Drumming songs

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Permalink Reply by The Mistreated on February 12, 2009 at 1:23pm

You've got a hell of a choice! Of course, Led Zep is a good 'un. Some of their songs may be 'easy' but you try playing the way Bonzo does. So songs like Black Dog or Rock 'n' Roll are actually very difficult to do properly and anyone in the drumming 'know' would be able to spot the difference.

Other tunes that spring to mind would be the instrumental YYZ by Rush (maybe not well known enough) or their biggest hit, Spirit Of Radio - it might be a pop song, but Neal Peart doesn't make it easy.

A lot depends on how you want to show the drummer off - do you want groove or pyrotechnics? If you want groove, try Herbie Hancock's Chameleon (Tony Williams on drums) - well known, a groove from hell and deceptively hard to play with difficult stops and punctuations.

Another would be to head off towards Steve Gadd and probably the most-famous drum line ever: 'Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover'. Copied by thousands but Steve Gadd's groove is rarely emulated.

Finally: Any drummer who can pull off Toto's Roseanna properly is very good in my book. A simple pop song with two of any drummers' worst enemies: fantastic groove and a fast, single-handed half-time shuffle with ghost notes. Again, copied by thousands, rarely emulated well. This one song catapulted Jeff Porcaro to being one of the greatest groove drummers ever.

I could list even more, but I'm waffling now. My advice? I personally rate drummers for feel rather than pyrotechnics.

Hope that helps.

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Permalink Reply by Catfish Jones on February 26, 2009 at 9:35am

Most modern drummers don`t do `subtle` too well.

For some nice snare feel I like the part for 50 ways to leave your lover. Very simple, but so effective.

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