Why for such a great drummer seems difficult to learn such an easy song?

GSL said:
There's lots of stuff on YouTube where accomplished drummers play songs they're unfamiliar with; my personal favourite is Larnell Lewis playing Metallica's "Enter Sandman", apparently having never heard it previously:oops:

After a single listen & taking some notes, he absolutely nails it; I appreciate that he's a very talented (& IMHO, genuinely humble & likeable) human being- I just wish I had 10% of his ability...:rolleyes:

I wonder if Lars has ever watched it & thought, "Maybe I should practice & up my game"???
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Larnell's performance is a perfect illustration of what I meant about a drummer just running with it and making it their own. His performance is great, but he didn't try to get it exactly as the original.

Eloy just seemed to put more effort into capturing the original. That's my perception, anyway.
 
GSL said:
There's lots of stuff on YouTube where accomplished drummers play songs they're unfamiliar with; my personal favourite is Larnell Lewis playing Metallica's "Enter Sandman", apparently having never heard it previously:oops:

After a single listen & taking some notes, he absolutely nails it; I appreciate that he's a very talented (& IMHO, genuinely humble & likeable) human being- I just wish I had 10% of his ability...:rolleyes:

I wonder if Lars has ever watched it & thought, "Maybe I should practice & up my game"???
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That's one of my favorite drum videos ever. I can just watch him play anything, and I love hearing him discuss stuff, too. He explains things in a manner that's easy to grasp, and he's very entertaining to listen to. I've found several more videos that he's done, and need to keep searching for more of his videos. He's now easily one of my favorites, all thanks to that one video.
 
This is kind of separate but maybe related. I find it harder to play slower than faster. To stay in time and hit the times real well. On every instrument I always wanna push the beat. When you go fast, pushing isn't as much of a problem. And in fact for me become closer to on. Playing slow..... Lot's more work to get it to feel good for me.

I guess my point is if someone plays a lot of fast stuff, slowing down and playing less notes in the same amount of time could be a challenge.....

After watching the vid it didn't really look like to me he was struggling with learning it. I mean if someone can hear a song one time and then just play it properly after one or two times of hearing it. That would be other worldly good. He just seemed like he was going through a normal process of learning a song well. And doing it in one session behind a camera.... that's pretty pro IMHO. It's probably harder to do that then to come up with something of his own. As other people already stated.

I personally could really care less how slow or fast someone takes to copy another persons song. Especially that. And furthermore I could care less how long it took them to come up with a song. If it's a really good song, who cares if it took 20 years to create? Or 20 minutes. Yeah, I'm sure many really good musicians do things faster that some of us normal people. And they deserve respect for their skill and art.
 
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What do you think about THE ALMIGHTY Dennis Chambers playing Tool?
He seems to have no idea where to start
 
bud7h4 said:
He's not struggling because it's difficult to play, he's struggling because he doesn't know the song yet. It's easy drumming but there are a lot of "drum parts"; fills, changes, etc.
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Thats what i think too, i have seen Eloy a few times and he is a killer player
 
RLRL said:
Shouldn't be easier to play less complicated drum parts?
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We tend to play what we like to play and what's demanded of us. Complexity levels don't indicate familiarity and comfort levels, and different styles of music literally feel different to play, habits get ingrained and try to insert themselves in new endeavors.

Basically, playing in these styles he isn't used to doesn't have the same automatic muscle/brain memory as the stuff he usually plays and you might consider more complicated.

If you want to see something funny it's usually pretty fun to have a blazing double pedal metal guy try to play basic straight forward jazz. It can be quite humbling in the way doing something like this video highlights.
 
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Jazz and Metal drumming are specialized techniques. Of course other styles are, but double pedal metal is limited to those who developed the skills needed. Jazz also, for those specialized skills.
 
2 hit wonder said:
Jazz and Metal drumming are specialized techniques. Of course other styles are, but double pedal metal is limited to those who developed the skills needed. Jazz also, for those specialized skills.
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A lot of styles are like that really, and it's not till you try that you even realize how much specialty and style goes into each application.

Reggae, country, hip hop, etc... They're all quite different from one another and learning techniques in any one won't make you "good" at the others unless you put in some time and thought.
 
Rhythm666 said:
Thats what i think too, i have seen Eloy a few times and he is a killer player
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He's an absolute monster. Absolute master, and man he hits hard for playing as fast and complex as he does. I would love to see him get hired for Slipknot. His covers are so much fun to watch.
 
2 hit wonder said:
If you ask a really good guitar player if other players can capture the feel (not just the notes) of someone like SRV, you'll frequently get a not really response.

I agree with a couple of other comments already made.
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Pantera songs are hard to play but harder to nail because a lot of Dime's feel was due to his timing on bends and squeals, how long he held the notes. It is possible to replicate it exactly as some have but not easy. Add also that you would need to use his guitar and his guitar rig setup by his guitar tech in order to eliminate most other variables that would otherwise be there preventing you from capturing his feel.
 
RLRL said:
Shouldn't be easier to play less complicated drum parts?
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Not necessarily. Ive seen situations where people learned difficult drumming parts in the beginning rather then working their way up. I gave him peart transcriptions and he learned them all in months! I was told at one point he was heard saying, “ i wish i knew how to play a simple 4/4 groove”. Also friends of mine that grew up playing just jazz found it challenging to simplify into something like country
 
Yesterday I was blazing through practice, nailing all my funky songs with complex ghost notes and syncopated or linear parts. I capped off the session by trying to learn Soul Vaccination. Anyone listening at that point could have assumed it was my first attempt at drumming.

Everything we are good at we have played a million times. I hate those “*insert famous drummer* hears *insert famous song* for the first time” videos.
 
I ain't no brilliant drummer.....boy howdy, I dunno what my level is.

I can play to a point.

But considering the complexity of Billie Jean.........it sounds awful when I try to play it.

I just cannot get the feel.
 
equipmentdork said:
If it's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that every creative person has a blind spot of some kind, something they find either challenging or even impossible.



Dan
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Whoa whoa..thats deep...and I mean that. That really hits hard. I'm almost goose bumpy.
 
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