No. 34 ~ Top10 Mike Johnston~ 08

Now this is a guy you just gotta love. Mike Johnston falls under no. 8 of my list for being so awesome at drums, not to mention his comedic act while performing and teaching. For those of you who do not know who Mike Johnston is, I'll give you a short back story. He was the drummer of a rock band called Simon Says,
"Here is the third guy walking in the beginning of the video."

Years later, he opened his own drum school called "The Drum Lab" in Sacramento and started to post some cool drum licks, rudiments, beats on Youtube and that is when his fame started to shoot off the roof (Also that was when I discovered of his existence).


He is one awesome dude and I also love watching whatever new stuff he has on Youtube. Just recently, he posted a video on youtube to challenge other drummers to become better in doing some drum shedding... so I tried it out myself and ofcourse, I got thrashed by the man himself...


But even so, Mike Johnston was humble enough to leave a comment on the video...

From Mike Johnston:
RAYMOND! That was great. Your style is incredible, such a smooth flow to everything. It's a true pleasure to play with you bro. Thank you for doing this and showing drummers that we can have fun when we shed, even if we are many miles apart.

Great Job Raymond,
Mike Johnston
MIKESLESSONS COM

He is one awesome dude and worthy to be called as one the greatest drummers the world has ever seen...

No. 33 ~ Top10 Billy Ward~ 09

O man, Billy Ward. The ultimate "groovemeister". This dude land on my no.9 spot in my all time favorite drummers because not only does he have the most amazing grooves but also he has so much creativity with so little drums. He can use a simple 4 piece drum kit and make it sound so full... it is really amazing.




Besides such an awesome jazz drummer, he is very versatile, once you put him with a bassist, crazy things happen... I kid you not... when I saw him playing with a bassist from his "Big Time" DVD, I was blown away by the awesomeness of the music they made. It was really cool.... here's a short clip of it on Youtube...



What I like most about Billy Ward is that he just gives the oomph in every style he plays. An extremely versatile dude... and also a hilarious man...



___________________________________________________________________
I was doing a recording at Ps. Jonathan Tse's studio... I thought it'd be nice to jam to his song... a moment later, Ps. Jonathan decided to record me so I'm like..oh crap... gotta do something cool...and this is what happened! >.<

No. 32 ~ Benny Greb~ 10

As we are closing in to the drummers that I really like, I would like to name the top 10 in my list of all time favorite drummers whom I can never get tired of. From the beginning of the list. No. 10 is none other then the man who made The Art of Drumming. "Benny Greb."


His groove and style is probably one of the best of the best. He can take a simple backbeat and make it sound so inspiring! I first saw his performance on Youtube. His soloing with grooves was really simple yet jaw dropping... the groove is so awesome that you can almost taste it. I think this video speaks for itself.




Up until today, for some reason, his face just reminds me of Jesus Christ. The one that Hollywood always keeps on portraying. I see a lot of facial resemblance in him. Dont you think so...



Anyways, despite his facial figure. I really love his grooves, it just satisfies my ears very much!
Benny drumming with Johnny Rabb.
Although I like Benny's groove, this video of him snare soloing with Johnny Rabb, I think Johnny Rabb thrashed Benny but it is really cool.





P/S. For those of you who know me very well. This video on O:45. Does it sound familiar?

~www.RayGoh.blogspot.com~

I'll be stopping my xanga blog and will use www.raygoh.blogspot.com to update my non-drumming life.

But I will still remain using this blog mainly for drumming and Christianity. (Both topics do not necessarily have to mix together in every posts)

No. 31 ~American Hi-Fi + Miley Cyrus~

I just realized... and knowing this might shock you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n87oD8E98MM

This song is call Flavor of The Week by an old band American Hi Fi, which is one of my favorite bands.

Now, when you have seen that video, watch this



Alright... so what does American Hi-Fi have anything to do with Miley Cyrus?

Well... look closely at the drummer for Miley.... Now look closely at the lead singer of American Hi-Fi.

NO way??? YES WAY! It turns out, the reason why American Hi Fi has not had anything new is because the lead singer now plays the drums for Miley Cyrus!!!!!

I know that some people already knew this a long time ago, but I just found out and I think the majority of my readers did not know that either! This is just mind-blowingly shocking! I didn't know he played drums and he's really good at it!

P.S. His name is Stacy Jones.

No. 30 ~Clapping Music by Steve Reich~

For those who have been asking what I've been practicing on the drums lately. This is what I've just been recently working on...




This is a composition made by a composer called Steve Reich. This is a 12/16 (similar to 6/8 or 3/4) clapping rhythm performed by two people. 1st, both clappers will clap the rhythm in unison. 1 will keep on playing the same rhythm throughout the entire time while the 2nd clapper moves 1 quarter of a note back every 4th, 8th, or 12th bar. They will keep this up all the way until the 2nd clapper comes back into unison with the 1st clapper.

Steve Reich in 2006

This is one of Steve Reich's early pieces of simple "phasing."He has done alot more other types of composition that does even more complicated phasing. For those who do not know what is phasing in a musical term; " it just means that two instruments playing the same thing in steady but not identical tempo. Slowly making them out of sync... all the way until the 2nd instruments comes back in unison with the 1st instrument."

I first got the idea to do this when I saw Glenn Kotche's interview at the Modern Drummer Festival 2006 DVD. I was so fascinating that I've tried to mimic it by ear by for a whole year couldn't find it possible until I finally sat down and spent an entire hour writing out the entire notation for clapping music. Surprisingly it is only 12 bars.



You can see Mr. Kotche talking about the Clapping Music around 0:40 in the video. In it, he also demonstrated how he did the Clapping Music with two different drum surface. One on the floor tom and one on the rack tom. The rhythm he did on the floor tom doesn't change (mimicking the 1st clapper) while the rhythm on the rack tom does the phasing (mimicking the 2nd clapper).

So what have I been practicing?... This is it. Trying to do Clapping Music on the drums like how Glen Kotche did. I have to say..this is not an easy task to accomplish. I might post a video of myself doing the Clapping music piece once I have mastered the piece. Which will probably take a while.