June 2021 – Volume 45 • Number 6

Experiential Healing and Drumming

Experiential healing is a therapeutic technique for consciously participating in our own physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual healing processes. It is healing with awareness and purpose to unlock feelings, thoughts, and pain that may be keeping us in patterns of…

A Wealth of Options

Christian Morissette’s Rig is Ready for Any Style Christian Morissette is a psychologist in Quebec, Canada, who somehow finds the time to not only pursue his passion for drumming, but also to do session work, run a home studio, teach…

Session Thoughts

From the MD Archives Modern Drummer has assembled tons of wisdom from incredible players throughout its 45 years, so it’s no surprise we have exhaustive data on how drummers approach their art in the recording studio. Here are ten quick…

Marco Minnemann

Composition Takes Center Stage Germany’s Marco Minnemann exploded onto the drumming scene in the late 1990s with his extreme interdependence innovations and advanced technique that quickly earned him international super-drummer status. His fearless, dynamic, and entertaining approach to soloing includes…

Six-Way Independence

In my “Six-Way Independence” master class on Drum Channel, I wanted to give my students the opportunity to learn the way I learned, and how I came up with my concepts. I started thinking about all of the combinations I…

The Modern Drummer Product Guide

11 Snare Drums You Must Try There are drummers who remain loyal to one brand or configuration of snare drum throughout their careers. But there are also players such as Todd Sucherman, who has walls of shelving packed ever-so-neatly with…

Developing a Musical Concept

One of the key aspects in developing a musical concept for show and studio performance—or any other area of performance for that matter—is the tuning of your drums. Too many players overlook this elementary consideration. When your drum set is…

Nandi Bushell

Pre-Teen Drumming Evangelist Spreads the Joy of Playing Across the Planet It’s an unrelenting bombardment of music and joyfulness that makes Beatlemania, T-Rextasy, and the Kardashian phenomenon seem like underachieving, ho-hum non-happenings. It’s almost unfathomable how many times each day…

June 2021 - Volume 45 • Number 6

Hearts, Minds, and Eyeballs

Three Drummers Reveal Their Paths to Social Stardom It’s no secret that the new normal for developing a music career—or almost any business for that matter—is being discovered via an online video that goes viral. Of course, generating massive audience…

Balancing Grunt Work and Creativity

This is a follow up to the March 2021 article I did for MD entitled “Practice Like a Pro.” (You can find it at moderndrummer.com.) In that piece, I shared techniques that can be used to effectively learn songs. Muscle…

Dream Cymbals – Dark Matter Bliss and Vintage Bliss

Canadian company Dream introduced the drumming world to its dry, raw, twice-torched Dark Matter cymbals in 2010, and they’ve remained top-sellers ever since. Meanwhile, the Bliss series—one of Dream’s original lines—continues to motor on, providing players with warm, dark, and…

YOYOKA

How An 11-Year-Old Drummed Her Way to International Stardom Warning: Do not pit your productivity and public standing against that of 11-year-old YOYOKA, because unless you happen to be Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson all rolled into one…

Syndrum, January 1978

It started out with baseball bats. Well, actually, the whole thing was inspired by session drummer Joe Pollard’s frustration over hitting his drums with “sticks the size of baseball bats” to combat the colossal volume levels unleashed by amped-up, wattage-crazed…

ProMark, Low Boy Custom Beaters and Vic Firth

ProMark Carter McLean Signature Drumsticks The Carter McLean signature stick is made from hickory with a custom wood tip. It measures .571” in diameter and 16 1/8” in length with a lacquered finish. The custom tip shape provides a range…

Sean J. Kennedy Salutes Ray Deeley

I studied drums and percussion with Ray Deeley while I was a high-school student back in the mid 1980s. Ironically, so did my wife, Heather, who went to a different high school about an hour away from where I lived.…

Roland – VAD306 Compact Electronic Drumset

This past year, Roland unveiled the new VAD (V-Drums Acoustic Design) series. These innovative drums provide a familiar acoustic drumset look and playing experience, but with all the technological advantages of their electronic mod-ules, mesh pads, and rubber cymbals. We…

Sandy Ficca

Igniting Firefall for 36 Years It’s a blisterin’, burnin’, and blazin’ hot day in the summer of 1970, and 18-year-old Sandy Ficca is more than a little nervous. In fact, he’s flat-out scared. Running one hand through his shoulder-length hair…

John Densmore

Modern Drummer, December 1982 “On the Doors albums, I always went for the drums to have real personality. I always had the bottom heads off all of my drums, and I hated new skins and new drums. I liked to…