Music, sweet, sweet music
Our web design class voted on music as the topic for our last web site assignment. The categories for this topic are a type of music or genre, a particular music era or music as it pertains to a specific culture. Since I am learning to play the drums, I thought it would be fun to write about my favorite drummers. I started out very ambitious and wanted to feature twenty drummers. It then went down to ten and I finally ended up at four which worked out to be a good thing for both myself and my viewers.
It is not that I didn't want to mention the other drummers but I had to be realistic about how much I could get done in the amount of time I had. As the great Ludwieg Mies van der Rohe stated "less is more" and "God is in the details", sometimes quality is better than quantity. I love when I get a chance to mention one of my favorite architects, it's always an added bonus and after all, to me music is art and art is music.
I talk about Buddy Rich, Max Roach, Steve Smith (Journey) and Ringo Starr (The Beatles). The first two, Buddy Rich and Max Roach are considered to be legendary jazz drummers, where as Steve Smith started his training as a jazz drummer and then ventured into rock-n-roll. And of course everyone knows who Richard Starkey is.
Each of these drummers are unique and have their own sound and each of them pushed the art and created new rhythms and beats. Steve Smith and Ringo Starr are at the top of my list of favorite rock-n-roll drummers and though I've heard of Buddy Rich and Max Roach I did not realize the tremendous impact that they had on the music world, jazz in particular.
Sadly, Buddy and Max are no longer with us, Max passed away this year at the age of 83 and Buddy passed away in 1987, however on my music page one can listen and watch while Buddy and Max show off their drumming talents. Steve and Ringo are alive and well and still playing music. I think Ringo is testing out his acting talents more than playing music.
I enjoyed creating this site and it is always a true pleasure to talk about music and spread my love of drumming to anyone willing to listen and read.