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Surfed in on www.dereksherinian.com, and saw some of his comments on various musicians he has worked with (Colaiuta, Donati, Phillips...).
About Vinnie, I must agree with him. Unreal!!!
"Bob Kulick called me and asked if I was interested in playing on a Prince Tribute record. I asked who was on the session, and he said Tony Franklin, and Vinnie Colaiuta.....Oh only Vinnie Colaiuta!!!! let's just say I readily accepted the offer! So I go to the session the next day, Vinnie walks in with a pair of sticks ( he just walked in from another session and was going to use the house kit) Vinnie listened down to the track 'Baby, I'm A Star' one time, scribbled a few notes, and then we played the song down. I remember looking at him as we were playing and saying to myself, 'Derek. you are playing with the very best!'. He nailed the track in one take, stayed and had a sandwich, and went to another session.....unreal!"
The link is:
http://www.dereksherinian.com/bio-arthist_drum.html
Bless you guys!
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Yes that is true and he also said Donati was the most advanced, most innovative drummer with the greatest chops. And that he had the most advanced knowledge and intuition for melody and harmony and that he was an unreal composer. He(Sherinian) said concerning Simon that he had a tremendous taste and musicality and made whatever he played feel SO GOOD! By the way Simon has also stated that Donati has the most unreal and advanced technique he has ever seen or heard and that at times it goes over his head and he has to really work mentally to get a grasp on what he doing. He said while in the studio he (Simon) at times would just shake his head laughing in disbelief while watching Virgil playing, wondering how in the heck Donati could think of let alone play what he was laying down on the tracks for the Moonbabies Disc.
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So, if Phillips is having a hard time figuring out what Donati is actually doing behind the drums, can somebody please explain to me what's going on? Phillips himself is really good with complex rhythms, and I'm not really. So there must be something about Donati's drumming that I sometimes can't hear.
I do understand the more basic things he's doing, but apparently, there's something more going on that I'm not aware of...
/Freddie
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One way to explain it is that Donati's Interdependence is so developed that he is able to play two different groupings of time at the same time like on the song Ground Zero from the Moonbabies album. He set's up one time pattern with the right hand and foot, while playing a different time pattern with the left hand and foot both being played at the same time(unreal) and he even swithches the time from the right to the left and left to right. Or on Ataraxia he is playing a very complex meter but uses all four limbs to punctuate different accents that sets up the overall rhythm. You can hear the individual accenting from the right hi-hat to the left, the bass drum and the left hand accenting in different places. This is completely different than being able to play one complex time or odd-meter at one time. He is a master at layering one odd time upon another due to his intense discipline to develop great independence with all his limbs. Yet the guy makes it all flow very fluidly. Guys like Donati, Minneman and Mangini are very advanced in this way. Donati IMO does this the best when incorporating this technique into a song. It comes out very tasteful which=musical. Something else he does on a level untouched, is to play ridiculously complex and fast interchanging patterns with his feet(double stroke,flam,paradiddle combinations) for long periods of time and be able to solo with the hands in ways most guys and I mean MOST! could not do with just the hands alone without the feet being involved. It is beyond absurd to be able to play this way. These are the techniques that FLOOR! Simon and Weckl and many others. Hope this helps.
Digital
