RICHARD THOMSON

Hello there fellow drummers! My name is Richard Thomson. I've been playing the drums for around 6 years. I've had few lessons but mainly I have taught myself from various books/DVD's and just listening along to CD's. However I did get a year's drum schooling from the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford. My influences include Heavy Metal, Rock, Jazz, Latin (because there are no better grooves) and funk. I play Tama Superstar Custom drums with Evans skins and I use Zildjian/Sabien cymbals. I use all Tama hardware except for 2 Pearl Eliminator pedals. I also play in a progressive heavy metal band named "Chaos Incarcerated". Please visit our website if your into that sort of thing! (www.chaosincarcerated.com).

In these videos I will be giving examples of interesting grooves, double kick patterns and double stroking footwork ideas used in a heavy metal context. I believe in the extreme/heavy metal world a lot of drummers aren't using enough interesting composotive ideas in their drumming. Sure it's impressive to blast beat at 500 bpm but it would be nice to see some more dynamic phrasing in the heavy metal world. I have been paticulary inspired by Vinnie Paul (Pantera/Damage Plan) in my writing, as he puts A LOT of thought into each beat he plays, every hit seems pre-planned and you will be hard stretched to find any hitches or mistakes in his studio work! His grooves are very creative and fun to play, but difficult to get sounding as perfect as he does.

One paticular groove I have taken inspiration from is the main beat from the Pantera song "Becoming", in which he uses double stroking with his feet to great effect. This is a great idea to incorporate if you want to spice up a regular straight 16th note double bass drum pattern. This is a very hard beat to master, but if you start very slowly with a metronome and build yourself up, it will come quite quickly. Experiment with trying the heel-toe meathod like im using here, or try using regular heel-up double stroking.

In this video, I will be playing the main groove from the song "Burning the Effigy" from my band's current EP. This groove will sound awkward when played by itself, but in the context of the song it works very well and grooves very well (seing as it follows the guitar line anyway). I use the same double stroking idea on "Becoming" to save energy on stage. You can play this groove without double stroking but the dynamics aren't as cool in my opinion. I have also uploaded a clip of the actual song so you can hear it in context.

In this video, I will be playing another groove I think is particulary interesting from the same song. This begins with a simple straight 16th note double bass groove. The fill at the end however is quite difficult, especially in a live situation with bad moniters! Everyone has to be tight on that particular part or it can all fall to peices if not well rehearsed! I will play the fill first slowly, then play the entire groove including the fill up to speed.

In this video, yet again, I'll be doing a groove from the song "Burning the Effigy". This is a nice pattern to practice as it incorporates some good rudiment excersies. This is particulary inspired by the Planet X drum god Virgil Donati (seek his work out immediatly if you have not heard any!) and I've actually stolen a few of his chops for this groove...but I'm sure he won't find out... Notice the use of flams I incorporate with the high and mid toms in the video, this idea sounds great in this kind of beat.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to check these videos out, I hope at least passed on something useful! I'll add more videos in the coming months with some more ideas, until then thanks again, please feel free to email me with any questions regarding the videos or if you just wanted to say hi!

Rich :)

Email : Thomsonrf@hotmail.com
Website:
www.chaosincarcerated.com
www.myspace.com/chaosincarcerated