Modern Drummer is the world’s most widely read drum magazine, is dedicated entirely to the art of drumming and caters to the needs of amateur, semi-pro, and professional drummers.
An Editor's Overview - The Uncommon Man
Hello, everyone! We’re already well into the new year, and I always like to take the opportunity around this time to thank readers, drum industry members, and everyone else who has supported Modern Drummer over the past forty-one years. Some…
On The Cover - Kenny Aronoff
This is one of life’s simple truths: The more you learn, the more you realize how much more you have to learn. Here is another simple truth: Kenny Aronoff understands this better than almost anybody. It’s a key reason he’s…
Driver's Seat - Reading Charts
Over the years, I've seen too many aspiring big band drummers who simply do not take the time needed to fully develop their reading ability. Unfortunately, I've heard many competent young players become very mediocre drummers when presented with a…
An Editor's Overview - Follow Your Heart
There are multiple reasons we go down particular paths of drumming education. Our first teacher introduces us to Stick Control, and we start getting our hands together. We hear “Achilles Last Stand,” and John Bonham’s right foot becomes the new…
The 2016 Hollywood Custom and Vintage Drum Show
This past October 8, the 2016 Hollywood Custom and Vintage Drum Show packed the Glendale Civic Auditorium in Glendale, California, with gear, drumming enthusiasts, and great performances and clinics. Vendor booths were filled with the latest drums from Acoutin, BoneYard,…
Kit of the Month - Compact Clubber
This light, tight, and customized setup comes from Steve Fruda, from Norwalk, Connecticut, who decided to downsize after a few seasons of nonstop wedding gigs with his New York City–based band, the Elements. The early-2000s Premier Artist Heritage Club kit…
Dave Weckl
In 1985, Chick Corea, who had helped usher in jazz-fusion with Miles Davis in the ’60s, introduced a completely new sound. Appropriately naming his project the Elektric Band, the keyboard legend enlisted up-and-coming drummer Dave Weckl to see how much…
George Thorogood and the Destroyers’ Jeff Simon
Forty years ago he went electric with his guitar-slinging, blues-wailing childhood friend. Since then, millions of albums have been sold and as many miles traveled, and he’s still the unstoppable heartbeat of his good buddy’s band. TO READ THE FULL…
Great 80s Drum Performances, Part 2: Jazz and Fusion
The ’80s might not be anyone’s first reference point for the golden age of jazz, but a closer examination reveals wonders under the surface. Sure, traditional acoustic jazz was no longer in favor, though some of the established innovators of…
Rat Scabies
He hasn’t been a member of THE DAMNED for twenty years. But the impression he made on fans of the legendary British punk band was indelible. With a current documentary hipping legions of younger listeners to the wild and wonderful…
6 More Mobile Apps Every Drummer Should Know
According to a series of surveys conducted by Pew Research Center in 2015, sixty-four percent of Americans now own smartphones. And they’ve become increasingly useful for musicians. In the October 2015 issue of MD we took a look at nine…
Catching Up With Trilok Gurtu
Trilok Gurtu will always be unique. His mixture of traditional Indian rhythms and jazz played on a customized hybrid kit looks and sounds singular, from the tabla to those amazing toms that sound like kick drums. But if you’ve seen…
Teacher's Forum - Technique
Drumset technique is the means by which the drummer expresses his musical intellect and feeling. Technique and expression function together as part of the central directive system which incorporates the mind and body (or inner and outer self) in producing…
Opeth's Martin Axenrot
Listening to the airy, floating, Baroque-style “Persephone,” the opening track from 2016’s Sorceress, one would never imagine that when Opeth was founded in Stockholm, Sweden, back in 1989, it was an out-and-out death-metal band. TO READ THE FULL STORY: SUBSCRIBE…
