Link to new Thomas Lang videos

[shedder]

Originally posted by Beat Hit:
One thing for sure, whatever context any drummers find themselves in (Studio, Clinics...) one's identity WILL come out. You may well have the best technic on earth and if you also happen to have an heightened musical flare, IT WILL COME OUT. So you have IT or you don't. I don't buy that Thomas chooses to solo and/or conduct his Clinics in one dimension (loud, fast) just to please one specific crowd. I just think that he is being himself, no apology needed, that's cool, no problemo. Again one's true identity will always surface. Nothing wrong in stating the fact either.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">beat hit, i'm with you here. who decides they're purposely not going to groove and be musical for a clinic? if you are musical and can groove it'll come out regardless of what playing situation you're in. as far as lang goes, i wouldn't go as far as to say he's not musical at all, but his idea of it is probably different than mine. just taste i guess.

[Andy Edwards]

You talk of musicality as though it is an ideal form and I think this is a mistake.

Nobody has the 'god's eye view' to be able state they 'know' what is musical and what is not.

There also seems there is an idea that Gadd and Vinnie are beyond criticism (Check out what Zawinul has to say about Gadd in his autobiography...)

I think new artistic statements are often criticized
in this way but as these statements embed themselves in our culture they then seem to turn into absolute forms which everything else is measured by.

Gadd and Vinnie seem to have become this already.
This will surely bind and tie them up into the great fusion museum so their artistic death seems imminent (shame)

(Thomas obviously doesn't measure up using the Gadd/Vinnie measure)

Look at Miles' career, He continually dumbfounded his audience till the day he died...

[beat Hit]

My statement on musicality may have been misleading. I didn't say that Thomas doesn't say anything musically. He just does not reach me. I obviously comment from my own stand point, my taste. I just find that (from what I've heard anyway) he's always playing super fast and super loud and to me, it does not breath. Using silence and applying dynamics are key in making music on the drums (for me, I love it when that is happening). Just like telling a story. You just don't tell a story using one deeeeep breath without pausing, or using one voice intonation, the listener would loose interest fast.

True that Gadd and Vinnie's playing are not brillant in all contexts, they're mere mortals like all of us. There are some angles of their playing that arn't my favorites. But I am pretty confident in saying that most will agree that Gadd and Vinnie are some of the few that happen to play MOST styles convincingly well, and even some style to an even greater degree of accomplishement, only reached by few. To me THAT is a significant Musical Fruit.

And yes, it is possible to make a distinction between great and not so great musical accomplishements in drumming. Just like we can make a "musical" jugement on who are the great composers (you mentioned Miles Davis) and the not so great.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ January 10, 2005 05:37 PM: Message edited by: Beat Hit ]</font>