strokes go out the window several days a week, but the rest they like to pop back in for a chat. Back in my metal (or more severe metal) days, I'm sure I could've hit more, but that's because everything was singles, didn't know about doubles. Now is wierd, my singles are fairly slow, 122 32nds (or was it 112......don't remember), my doubles are slowly coming up to take the gold.

This slowness comes from not playing fast, but nice, for so long. Now that I'm practicing and playing with my band again, and nowadays everyone loves speed (not the drug, although some do) so I must keep my chops nicely tended to, I hate it, I love playing 50 ways to leave your lover, not wrong side ofthe bed (not that it's fast..but still). I like to keep my speed up there so I can play what comes to mind. I really can appreciate what you guys do, and work for with the WFD. Takes so much dedication and effort.

Does anybody know the record for paradiddles? Or Flams? I suck at flams, I do them so dirty. Real inconsistent like.

[Class A Drummer]

The current paradiddle record is 1032 by Sam LaCompte. But Brad Broomfield was recorded unofficially posting 1096. The flam record is like 570 and pretty new.
wow 1032. i thought that it was bad that i can parradiddle faster then i can single stroke.

[Class A Drummer]

i just thought of something. Would it be faster to do the moeller in each hand then to double stroke really quickly? i saw tony royster do it and it was super fast. what do u guys think?

[centralzeke]

i just thought of something. Would it be faster to do the moeller in each hand then to double stroke really quickly? i saw tony royster do it and it was super fast. what do u guys think?

Doing singles using your fingers I'm pretty sure is ultimately faster than anything with the Moeller motion. Moeller's for accents, and I don't think you need to do accents with the WFD paradiddles..

[ThomasDee]

Does anyone know about any actual Sam Ashe WFD competition dates that are lined up?

It would be great to get one in before the world championships in Austin?






This is me playing 2080 singles in 2 consecutive minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUWUoEjWvyU

And here I am doing 3052 in 3 consecutive minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v7fijN8n40


Matt, It was my understanding that all Sam Ash's stores were doing it. Is the one near you not doing it? In Nashville they (about 10-15 miles north) are because I stopped by last week and checked it out. Mostly running preliminaries for the first few weeks is what drum dude said.

Good luck and if you enter one at Sam Ash please let us know what happens.

TD

[Chip]

I osted this but now it's not showing up, so I'll post it again.

Is the doubles record 1200 doubles, 2400 hits? If so, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard, I give up.
If not, I beat it, yay. On the snare I can now go up to 185bpm 32nds. The snare has the right........."rebound"....hehehe. I'm not using this method to replace my normal doubles or singles, but while I am still training my doubles better, and my singles can't go that fast yet.

So if there is a part that calls for a super fast snare fill I can do it. I could go faster but the hits are all just constant, maybe on an electric drum. And the doubles start to align with each other. This is all with about an hour of practice too, so I'm pretty happy with it.

Would anybody like to know how to do it? I'm not bragging, it's just good for parts on the snare that just can't be played by a human. Unless it is 1200 doubles meaning 2400 hits. Then we're all screwed.

[Tim Waterson]

I osted this but now it's not showing up, so I'll post it again.

Is the doubles record 1200 doubles, 2400 hits? If so, that's the craziest thing I've ever heard, I give up.
If not, I beat it, yay. On the snare I can now go up to 185bpm 32nds. The snare has the right........."rebound"....hehehe. I'm not using this method to replace my normal doubles or singles, but while I am still training my doubles better, and my singles can't go that fast yet.

So if there is a part that calls for a super fast snare fill I can do it. I could go faster but the hits are all just constant, maybe on an electric drum. And the doubles start to align with each other. This is all with about an hour of practice too, so I'm pretty happy with it.

Would anybody like to know how to do it? I'm not bragging, it's just good for parts on the snare that just can't be played by a human. Unless it is 1200 doubles meaning 2400 hits. Then we're all screwed.

My record for doubles with the feet is 1407 officially...so 702 double strokes
At home we all go faster LOL
2400 I would love to hear that it would one continuous note..............LOL
Buzzes on the snare dont count...
Seths double strokes for the hands was an Accuracy record and they were POWERFULL doubles 4-5 inches off the pad.
Tim

[Chip]

So the doubles record was 2400 hits? Jesus Christ., I have a long way to go.
Just to make sure, it's 2 hits (RR or LL) 1200 times? Or is it RR or LL 600 times? Bloody hell, that's crazy.

It's not buzzing, they are 2 distinct hits (although at that speed none of the hits really distinct). I can play them as loud as I need to as well.

Tim, when you set the record, did you do double triples or sextuplets, whatever (RRLLRR LLRRLL)? I watched the video and that's what it sounds like. Man you are fast. But I can play more hits with my hands, yay! Kidding! But I think I can, would you like a video? I'm shocked I can go that fast. It's basically cheating, you have put heaps of hard work in. I've put an hour and a half of work in.

Is there a video of the doubles record? I want to see this.

[Tim Waterson]

So the doubles record was 2400 hits? Jesus Christ., I have a long way to go.
Just to make sure, it's 2 hits (RR or LL) 1200 times? Or is it RR or LL 600 times? Bloody hell, that's crazy.

........(Chip).... if you are talking about Seths hand record each hand is doing 600 in 60 seconds he did it with a metrenome as well for accuracy and yes got it spot on at 1200.

It's not buzzing, they are 2 distinct hits (although at that speed none of the hits really distinct). I can play them as loud as I need to as well.

Tim, when you set the record, did you do double triples or sextuplets, whatever (RRLLRR LLRRLL)? I watched the video and that's what it sounds like. Man you are fast. But I can play more hits with my hands, yay! Kidding! But I think I can, would you like a video? I'm shocked I can go that fast. It's basically cheating, you have put heaps of hard work in. I've put an hour and a half of work in.

....(Chip)..... from what I remember the metrenome was set on about 176 or 177 and i knew I could not hold it so I just played faster for as long as I could and and then slowed down and then tried to speed up again and ended up at 1407...
we all run higher at home...

Is there a video of the doubles record? I want to see this.
go to www.extremesportdrumming.com/wfdtv.htm for all the video clips
God Bless
Tim

[Scatman]

Those wfd videos are very interesting

[emmerson]

i honestly think its a bit over rated sure its cool people can go that fast but its nothing new its just speed

[centralzeke]

Hey Matt, just wondering how you trained for WFD? I'm sure everyone is curious how you practiced for this thing. So either start a thread about it or reply to this! haha. You the man.

[mattsmith]

i honestly think its a bit over rated sure its cool people can go that fast but its nothing new its just speed
Well, I think we already know your opinion, since youv'e voiced it word for word on this site at every opportunity where you have seen speed even remotely mentioned.

As previously mentioned, this forum has thankfully examined this issue in its entirety, and both sides have been able to have their say, with the truth probably somewhere in the middle. And unlike other forums where anti WFD spammers can pretty much do whatever they want, drummerworld actually seeks out fairness regarding this issue, and gets slammed for it by other tragically hip forums who mistakenly believe they are privvy to some vaunted spiritual perogative, that they would lack the sophistication to understand anyway.

Besides, this is the WFD thread, located way back here in the Archive section. You could very easily go to other threads to avoid this unpleasantness, where you could find me agreeing with you on any number of issues, unrelated to this one. At that time you might gain a greater respect for those matters as opposed to this one personal trait that you specifically feel is overrated.

Moreover, I'm not going to apologize for the general public's strange fascination, or try to explain why a small handful of disgruntled drummers, want to continue to whack away at old hackneyed groove arguments as if they have never been heard before.

Look man, I don't want to be too hard here. I really don't. But I go to alot of trouble on this forum to demonstrate the pros and cons of this stuff, and sometimes I get a little burned out when people just want to keep sayin' the same things as if none of this has never been covered. Cool?...

[mattsmith]

Hey Matt, just wondering how you trained for WFD? I'm sure everyone is curious how you practiced for this thing. So either start a thread about it or reply to this! haha. You the man.
Hey thanks man. But there really isn't any big thing to training for this in my case. I only practiced on it about 40 minutes a day among the other things I practice. And honestly, since all the WFD pressure of pre July, I admit that I have been taking it kinda easy in August. In fact I've been pretty slack (lol). But I just felt like I needed the break.

In my estimation, speed is just something you happen to acquire on the way to achieving endurance, which I think is a far more important goal. Much of my view is discussed on
post 44 of the Mangini Method Self Try Weblog thread. Just don't try some of the stuff my teacher laid on me. I'm not sure it's good for you (lol).

[stee]

well guys.....what about 1357 bpm?
ive got the title for the fastest

need proof?

[mattsmith]

well guys.....what about 1357 bpm?
ive got the title for the fastest

need proof?

I don't want to be a jerk here, but yeah I need to challenge your claim for a number of reasons, although I hope you really are this good.

To set a world record or place in world rankings, you have to do it at a world championship. For it to count at a music store, you have to get verification from either Boo McAffee or Craig Allen of WFD, which is extremely rare. A WFD official would really have to be at the event itself, and most times it still wouldn't count.

You currently have no official ranking in the UK division, although this may change.

If you actually scored 1357, this would mean you obliterated the standing singles bass drum world record. I heard and saw your solo myspace video, and although very fast, was slowed down on my computer, and found to be in the healthy high 700s range. This is really good, but not what you actually believe. With that said I kind of doubt you play fast a little better than half as fast as you compete.

But, I believe your sincerity, which leads me to believe that chances were almost 100% that the bass drum sensor at your contest was double triggering, which is big time common at places who don't properly prepare the bass drum for competition.

For anyone to consider such a huge claim, you have to provide video proof, and I am certain WFD officials would review it to make sure you were on the level to actually set a WFD record.

I'm not at all trying to be a jerk here. But there are so many people making these bass drum claims, when it is almost always a matter of faulty equipment. But good luck anyway.

-Matt

[Boo]

World's Fastest Drummer. What do you think? Personally I think it just brings out the stereotypical drummer. It has little to do with music. But, let me here your thoughts!
peace

WOW Holy Cow! I just found this and haven't read through it yet, but WOW! OK! 15 pages? I have no idea where to begin, I guess I should start reading, but your line about
"the stereotypical drummer" did catch my eye. May I first ask "who are you referring to as "the stereotypical drummer"?

Now I must brush up on some serious reading..........

Boo

[Class A Drummer]

well guys.....what about 1357 bpm?
ive got the title for the fastest

need proof?

you mustve done a pressed role, not singles. The record for that is in the mid 1500's.

[Bernhard]

Joe Morello a stereotype drummer perhabs????!!!!

If you have a solid technical background with rudiments you gain the liberty to be creative on you drumset without thinking too much on technique while doing so.

So if you have an instrument to control your progress like the DRUMOMETER - why not......

Being afraid to become a stereotype drummer sounds like an excuse to me to avoid hard practice work.

Did you see the nice fluidity of Joe Morello? Just a result of some daily practice - even today in his seventies.....

Here:

http://www.drummerworld.com/Videos/joemorellokiller.html

Bernhard

[Jeff Almeyda]

Joe Morello a stereotype drummer perhabs????!!!!

If you have a solid technical background with rudiments you gain the liberty to be creative on you drumset without thinking too much on technique while doing so.

So if you have an instrument to control your progress like the DRUMOMETER - why not......

Being afraid to become a stereotype drummer sounds like an excuse to me to avoid hard practice work.

Did you see the nice fluidity of Joe Morello? Just a result of some daily practice - even today in his seventies.....

Here:

http://www.drummerworld.com/Videos/joemorellokiller.html

Bernhard

I couldn't agree more.