Drum Related

If you’re interested in becoming the young drummer of the year 2009, which I guess ranks you the best drummer in the UK under the age of 17yrs, here’s how to do it:

To be eligible to enter the competition you must meet the following criteria:
1. You must be a UK resident.
2. You must be 16 or under on the 3rd February 2008.
3. You and your parent / guardian must agree to abide by the rules of the competition.

If you want to enter, simply send in a VHS video, DV tape or DVD of yourself playing on an acoustic kit on your own with no other musicians, for a maximum of two minutes. Please remember to label your Tape/DVD with your name (Note: only the first two minutes of any entry will be viewed)

With your Tape/DVD you should send a completed entry form which you can download from mikedolbear.com nearer September 1st 2008.

Note: Be absolutely sure that your DVD can be played on any standard R+ / R- DVD player. We had a number of entries last year on DVD which didn’t work in our DVD player. If your entry doesn’t play in our player, it is a void entry. We cannot return any Tapes or DVD’s sent to us.
To be in with a chance of winning, GET PRACTICING!!! (You can be sure the competition will be!)

This year’s line up consisted of:
Nick Ross
Lee Browning
Josh Law
Grant Kershaw
Michael Spears
Richard Rayner
Scott Chapman
Dexter Hercules
Ben Williams
George Barnett

Ages ranged from 13yrs to 16yrs old. Many of this year’s finalists had been finalists in previous years too.
The adjudicators of this event were:

Session superstars Damon Wilson and Geoff Dugmore

Jonny Quinn who’s worked with many bands in Ireland before achieving massive success with a single band - stadium fillers Snow Patrol.

Ade Holbrook, who is a musician who has worked with the producers of ‘Blue’ and ‘Misteeq’ and runs a musicians management company, AD&R.

Gerry Brown. Who’s worked with everyone from Jamilia and A1, to Will Young and Ms Dynamite.

Drum legend Brian Bennett who has won Ivor Novello awards for his compositions, including TV and film sound tracks and his work with The Shadows cements his place as a British Great.

And finally, main sponsor and drummer Peter Werth.

The judges had a tough job of choosing a winner (as judges always do!) but finally settled on George Barnett.

Aside from George’s obvious skill on the drums, musicality and dynamic playing, George clearly has a deep love for music and drumming. He had a huge smile on his face throughout and clearly loved every minute on that stage. Couple those factors with his brilliant communication and awareness skills in regards to the other musicians with him, George comes across as a very well rounded and skilled musician and worthy winner of the Young Drummer of the Year title. Well done George. As a regular attendee at the International Drum Foundation’s Rhythm Course, George was over the moon to find out that as part of his prize was a scholarship place on this year’s course, allowing the amount saved so far to be spent on drum gear!

If you are interested in applying to be next year’s young drummer of the year I’ll tell you how tomorrow.

http://mikedolbear.com/story.asp?StoryID=1497

Young Drummer of the Year competition

I’ve not yet mentioned the Young Drummer of the Year competition held in association with mikedolbear.com on this site before, but as of now that will change!

I teach, and have taught, from scratch, a young lad by the name of Maxwell “Power” Marlow, who will enter the young drummer of the year competition this year (2009). Because of this I’ve decided to educate you all on the whole thing (That is if you don’t yet know about it! If you do…. great!)

The young drummer of the year competition is for drummers aged 16yrs and under, it is a national competition and takes place every year with this years final held on the 3rd Feb in Lemington Spa.
This years finalists were required to demonstrate 4 skills, first a 2 minute open solo, then a sequenced backing track (along with a guitarist) which they had all had the chance to work on for a 4 weeks, then a shuffle track, including a very difficult arrangement, some tricky phrasing and an ending that was still catching out the audience even after the 10th listen! When you consider that the 10 finalists only heard the track 3 times AND only on the day they had to perform it, then you’ll agree, the gauntlet was firmly down. The final task was an interview with the judges where they were to answer several questions about themselves and their playing. Essentially, these tasks were designed to outline the skills of an accomplished musician in the industry today – demonstrating skills and techniques on the drum kit, being able to play to a sequenced track including a click track and creating a musical part to go with it, being able to play a differing style at very short notice with tricky parts (including being able to interact with a band) and being able to answer questions posed by others in the industry.

I’ll be writing more on this over the next few days, but this should get you interested for now.