Ringo Starr
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BrewBillfold
Silver Member
I like Ringo a lot. He played a lot of unique things (one doesn't have to be complex to be unique), which were all very musical, and he also had a great, unique feel.
Just fyi, though, there are a couple things incorrect there--for just one example, the "Mother Superior" section is 6/8 6/4 6/8 7/4, which repeats 2x (for a total of 3x).
Take it up with Wikipedia. It was a quote, and I tend to believe them.
hollowcreature
Member
Totally agree with you on that one. I love the drumming on 'Abbey Road' in general, but 'Something' is a quiet masterpiece.
whatwhatwhat
Junior Member
He was as good technically on his instrument as the other three Beatles were at singing, playing guitar and piano etc.
The thing is, absolutely anyone can be good technically. It's just a matter of how much rote practice you can stand to put yourself through.
Only Ringo could have composed the incredible music he played on his drums on songs like Strawberry Fields Forever, A Day in the Life etc. Only Paul could have written Maybe I'm Amazed. Only John could have written Imagine, only George could have written While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
As musicians, collectively you all seem to be missing the point.
Your collective attitude seems to be that the more technically proficient you are and the more technically demanding your compositions are to play, the better they will sound to people's ears.
This is like saying that someone who can type 216 words per minute is going to be the greatest novelist of all time.
Or that the likes of Norman Mailer or J.R.R Tolkien wrote bad books because they could only type, say, 25 words per minute.
It's just stupid.
The thing is, absolutely anyone can be good technically. It's just a matter of how much rote practice you can stand to put yourself through.
Only Ringo could have composed the incredible music he played on his drums on songs like Strawberry Fields Forever, A Day in the Life etc. Only Paul could have written Maybe I'm Amazed. Only John could have written Imagine, only George could have written While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
As musicians, collectively you all seem to be missing the point.
Your collective attitude seems to be that the more technically proficient you are and the more technically demanding your compositions are to play, the better they will sound to people's ears.
This is like saying that someone who can type 216 words per minute is going to be the greatest novelist of all time.
Or that the likes of Norman Mailer or J.R.R Tolkien wrote bad books because they could only type, say, 25 words per minute.
It's just stupid.
Pachikara-Tharakan
Silver Member
To me......If I take the media fuss out of the Beatles and The Rolling Stones or any other "popular bands" the musicians in these bands are as important and as same as the unknown bar band that is playing right down the street..... just musicians having fun.
my 4 cents!
my 4 cents!
Pocket-full-of-gold
Platinum Member
BrewBillfold
Silver Member
I just changed that one part on Wikipedia . . . I didn't bother changing the other things that are wrong, as there's a good chance it will just get changed back to the wrong info anyway, and I'm not fond of facelessly fighting with others in that kind of situation.
Pollyanna
Platinum Member
PT, if an unknown bar band had songwriters and vocalists that can do what the guys in the Beatles did they wouldn't be unknown for long.
It wasn't all the zeitgeist or Brian Epstein's management. Those guys were gifted and dedicated.
BrewBillfold
Silver Member
Ah, I couldn't help myself--I corrected the whole thing. So that paragraph on Wikipedia now reads: "One of the most salient musical features of the song is its frequent shifts in [[time signature]], some tempo changes, and some unusual phrasing. The song begins in standard 4/4 time but quickly begins to deviate from the norm. There is a five bar phrase rather than the usual four with the line beginning on "She's well acquainted...". The last phrase/line of that verse ("A soap impression . . . ") has a 6/4 bar (the second measure of the phrase) before going back to 4/4 for the last two bars of the phrase, and Ringo plays the downbeat on "1" in the fourth bar, giving a more unusual feel. The subsequent guitar lead and bridge can be analyzed as a 3-bar pattern of 9/8, 12/8, 12/8 (or 5 bars--one of 9/8, four of 6/8, etc.), with Ringo retaining an implied 6/8 throughout, so that the snare drum downbeats are on "1" as often as not. This gives way to faster (almost double time) four bar pattern of 6/8, 6/4, 6/8, 7/4 for the "Mother Superior..." section before returning to a slower 4/4 for the doo-wop style ending. During the "When I hold you..." section, the rest of the band returns to 6/8, but Ringo stays in 4/4. This is one of the few examples of [[polyrhythm]] in the Beatles' repertoire."
Who knows how long that will stay corrected.
Who knows how long that will stay corrected.
Pollyanna
Platinum Member
Well done, BB - and GD for finding it for the thread in the first place.
I used to play along with Happiness but never had a clue about the numbers. I just knew that you'd add a beat or two in various places. I generally found it pretty intuitive and some parts of Here Comes the Sun seemed less obvious to me, even though it's just some 7/8 here and there.
Love the way Ringo comes across as so simple yet he kept a lot up his sleeve. His ears ruled, not his hands.
I used to play along with Happiness but never had a clue about the numbers. I just knew that you'd add a beat or two in various places. I generally found it pretty intuitive and some parts of Here Comes the Sun seemed less obvious to me, even though it's just some 7/8 here and there.
Love the way Ringo comes across as so simple yet he kept a lot up his sleeve. His ears ruled, not his hands.
BeatlesFan
Senior Member
Nice drumming on The Beatles' "It's All Too Much": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Oes9_poAIg
Muckster
Platinum Member
Just how many different license plate designs does Florida have?
DrumEatDrum
Platinum Member
Regardless if anyone thinks Ringo is the best ever or worst, the fact remains he was the guy the BAND wanted to drum for them.
Most rock drummers at the time were converted jazz drummers, and so many rock tunes of the late 50's and early 60's had this implied jazz feel. I often think John, Paul and George picked Ringo because he did NOT have that implied jazz feel, rather he could play things very straight to suite their song writing at the time.
And from there, the rest is history.
Most rock drummers at the time were converted jazz drummers, and so many rock tunes of the late 50's and early 60's had this implied jazz feel. I often think John, Paul and George picked Ringo because he did NOT have that implied jazz feel, rather he could play things very straight to suite their song writing at the time.
And from there, the rest is history.
BuddyBeaufordGaddNeil
Member
Good point dude. Any idiot knows Ringo is technically not a very good drummer at all but he played EXACTLY what those songs called for. Im not a big Beatles fan but i do know that Ringo was perfectly happen to let those 3 do most of the song writing and arranging while he just played what they asked for.
BeatlesFan
Senior Member
You're also forgetting that Ringo was an established drummer in Liverpool before he joined The Beatles. People/Haters ignorantly seem to think he was just a random unknown drummer who got lucky. He was in Rory Storm + The Hurricanes which was the top band in Liverpool before The Beatles made it big.
Here's some nice quotes...
Mike McCartney -- "There were quite a few drummers around Liverpool and I used to go home and tell Paul about Ringo. I often saw him play with Rory Storm. ...With Rory he was a very inventive drummer. He goes around the drums like crazy. He doesn't just hit them -- he invents sounds." (1983 interview for The Beatles: A Celebration by Geoffrey Guilliano, 1992)
"Ringo was a star in his own right in Liverpool before we even met. He was a professional drummer who sang and performed and had Ringo Star-time and he was in one of the top groups in Britain but especially in Liverpool before we even had a drummer. So Ringo's talent would have come out one way or the other as something or other." -John Lennon, Playboy 1980 Interview
I also find it sad how metal heads here on drummerworld say he's not technically good. I recently watched this documentary on the making of John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band, in which Ringo plays drums for, and Klaus Voormann was saying how all the greatest drummers he knows like Jim Keltner "love Ringo". All the big names in drumming like Steve Gadd and Charlie Watts have all praised his talents, yet ignorant people here say he's not technically good because he doesn't play flashy.