BeatlesFan
Senior Member
Who do you think is the best female drummer of all time?
Best Female Drummer?
- Thread starter BeatlesFan
- Start date
J
Jeff Gordon #24
Guest
Karen Carpenter, imo.
Pollyanna
Platinum Member
Terri Lynne is the most technically accomplished that I've heard; she plays exactly like a man. That deaf woman who plays classical percussion (name escapes me at present) is a superb player. Cindy Blackman is another fine player who can cut plenty of styles.
Personally, I like Moe Tucker a lot even if she's very basic; she was highly original and played a major role in creating the atmosphere of Velvet Underground's music.
Pavlos
Senior Member
Evelyn Glennie. Touch the Sound is a great doc.
Pollyanna
Platinum Member
Thanks Pavlos. In that doco everything she played sounded wonderful, even the simplest things.
BassDriver
Silver Member
Probably where Tama got the idea of the gong bass drum, she had the kick drum stood up so it could be hit with mallets.
dairyairman
Platinum Member
i'll second that. anyone who thinks girls can't play needs to watch one of her videos and prepare to be humbled.
MisterMixelpix
Silver Member
Mercedes Lander from Kittie is an EXCELLENT metal drummer.
Pocket-full-of-gold
Platinum Member
I'd never heard of her......just checked out a few of her vids. Glad I did too......great stuff!!
conchrandy
Senior Member
I'd kill to play like Cindy Blackman
Ian Williams
Rebel
For sure they can beat the skins:
Cindy Blackman
Meg White
Stephanie Eulinberg
Pollyanna
Neurotica
.....there are more Drummerworld female drummers, can't remember, help me!
Cindy Blackman
Meg White
Stephanie Eulinberg
Pollyanna
Neurotica
.....there are more Drummerworld female drummers, can't remember, help me!
(Far TOO Tony-influenced, if you ask me.) I'm not even a Tony Williams fan and I hear it just on what I've absorbed from the drumming world in general.
I've yet to see an amazing female drummer in the technique world. Some of those listed here are really good drummers, but I wouldn't even consider putting them in the same league as Dennis Chambers or Vinnie.
I've yet to see an amazing female drummer in the technique world. Some of those listed here are really good drummers, but I wouldn't even consider putting them in the same league as Dennis Chambers or Vinnie.
Pollyanna
Platinum Member
That's just chops (although Vinnie is highly musical too). There's a lot more to being a great drummer than that IMO.
Having said that, given that men would seem to outnumber women in the scene by about 100 to one, it would be odd if the top players weren't men. Further, the difference in numbers was far more pronounced still through most of the history of modern music. So the standards of what is considered "good" and "bad" have been set by men.
Those standards, unsurprisingly, suit men perfectly. I always used to try to play by those rules - tried to develop my chops to play fast and with power etc and now I'm trying to move away from that and work out what my natural inclinations are. Without any history or guide map to draw from, it's difficult; old habits die hard.
I'm guessing that drummers like Moe and Meg hint at how it's done even though playing with that level of simplicity all the time isn't very interesting for me. I find it inspiring that they piss off a lot of male drummers and are regularly dismissed as not mattering, yet they were/are highly effective in their bands. That suggests to me that there is something distinctly feminine in their approach.
Men have long dissed women for being unathletic and naive in "matters that matter" unless we copy the macho dynamism'n'speed approach and do it well (a la Terri-Lynne and Cindy). Women are still to establish our own drumming "voice" IMO.
