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Who is the most best conga player or latin percussionist of all time?
By kevin | July 21, 2008
My recent informal poll on the greatest drummer of all time brought out some interesting answers - some respondents named great percussionists like Tito Puente and Alex Acuna in the list.. so I thought… why not have a new poll focussing on the greatest exponents of hand percussion and latin percussion that are around?
Please vote below, or if you’d like to nominate someone who isn’t on this list please leave a comment and I’ll add them.
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Topics: Bongo Drums, Conga Drums, Hand Drumming, Latin Percussion | No Comments »
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The Worlds Best Drummer List
By kevin | July 19, 2008
FIrstly, a huge thankyou to everyone who contributed by commenting on my last post where I asked the Question “Who is the best drummer in the world?”
Obviously this is a really tough choice to make, as there are so many great players who we all look up to as drummers and percussionists. Many of you gave more than five - and thats fine… I did my best to include every drummer mentioned, and I tried to create a ranking system that would include the wishes of those people who ranked drummers in order and those who just named some without ranking them.
I never intended it to be a very scientific study - I really just wanted to get a list of drummers who are influential to everyone at the moment. All I did was tally up the number of votes that each drummer got and Ive ordered the list that way.
So… Drum roll please…. here is the list:
Buddy Rich
Steve Gadd
Vinnie Colaiuta
Neil Peart
Dave Weckl
Peter Erskine
Elvin Jones
JoJo Mayer
Thomas Lang
Jeff Hamilton
Louis Bellson
Art Blakey
Grant Collins
Greg Bissonette
Steve Smith
Clyde Stubblefield
Dennis Chambers
Evelyn Glennie
Tito Puente
Tony Williams
Alex Acuna
Billy Cobham
Chris Adler
David Garibaldi
Franz di Cioccio
Jack DeJohnette
Joe Morello
John “Jabo” stark
John Bonham
Max Roach
Giovanni Hidalgo
Omar Hakm
Travis Barker
Danny Cary
Gene Krupa
Idris Muhammad
Jeff Porcaro
Jon Knox
Morgan Agren
Mr Changuito
Philly Joe
Roy Haynes
Art Tatum
Jason Bittner
Kenwood Denard
Marco Minnemann
Mike Portnoy
Mr Kalani
Pancho Sanchez
Roy Wilfred Wooten
Vinny paul
Airto Moreira
Joe Marchisella
Simon Phillips
Trilok Gurtu
Alex Duthart
Andrew Gander
Antonio Sanchez
Billy Martin
Clayton Cameron
David Jones
Dougie Brown
Freddie Gruber
Gary Chaffee
Hamish Stuart
Horacio Hernandez
Jabo Starks
James Waples
Jason Bonham
Jeff Queen
Jim Black
Joey Baron
Kevin MacNeil
Leung Heung Wing
Mark Kennedy
Virgil Donati
Yaron Isreal
Yim Hok Man
There are people in this list who I’ve never heard of, and for that I’m really grateful. I’m going to make it my mission over the next couple of months to find out something about each one of these players and listen to some of their music.
This is just a starting point, and there is some obvious weaknesses in the way I did this informal survey, so what I’m going to do is create some polls for this website which will give us some more helpful information a bit more scientifically.
The first polls are going to be..
Who is the most influential drum set player of all time?
Who is the best classical percussionist of the current era?
Who is the greatest conga player/percussionist of all time?
I’m going to start with this list as the nominations - and you can nominate anyone to be included at any time, by simply leaving a comment on the appropriate posting. These posts will be up in a few days - once I’ve figured out the new software I’ve installed to do it!
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Topics: Announcements, Drum Kit, Drum Set | 5 Comments »
Who is the best drummer in the world?
By kevin | July 7, 2008
OK - I know I’m opening up a whole can of worms here when I ask this question!
There are so many great and amazing drummers around these days, that its really hard to know if perhaps we’ve missed out on hearing about someone who might be amazing, whom we just haven’t encountered because we may not listen to that particular style of music.
I could of course give my opinions on this topic, however what I’d like to do is open this up - all you have to do is leave comments on this blog post with who you think are the best FIVE drummers in the world at the moment, ordered from 1 to 5.
With this information I’ll compile a list of the most popular and post in a follow up posting, where I’ll be able to create a list of the most influential drummers currently.
I know that there will be many diverse opinions - Those who like heavy metal music are not going to agree with those who like jazz… but that is what makes music so interesting!
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Topics: Announcements, Drum Kit, Drum Set, Drum Technique | 43 Comments »
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Drum Samples - Where to get quality live drum sounds
By kevin | July 2, 2008
If you’ve ever wanted to find professional sounding drum samples - you’re not alone!
I’ve spent many hours on the internet searching to find good drum sounds. A few years ago it was almost impossible - and you’d have to buy a professional sample CD from a music store which might cost hundreds of dollars.
Thankfully these days its much easier to find quality sounds. You can easily find free drum samples at many sites, however frankly I can’t be bothered looking through free sites to save a few dollars. I’d much rather pay a few dollars and spend my time creating music, rather than going from one site to another trying to find free stuff.
I’ve just discovered a site where you can download 10,000 drum samples in CD Quality wav format for only $49.95 USD, which is excellent value if you are looking for quality drum samples.
Many of the music software packages available today, such as Sibelius and Finale allow you to create custom drum kits, meaning that if you can get quality sampled sounds - then you can simply load up the sounds and you’ll be able to make your MIDI sequences sound like real live drumming.
So check out the 10,000 drum samples today - its well worth a look!
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Topics: Drum Kit, Drumming and Technology | No Comments »
Djembe DVDs
By kevin | June 16, 2008
I’ve recently helped my friend and colleague Tim Irrgang re-release his Djembe Secrets DVD Package.
We originally sold this DVD pack for $149, including a 49 page book, where we invented a new “easy read” Djembe notational system.
These packages sold out a few months ago, and we’ve just released a brand new version - we’ve saved money by providing the book on CD-ROM - this way you can access it on your computer and only print out the pages that you are working on one at a time!
It still contains ALL the materials that were included in the book - just in a digital format, so that it is lighter and easier to get to you.
Best of all, you can still watch the DVDs on your TV - and the indexing system means you can find the chapter you are looking for in an instant.
For a limited time we are even including the shipping - so make sure you head on over to www.djembesecrets.com to take advantage of this offer
This package would also make a brilliant gift for anyone who is a Djembe player or enthusiast!
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Topics: Announcements, Djembe | No Comments »
Music Practice - Getting your students to do the magic amount
By kevin | May 26, 2008
Just a quick post today to let you know about a great article on My colleauge Jim McCarthy’s Drum Clinic Blog.
Jim has done a great post on The Science of Practicing a Musical Instrument - How much and how often, and has worked out the amount that you need to do to get into the subconcious area of the brain.
This is a great topic for discussion - and of interest to all music teachers, wether you teach percussion or any other instrument.
One of my favourite topics is inspiring and motivating students to practice, and this idea of scientifically demonstrating to students that their retention and improvement will exponentially improve with consistent practice is a great one!
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Topics: Drum Set, Drum Technique, Music Education, Percussion | No Comments »
Software Metronome
By kevin | May 12, 2008
Some options for you if you are lookin for a software metronome for your computer.
When I was at university I bought my first metronome - It was a simple little “credit card” size beeping thing that did a fairly decent job of keeping me in time. I then upgraded to a Boss “Dr Beat” - Which I still have and use today.. It cost me around $250 at the time, and I think they still cost around that sort of price.
Nowadays, you can get software metronomes, which will do exactly the same job.. and you can get them basically for FREE.
I’ve tried a few different ones.
Firstly, if you just want a simple clicker - and don’t need any advanced features you can visit the online one at http://www.metronomeonline.com its a free tool that I tell all my students about, because you dont need to install anything, it works just from this webpage. you can’t get simpler than that!
If you’re looking for something a little more advanced, you can try the Tempo Perfect metronome from NCH software. It is free, but like so many “free” software applications that you get online they are bundled with a bunch of other things that you don’t need… and loads of “nag screens” that encourage you to upgrade to other products.
Another Product which I highly recommend is the Ultimate Metronome - This costs $19.95 USD - but you don’t get any “shareware” nagging, and it has a fantastic feature which I love - the ability to automatically increase the speed after a given number of seconds.
For example you can set it to a slow speed to practice a rudiment or exercise, and then gradually increase it every minute, until its at a point that you can no longer play.
What an awesome tool for practicing Rudiments! Not even my $250 Dr Beat has a feature like this!
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Topics: Drum Technique, Percussion Fundamentals, Rudimental Drumming | 1 Comment »
My New Blog - Helping Musicians with Marketing
By kevin | May 9, 2008
Did you notice that this page moved a few months back?
I origionally had it on my own name website www.kevintuck.com, but I decided to move it to percussioneducationonline.com, as this more reflects its topic of percussion education.
I’ve been recently putting together a new page at www.kevintuck.com to indulge one of my other passions - helping Musicians with marketing, specifically marketing themselves on the internet.
Therefore I’ve called this page Music, Marketing, Publishing and the Internet - and it aims to help Musicians, Authors and anyone in a creative field with the basics on Marketing themselves.
Marketing is something that I’ve had to learn a lot about - I came out of University as a musician with absolutely NO idea about how to market myself! I tried to market a few bands and promote a few shows, and found it pretty tough going to start with!
If you are prepared to learn you pretty quickly work out some strategy and some skills that will help - but there is no end to the learning…
“the more you learn, the more you earn..” and that is so true of anything in life, wether it be playing the drums, teaching percussion, playing in a band or trying to sell a CD that you’ve created!
So visit kevintuck.com, and click the subscribe button to have the feed delivered directly to your computer, so every Tuesday and Friday you can have a little marketing insight that might help you to make more money!
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Topics: Internet Resources | No Comments »
Percussion Education Minute May 2008 - Motivating Students to practice Rudiments
By kevin | May 7, 2008
 “Motivating Students with Technique and Rudiments”
« Click here to see previous editions of The Percussion Education Minute |
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Topics: Drum Kit, Drum Set, Drum Technique, Percussion Education Minute | 3 Comments »
New composition for percussion in 2008
By kevin | May 5, 2008
I’ve decided to do something a bit different, and out of the ordinary this month at ktpercussion.com
I’m offering just three schools worldwide the opportunity to work with me virtually to create a brand new work for percussion.
In January I offered a special package deal when I agreed to do a short commissioned work as part of the package. This has turned out to be a lot more enjoyable than I expected, as I’ve been able to communicate with Teachers in the schools about what they need and create something special just for them.
Due to the nature of the package offer it was only a short piece, and fairly limited in its scope. Some of these pieces will be released on the website later this year.
What I’ve decided to do now is take this a little further and offer my services as a “virtual composer in residence” to work with the schools to create a brand new work for percussion.
I obviously can’t travel to the school (unless it happens to be local to where I am in Australia), but I can gather information about the type of work you’d like and discuss with you what you’d like to achieve for the school, and then create something brand new and unique to your school.
I’m even happy to create a work for Concert Band or School Orchestra, but remembering that my skills and focus is on percussion, so the work would have to feature percussion in some way.
Just imagine the benefits for your school:
- You’ll be able to advertise a “world premiere” in your school showcase concert
- Your students will have a memorable opportunity of playing in a premiere performance
- Your school will have lifetime exposure through the credit on the published score
- You’ll have new and different repertoire from any other school
I am only offering to do this for three schools. It may take a week, it may take a month, or it might take all year for this offer to be taken up, but one thing I do know is that I won’t be able to offer it again at such a low price!
Click here for details on this offer »
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Topics: Announcements, Percussion, Percussion in Schools | No Comments »