First things first, you can get the transcription for this lesson here
Stewart Copeland probably looms larger in the development of modern drums than even diehard fans acknowledge.
At 4-years-old, I played along with Regatta De Blanc on overturned cardboard boxes.
(My parents soon decided the sound of a real drum kit had to be better than that of cardboard boxes. Then immediately regretted their decision.)
At the time, I was like "yea, this is killing, but what's the big deal?"
"Also, how do I walk?"
(Ok, I guess 4's a little old for walking :P)
More-years-than-I-care-to-admit hence, and I'm only now realizing just how difficult it is to do what Stewart did.
And everybody he's influenced.
There are the obvious ones, for sure.
But how about Brian Blade?
How about Eric Harland?
It's not just the "cleanness", but also the *context* Stewart gave to beats and fills - it's hard to describe, but it involves dynamic extremes, and whether everything occurs within a given tesitura (which just means "range") - beats, embellishments, etc - or whether there are tiered dynamic ranges.
Sheesh - lesson on this coming soon. Which will probably get, like, 45 views.
But seriously - this is the Blade/Harland stuff. (And you could argue Marcus is to that style what Stylebender is to Anderson Silva.)
Anyway, picking just 5 beats from The Bard is a tall order. (Even when I cheat, and allow myself 7.)
But choose I had-to, so choose-I-did.
I present you the FIVE (plus two) Most Influential Stewart Beats...of ALLLL TIIIIIME;)
Enjoy, and catch you next week,
N