Uploaded September 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Online drum courses, a free drum-less track every month, and free drum transcriptions at victorthedrummerguy.com
I participated in a contest the other week put on by Gruv Gear and a bunch of other sponsors. Drummers were provided with a 1 minute drumless clip of Virgil Donati's track "Ruination" and told to go for it. My approach was to simply be me. Everyone is influenced by other drummers, but lately I've felt like in the past I would take that influence too far and wind up trying to literally be someone else by playing what I thought they would have played, and I don't want to play like that anymore. I've been spending a lot of time practicing things that I think are cool and that I want to explore, and I really wanted to let my interpretations of those things come out in this. I also wanted my drum part to support the song instead of "contest drumming" all over it, and this is the result: me being me, and I'm really happy with it.
Another really cool aspect of this contest is that you get to hear hundreds of drummer's interpretations of the song, which is a really cool thing to be exposed to. I personally have been trapped in the "there's only one way to play a song" mindset before and this is a great reminder that that isn't true at all. If you're interested in checking out the entries, search #gruvchallenge on instagram.
instagram.com/victorthedrummerguy
facebook.com/victorthedrummerguy
#ruination #virgildonati #drumcover #victorthedrummerguy
Online drum courses, a free drum-less track every month, and free drum transcriptions at victorthedrummerguy.com
I participated in a contest the other week put on by Gruv Gear and a bunch of other sponsors. Drummers were provided with a 1 minute drumless clip of Virgil Donati's track "Ruination" and told to go for it. My approach was to simply be me. Everyone is influenced by other drummers, but lately I've felt like in the past I would take that influence too far and wind up trying to literally be someone else by playing what I thought they would have played, and I don't want to play like that anymore. I've been spending a lot of time practicing things that I think are cool and that I want to explore, and I really wanted to let my interpretations of those things come out in this. I also wanted my drum part to support the song instead of "contest drumming" all over it, and this is the result: me being me, and I'm really happy with it.
Another really cool aspect of this contest is that you get to hear hundreds of drummer's interpretations of the song, which is a really cool thing to be exposed to. I personally have been trapped in the "there's only one way to play a song" mindset before and this is a great reminder that that isn't true at all. If you're interested in checking out the entries, search #gruvchallenge on instagram.
instagram.com/victorthedrummerguy
facebook.com/victorthedrummerguy
#ruination #virgildonati #drumcover #victorthedrummerguy
