Who's The Best?
...is a pretty meaningless question!
We all have our favourites and there are many players across all genres who excel at what they do and how they play. But who's the best? It's like asking, "Who's the most successful?" It's a meaningless question and one which plagues so many drum (and wider music) communities, magazines etc. 'Vote for the best drummer' etc.
Everyone has strengths and EVERYONE has weaknesses.
No matter which player you choose, in whatever musical setting or genre, there will always be someone better than them in another genre or setting.
Why?
Because superlatives like 'best' depend on personal opinion, backed up by evidence. And even when the evidence shows one thing, personal opinion will override.
Rather than getting hung up on who's best, why not look for something we can learn in every player. The interesting thing is that a lot of our drumming icons, like Steve Gadd, admit that whatever musical setting they're in, they always look for something that they can learn from other players ... and that includes gigs at their local pub. So if someone of their stature can adopt that attitude, why can't the rest of us ... ?
Insecurity I'd suggest, but that's a whole different topic. Until next time ...
We all have our favourites and there are many players across all genres who excel at what they do and how they play. But who's the best? It's like asking, "Who's the most successful?" It's a meaningless question and one which plagues so many drum (and wider music) communities, magazines etc. 'Vote for the best drummer' etc.
Everyone has strengths and EVERYONE has weaknesses.
No matter which player you choose, in whatever musical setting or genre, there will always be someone better than them in another genre or setting.
Why?
Because superlatives like 'best' depend on personal opinion, backed up by evidence. And even when the evidence shows one thing, personal opinion will override.
Rather than getting hung up on who's best, why not look for something we can learn in every player. The interesting thing is that a lot of our drumming icons, like Steve Gadd, admit that whatever musical setting they're in, they always look for something that they can learn from other players ... and that includes gigs at their local pub. So if someone of their stature can adopt that attitude, why can't the rest of us ... ?
Insecurity I'd suggest, but that's a whole different topic. Until next time ...
Labels: best drummer, best musician, fallacy of who's the best, measure of success, musical comparisons
posted by Stuart Wood at
12:51
1 Comments:
We love your blog and the articles you've written too.
Today's article comes from Rowan, who talks about reverse engineering breakbeat culture (humans attempting to imitate machines, which imitate humans playing drums - do you see where I'm going with this?).
Check it out here
~The Phonograph
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