Mike Mangini

In respomse to a conversation with another HOD member today I would like to pose the following question:

How come we never talk about Mike Mangini in here?

I eagerly await the responses of "ah but can he swing?" and "definately does NOT have a Porcaro feel to it"

LOL

Do a search, here.
We beat the topic to death a couple of times a good while back. [img]wink.gif[/img]

GREAT prog / rock / fusion drummer [eh, labels].

His timing is precise, very strict, rigid meter...a little TOO precise, if'n u know whut ah mean - the GreaseBucketHedz are gonna sound off [img]wink.gif[/img] ...but he does do some amazing things...

But, news at 11 - b4 it gets to it, he is one of those that def does NOT swing. [img]wink.gif[/img] [img]tongue.gif[/img]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ October 22, 2004 02:58 PM: Message edited by: FuseU1 ]</font>

He's teaching at Berklee right?

Sure, David, he's got some technical chops, but can he swing like Elvin? Can he groove like Gadd. I mean....c'mon!

Hahaha.... [img]tongue.gif[/img]

I was skeptical about all the good things I was hearing about Mangini, but that completely cleared up during the first five minutes of the first of his clinics I attended. (The Drum Pad, our local shop, had him for probably a dozen clinics over a couple-year period. Until I saw him, I thought it was just gratuitous overstated advertising about his skills. I only caught the last two clinics, but I'm kicking myself for not going to ALL of them!!)

His technical skills are obvious, and whether he's better than Virgil/Lang/Minnemann, etc. is debatable. I personally think his groove is pretty respectable. Someone posted a video a while back of Mangini with a band at Berkley playing some Rush tunes. Man, he played "Tom Sawyer" note-for-note, and it was flawless. He looked SO effortless doing it! You could just tell he knew "where he was" for every note of that tune.

What really knocks me out is how intelligent he is when it comes to the drums. He's very articulate (although sometimes his concepts are too complicated to follow). He's got some very advanced concepts about the technical, physical AND physiological aspects of drumming.

He's actually studied how human physiology relates to drumming technique, and can tell you exactly how certain "bad" techniques lead to tendonitis. He's got some neat ideas about how to develop chops (low stick-tip heights, e.g.) and how to eliminate flubs (you need to be able to visualize the notes you playing in a "zoomed-in" state, e.g.)

Here's what absolutely floored me: he came up with this concept that if you play something with the "wrong" hand, it will actually strengthen your neurologial "wiring" to improve your overall ability, and turbocharge your ability with the "correct" hand.

For example, suppose you normally write with your right hand. If you teach yourself to write left-handed, you will (a) be able to write faster in general and (b) be able to write wickedly fast when you go back to using your right hand. This is a killer concept for some of the contemporary drum skills (left foot clave, double stroke rolls on bass drum, heel-toe technique, Moeller technique, etc.)

I guess how much people like his playing will always be subjective, but he's a lot like Steve Smith....he does his homework and really is like a "professor" of the drums. Even if you don't dig his playing, there is a LOT to be learned from him!

Good post, mja61! I have heard several Jazz drummers say that practicing riding with one's non-dominant hand will greatly improve one's drumming ability in general.

Mike Mangini [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img] Can't say enough good things about the guy. He's awesome, and I love his approach to playing and practicing.

Mja61 wrote:

Here's what absolutely floored me: he came up with this concept that if you play something with the "wrong" hand, it will actually strengthen your neurologial "wiring" to improve your overall ability, and turbocharge your ability with the "correct" hand.

For example, suppose you normally write with your right hand. If you teach yourself to write left-handed, you will (a) be able to write faster in general and (b) be able to write wickedly fast when you go back to using your right hand. This is a killer concept for some of the contemporary drum skills (left foot clave, double stroke rolls on bass drum, heel-toe technique, Moeller technique, etc.)

I'd be interested to know more about this. I attended a clinic of his and he didn't address the neurological concepts he studies. I have his books but they don't go into great detail either.

Personally I'm not totally ambidextrous. I'm not sure too many people are. I fall into the category of having mixed dominants. I write right handed and play drums mostly right handed but do most everything else left handed.(i.e. play pool, bat, fire a rifle)

I've read an article,(I'm thinking it was in that bastion of medical knowledge; Men's Health)that stated those who claim to be ambidextrous are less intelligent than those who have a dominant hand. Citing the simple reasoning that one has to have ample 'space' upstairs to make ambidexterity possible. I'd give up a few IQ points (what few I have) to play half as good as Mangini, Cobham, Phillips, Husband and any of the greats that 'switch hit'.
[img]graemlins/smarty.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/idea.gif[/img]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ October 23, 2004 03:52 PM: Message edited by: Clintuplet ]</font>

He didn't really spend much time on it, but here is roughly how he explained it:

He wanted to be an ambidextrous drummer, so he set up his kit left-handed, and just played that for a while. Then, when he went back to playing right-handed, it was like...WOW! All of a sudden, he was faster than ever on the right handed kit. He said it was as if his brain had been strengthened such that it was sending the "drumming" signals to his limbs with much more "wattage."

My interpretation is like this:

If you want to build muscular strength, you do muscular exercises (lift weights, resistance bands, isometrics, etc.) However, I don't think muscular strength is missing if ambidexterity is your goal.

For example, I can lift, say, a 25-lb dumbell with my right hand just as easily as I can with my left...so there is no lack of muscular strength. However, I normally eat with my left hand, and if I put the fork in my right, I might starve! The problem is not that my right hand is not strong enough; the problem is that my brain can't control my right hand as well as my left for that activity. Hence, I don't need more muscular strength on my right side...I need more neurological strength.

Switching hands (or feet) seems to serve as a neurological, not muscular, form of exercise. I did a little (very little, that is) investigating, and it looks like this theory has some merit, and is not a bunch of BS.

I'm the same as you, Clint....I do some things left-handed (write, eat, use construction tools) and others right-handed (bat, throw, golf, cut with scissors, all musical instruments). In fact, when I first was taking drum lessons, I naturally played the HH "open-handed." Eventually, it made more sense for me to play cross handed (the HH and ride sort of serve the same purpose, so it made sense to use the same hand for that component of the beat.)Hope there is some useful information buried somewhere in all that. [img]eek.gif[/img]

I don't think that those are the same in terms of ambidexterity. Being gifted as equally proficient in motor skills concerning the limbs is one thing and being able to train yourself to 'learn' how to be equally proficient is another... i think those are different. Developing kinesthetic muscle memory doesn't equal (to my knowledge) what is regarded as natural ambidexterity. My grandma, for example, could do anything with the left as with the right and equally well without any training, just pick it up and do it on the spot. It was like somehow her brain was hard-wired to just be able to apply that learned memory to the other limb without any kinesthetic transcription.

Here are some interesting things i found:

"......Michelangelo (1475-1564) was a multi-faceted genius like Leonardo da Vinci. He often painted with both hands. When one got tired, he switched to the other. British artist, Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-1873) could draw with both hands simultaneously -- a horse's head with one hand and a stag's head with the other. He taught drawing and etching to Queen Victoria who was a lefty that became ambidextrous."

"Left-handed and ambidextrous people have 11% larger corpus callosa (the bundle of nerve fibers joining the right and left sides of the brain) than right handed people. An autopsy of Einstein's brain revealed a larger profusion of superficial capillaries interlacing the cerebral cortex than the average brain, as well as an additional amount of glial cells. Obviously the more we use and exercise our brain, the more it physically grows."

"U.S. 20th president, James Garfield was a well educated backwoodsman born in a log cabin. Although he could write with either hand with equal ease, he could also write Greek with his left hand and Latin with his right hand simultaneously! Harry Kahne demonstrated his mental dexterity in 1922 by performing several mental operations simultaneously. While one hand was writing mirror language, the other hand intermingled upside down and backward letters."

-now, THAT makes left foot clave seem like child's play. Some (All) of that stuff gives Mangini a run for his money.