June 2021 – Volume 45 • Number 6
On 18th Jun 2021
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 complex tones for all applications. New for 2021, the Dark Matter Bliss series merges the two series into one for a more nuanced, yet dry flavor.
We received 17", 18", and 19" Dark Matter Bliss Paper Thin crashes, 20" and 22" Dark Matter Bliss Crash/Rides, and two mammoth 24" rides—a Dark Matter Bliss and a thinner Dark Matter Vintage Bliss. They all feature the Dark Matter’s signature scorched finish on top and bottom, and subtle, soft lathing.
Articles in June 2021
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…
Syncopated Fills
This month, we’ll explore another type of drum fill—one that incorporates syncopation. Syncopation is displacing the regular metric accent and emphasizing the weak beat. In this context, that means resting on the downbeat. With one or more of the strong…
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…
Drum Miking on the Cheap
Many of us have read about the stellar, well-populated microphone cabinets of famous big studios that were used to record famous big albums. Fabulous luxury-mic manufacturers such as Neumann, Telefunken, Earthworks, and Coles get tossed around in these articles, and,…
The Power of Exciting an Audience
Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but Nandi Bushell is the youngest drummer ever to grace the cover of this magazine. (Honorable mention to 16-year-old Tony Royster Jr., who appeared on the January 2000 cover along with Dennis Chambers.)…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Evelyn Glennie
The Rhythm of Resonance and Feel Dame Evelyn Glennie is a world-class musician, a master listener, and an extraordinary human who is perhaps the first person to make a life-long career strictly as a solo percussionist. You cannot categorize her…
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…
Terry Keating
Spreading the Gospel of Bonzo Terry Keating’s Bonzoleum channel has been a fixture on YouTube for the wide community of John Bonham devotees since 2008. Keating is prolific, with hundreds of videos ranging from play-throughs of songs, a wealth of…
The Frankie Banali Collection
In the early 2000s, I received a call regarding some Elvin Jones items I was selling. It was quickly apparent the person I was speaking to had studied Elvin’s playing intensely and had been deeply influenced by him. Our conversation…
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…
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…
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…
