Billy Ward here!

Hi Mek -
no I don't recall knowing a Gene Utz.

and Hi Bernhard - hope you are doing well!

To all of you - I'm chilling out now (finally). Had to cancel the last show of my clinic tour in Jersey City because my mom went into the hopital and had to be there to help with my dad (who has Alzheimers - they are both 86 yrs old). It was VERY intense. But now all is back to normal (whatever that means! :D) and I've been catching up on my sleep a bit.

There is a small announcement to make - I will be one of the performers at the DrumWorld Festival - held in Amsterdam. Someone from my site (Seb) hipped me to this announcement. It happens the week before DrummerLive. So if any of you are in the area - come and let's meet!
Here's their announcement:

http://www.drumworld.nl/de/events/dwf2006_program.asp

It takes place on Sept 17th, in Amsterdam. I'm going to hang out in Amsterdam for a few days and do some masterclasses as well - then head up to London for DrummerLive the very next weekend!

The only sad thing about this is that I will miss the Modern Drummer festival - too bad... but I look forward to seeing Amsterdam again!
Should be fun! Hopefully I'll have more details in August.
 
Billy, hey man! Just wanted to say that I was at your St. Louis Drum Clinic for Drum Headquarters. Im the first guy that asked you about your hi hats, then 3 questions later some dork asked the same question! I dont know if you remember, but I just wanted to let ya know, that you were right about my floor tom. I moved it out a little more and have a lot of room now for my right foot, and my rolls are SO much better! Thanks for the tip, and I guess we will see ya! Later Billy!

-Eric Weiss
St. Louis, MO

P.S. Ever consider playing with John Mayer? Or not your style of tunes?
 
mapexboy87 said:
Billy, hey man! Just wanted to say that I was at your St. Louis Drum Clinic for Drum Headquarters. Im the first guy that asked you about your hi hats, then 3 questions later some dork asked the same question! I dont know if you remember, but I just wanted to let ya know, that you were right about my floor tom. I moved it out a little more and have a lot of room now for my right foot, and my rolls are SO much better! Thanks for the tip, and I guess we will see ya! Later Billy!

-Eric Weiss
St. Louis, MO

P.S. Ever consider playing with John Mayer? Or not your style of tunes?


thanks Eric - I'm happy to have helped out!
I played with John Mayer on one of the songs from BB King's record, "80". I'd be very happy to play some more with him... Let's see if it ever happens! :D
-Billy
 
Wow, when I first saw this post I thought it was Bill Ward of Black Sabbath and was just being very informal. Do you get people doing that to ya very often at clinincs and stuff?
 
Fullback32 said:
Wow, when I first saw this post I thought it was Bill Ward of Black Sabbath and was just being very informal. Do you get people doing that to ya very often at clinincs and stuff?

only you lately! :D
 
MY SCHEDULE this coming month

thought I should fill you guys in:
august 26 & 27 - Minneapolis, MN with Joan Osborne
September 3 - Detroit with Joan Osborne
September 6 - BW drum clinic at Jersey City Drum shop in New Jersey - 8pm. For more
details: www.jerseydrums.com
September 11 - Joan Osborne benefit show somewhere in NYC
September 14 - Adams DrumFest in Holland
September 23 - Drummer Live in London
October 7 - Hollywood Custom Drum and Vintage Show in LA, CA.
For more info: www.vintagedrumshow.com

If any of you can come to these shows - let me know you are there! :D

Billy
 
Billy - I think I've spoken with you online a few times, on your forum I believe, and you were kind enough to check out my website for disabled drummers www.handidrummed.com and offer your insight. I just want to say again how much of an influence you are in my playing. Especially in how I approach setting up the drums and shooting for maximum comfort, as a drummer who needs all the help in being as comfortable as I can get, your phylosophy behind it has been invaluable to me.Your DVD is definately a "Stranded on a Desert Island", "the house is on fire, what do I save" scenario for me :)

Thanks again for being such a wonderful educator and down to earth person. Hopefully some day I'll get a chance to meet you in person or catch a clinic, but unless you're in the middle of Massachusetts along Rt. 2 somewhere, I doubt it :)

Take Care - Rob Richard
 
fourstringdrums said:
Billy - I think I've spoken with you online a few times, on your forum I believe, and you were kind enough to check out my website for disabled drummers www.handidrummed.com and offer your insight. I just want to say again how much of an influence you are in my playing. Especially in how I approach setting up the drums and shooting for maximum comfort, as a drummer who needs all the help in being as comfortable as I can get, your phylosophy behind it has been invaluable to me.Your DVD is definately a "Stranded on a Desert Island", "the house is on fire, what do I save" scenario for me :)

Thanks again for being such a wonderful educator and down to earth person. Hopefully some day I'll get a chance to meet you in person or catch a clinic, but unless you're in the middle of Massachusetts along Rt. 2 somewhere, I doubt it :)

Take Care - Rob Richard

Thanks Rob - feel free to let me know if there is anything that I can do for your helpful endeavors!

ON a sad note - I am sorry to say that original Knack drummer, Bruce Gary passed away on August 22nd.

here's a link:
http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/news/823brucegary.html

I was a guy that replaced him on their record, Serious Fun and, while I didn't really know him well, I think this is a loss for our drumming community. Might have to play a little My Sharona for him at drummerLive!
 
billy ward said:
Thanks Rob - feel free to let me know if there is anything that I can do for your helpful endeavors!

ON a sad note - I am sorry to say that original Knack drummer, Bruce Gary passed away on August 22nd.

here's a link:
http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/news/823brucegary.html

I was a guy that replaced him on their record, Serious Fun and, while I didn't really know him well, I think this is a loss for our drumming community. Might have to play a little My Sharona for him at drummerLive!

I sent you an email BW.

RIP for Bruce. I'm not too familiar with much of the Knack's music besides Sharona, but it's always sad when the drumming community loses another.
 
AN UPDATE!

Hey guys - it's been almost a month and a half since I posted - sorry about that!

i just did a clinic at the Cascio Interstate Music Store in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Yeah.... I ate a sausage! (but no cheese!) :D
The show had me, Dom Famularo Ignacio Berrera and Virgil Donati. We all played together at the end and it was really fun! Great event.
This marks the last clinic of the year for me! WHEW!!! I really did alot of them this year.

I am also making another instruction DVD - only this one will include kind of a 2 for 1 deal:
a DVD AND a CD 9that is seperate and can be taken away for your car or whatever. The CD is by the Billy Ward Trio - with Barry Coates on guitar and Bill Urmson on bass. It is instrumental... (yeah, you can even say) jazz music. the accompanying DVD will include explanations of each song - and mostly lots of bits about jazz drumming, or "jazzy-ness", and particularly how it has helped me in everything that I play. I am hoping that this turns some people onto what some jazz technique can do for them - EVEN in their heavy metal band!

So now I'm involved in post production of the DVD. It will be out early in '07.

Hope you all are well
yours, in drumming,

Billy
 

i'm reading this at the moment and i hightly recommend it.

Billy, thanks. i wish there were more books like it on the market. most drumming books have a three page intro
and then 40 pages of manuscript. here's a book i can read in bed, on the bog and in the bus. its one of the reasons i got into drum forums. sometimes i just want to read about drums and drumming rather than need a metronome, sticks and a practice pad to make it worthwhile.
i'm going to try not play cymbals for a whole song this weekend at a gig...lol. i'm just not sure which one of our repertoir i'm going to do this in. perhaps 'lady madonna'. actually this reminds me of a small duo gig a did on a sunday a few months back. i arrived at the gig to discover to my horror that i didn't pack my snare! it was a very low volume gig fortunately so i tried various things ... putting my tambourine on a tom resting on its case between my legs with a towel over both, playing on the case while accenting the hihat on the back beat etc. it was a tough tho very musical gig. sometimes problem solving brings us out of the comfort zone and into the high performance 'listen-or-die' zone.
j
 

i'm reading this at the moment and i hightly recommend it.

Billy, thanks. i wish there were more books like it on the market. most drumming books have a three page intro
and then 40 pages of manuscript. here's a book i can read in bed, on the bog and in the bus. its one of the reasons i got into drum forums. sometimes i just want to read about drums and drumming rather than need a metronome, sticks and a practice pad to make it worthwhile.
i'm going to try not play cymbals for a whole song this weekend at a gig...lol. i'm just not sure which one of our repertoir i'm going to do this in. perhaps 'lady madonna'. actually this reminds me of a small duo gig a did on a sunday a few months back. i arrived at the gig to discover to my horror that i didn't pack my snare! it was a very low volume gig fortunately so i tried various things ... putting my tambourine on a tom resting on its case between my legs with a towel over both, playing on the case while accenting the hihat on the back beat etc. it was a tough tho very musical gig. sometimes problem solving brings us out of the comfort zone and into the high performance 'listen-or-die' zone.
j


GREAT Nutha! Exploration in color and tone is a wonderful thing! Thanks for the compliments-
 
i might pick your brain if you don't mind.

first question: do you know of any drumming books that are readers rather than manuscripts? recommendations?

second question: i know its hard, but if you had to choose one piece of drumming you have recorded, that most represents your ideals, which would it be (from which album, which song)?

i like your 'fills' section in the book. for me a principle fill is found on the queen 'made in heaven' CD...'too much love will kill you', the fill into the solo. i think it is one of the most superbly recorded fills in history. know which one i'm on about? what would be your favourite/s?

j
 
i might pick your brain if you don't mind.

first question: do you know of any drumming books that are readers rather than manuscripts? recommendations?

second question: i know its hard, but if you had to choose one piece of drumming you have recorded, that most represents your ideals, which would it be (from which album, which song)?

i like your 'fills' section in the book. for me a principle fill is found on the queen 'made in heaven' CD...'too much love will kill you', the fill into the solo. i think it is one of the most superbly recorded fills in history. know which one i'm on about? what would be your favourite/s?

j

Hi again Nutha!

Kenny Werner wrote a book called "effortless mastery - discovering the musician within"
Amazon should have it somewhere. I got hip to this only recently - it's pretty darned good.

favorite song/performance... this is REALLY dependent upon styles in my case.
I love my track on robbie Robertson's Hold Back the Dawn (from Storyville) and this is a great record for drummers to listen to -
Robbie is obsessed with drummers and always made the drumming a huge part of his two records. but there are others too -= Jim Beard has a record titled "lost at the carnival" and I do a kind of left field-dixieland almost kind of thing on one song there...
For heavier stuff - the ill-fated knack record "serious fun" is full of crazy-muscular drumming...
All in all, so far, I would say my own live duets record (two hands clapping) totally covers where I'm coming from (except for jazz - and that record will be out early next year)
 
i laughed when i saw your charting system. the one i use is similar but without bar counts (maybe i will need to do this later when i get more diverse work). next to the song title i always write what i call the 'tempo phrase'. its a few memorable words in the song that nail the ideal tempo for the song (usually something from halfway through the chorus) i sing them to myself just before i count in. eg: 'we can stop thinkin' nowowowow...and a 1...2...3...4...' (similar to your advice on page 28).

what became clear to me is that you and i have approached drumming from opposite ends. while you were very technical in your early career i only found out about paradiddles after 4 years of drumming. i had to teach myself by watching MTV and playing to tapes. so for me just keeping up and making music with the song was all i could do to play the drums. now in the past handful of years i'm all into technique to 'catch up'. funny thing is, it hardly shows in my gigs where music comes first. i was practicing triplets between the hands and feet for nearly three years before they started to find a spot in my gigs. and with all the work on paradiddles i only see a diddle now and then in a fill or in a groove when i'm live.

j
 
Back
Top