I'd rather feel a good drummer (as it were ?). It seems like a lot of my favourite drummers (Weckl, Chambers, Colaiuta, Bozzio, Purdie, et. al. - the guys that are both ultra technical and still groove) are fairly boring to watch - they are so effortless in their playing. Gadd's the exception.

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Speaking of good drummers ? It's a pretty cool watch, whether you like Dream Theater or not, you get to see 7 of world's best doing their thing and they're all within the same context so you get a really good idea of what a difference a drummer can make.

My personal favourite auditions:

Marco Minneman
Thomas Lang
Virgil Donati
Mike Mangini

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This kid is pretty good!

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I really like Horacio "El Negro" Hernandez


With the legendary Michael Brecker & John Patitucci




A Warner Bros. video


Drummers Collective with John Patitucci

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: I'd rather feel a good drummer (as it were ?). It seems like a lot of my favourite drummers (Weckl, Chambers, Colaiuta, Bozzio, Purdie, et. al. - the guys that are both ultra technical and still groove) are fairly boring to watch - they are so effortless in their playing. Gadd's the exception.

Yes. There's a sort of weird pleasure in that for me. You can't quite equate what you're hearing to what you're seeing. I sometimes find that in guitarists. Some of them don't LOOK like they're doing a lot, but you HEAR a whole lot more. Or so it seems to me - maybe this is part of my inner critical voice that tells me that I'll never be much good as a guitar player :'( Where's the shrink's couch when you need it :'(

I do enjoy watching drummers because there's a sort of athleticism there. Some of them move quite languidly. Michael Jerome, whose playing I like a lot, always seems to be moving too late but everything is on time.

There's also a particular approach to the fretting hand on a bass guitar that I enjoy - they seem to be shaping the notes they're playing somehow.

But what you hear and feel is more important. If I hear a great bass part but the guy's left hand doesn't look the way I like it to, then that's forgiveable.

Another thing.... I've long thought that you could tell if a band is live or miming by watching the drummer. If he looks like he's just lightly moving the sticks around then it's mimed. Or so my theory went. But recently I was watching Dave Mattacks play on a DVD of footage I know to be live (live in studio, but still live) and it never once looks like there's any kind of muscle in any note that he plays on anything. So there you go...