How Can You Tell a Good Drummer from a Bad Drummer?: Ringo Starr as Case Study

in Music | November 23rd, 2016 9 Comments

Yes­ter­day Josh Jones made the case for appre­ci­at­ing the sub­tle genius of Ringo Starr. And as if to sec­ond that, Dirk K. sent this video (above) our way.

Asked what sep­a­rate good drum­mers from bad, drum­mer Bran­don Khoo gives a short demon­stra­tion that puts Ringo’s tal­ents in the right light. It’s not about the flash, the shock-and-awe dis­play of tech­nique. It’s about his ability–as Dave Grohl echoes below–to “sit in the song” and “find the right feel,” true to the phi­los­o­phy that some­times less is more.


Thanks Dirk for send­ing this our way. And thanks Ringo for putting on a great show in Marin on Sat­ur­day night.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon. If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Cleese, Ringo Starr and Peter Sell­ers Trash Price­less Art (1969)

Watch the Evo­lu­tion of Ringo Starr, Dave Grohl, Tré Cool & 19 Oth­er Drum­mers in Short 5‑Minute Videos

Hear the Bea­t­les Play Their Final Con­cert (August 29, 1966)

The Neu­ro­science of Drum­ming: Researchers Dis­cov­er the Secrets of Drum­ming & The Human Brain

Iso­lat­ed Drum Tracks From Six of Rock’s Great­est: Bon­ham, Moon, Peart, Copeland, Grohl & Starr


by | Permalink | Comments (9) |

Sup­port Open Cul­ture

We’re hop­ing to rely on our loy­al read­ers rather than errat­ic ads. To sup­port Open Cul­ture’s edu­ca­tion­al mis­sion, please con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion. We accept Pay­Pal, Ven­mo (@openculture), Patre­on and Cryp­to! Please find all options here. We thank you!


Comments (9)
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
  • Bill W. says:
    November 23, 2016 at 3:29 pm

    Karen Car­pen­ter, under­dog of the drum­ming-world!

    Reply
  • Brian says:
    November 24, 2016 at 10:24 pm

    What do they call those guys that hang out with musi­cans?
    Drum­mers? Thats right,

    Reply
  • Thomas Anderson says:
    November 26, 2016 at 6:05 pm

    Thanks so much for this lit­tle les­son. I’m a gui­tarist, but always appre­ci­at­ed the oth­er com­po­nents. I’ve always felt that Ringo is one of the great­est drum­mers ever, but did­n’t know how to explain it. You explained it per­fect­ly. You peo­ple have an awe­some web­site! Thanks for all you do.

    Reply
  • Cooky Mann says:
    July 16, 2017 at 9:14 pm

    Tbw luck­i­est drum­mer alive would­n’t have been any­thing if it weren’t for Paul McCart­ney telling (and SHOWING) him what to play, along with George Mar­tin extrene­ly detailed pro­duc­tion, record­ing and mix of each and every song.

    Reply
  • Indian Andy says:
    August 12, 2017 at 6:26 am

    I was a drum­mer. But I’m ok now.

    Reply
  • Tammy Davis says:
    December 13, 2018 at 7:49 am

    Cooky, why is it every­one gives so much cred­it to Paul McCart­ney? It’s sad as the truth and real­i­ty are known to some, that if it weren’t for John Lennon the Bea­t­les would­n’t have been what they were…John Lennon was the genius writer of that band. Just say­ing.…

    Reply
  • Tammy Davis says:
    December 13, 2018 at 7:55 am

    Besides all that…Ringo was a basic drum­mer. In my opin­ion, the great­est drum­mer is Neil Peart. Even the drum­mer from Van Halen out does Ringo. Don’t get me wrong, I love Ringo and he was one of the first drum­mers to bring to light the new gen­er­a­tion of Rock and Roll.…but as time went on he was no longer the best.…most famous, YES!

    Reply
  • Tammy Marie Davis says:
    December 13, 2018 at 7:56 am

    Agreed!!!!

    Reply
  • Tammy Marie Davis says:
    December 13, 2018 at 7:57 am

    Agreed on the Karen Car­pen­ter com­ment…

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.