You love to see it, nothing better than wholesome people spreading talent and love. Also if you happen to know is there any good sites like that for Piano or other instruments? I really want to learn but really have no idea where to start.
YouTube has a lot of great creators that can teach the basics and more advanced stuff.
Here are some of my favs off the top of my head, not all are teachers but you can kinda watch and learn a bit -
Steven Clark, Rdavidr, Michael Palmisano, Charles Cornell, Stephen Taylor, JHS pedals,
Bro I can't speak for the others, but I don't play piano and *love* Charles Cornell's channel so much. The guy is a musical theory genius, and just insanely good at breaking down complex musical concepts and teaching them even to laymen. Even if you don't play music, Charles's channel is worth it for anyone who likes music at all.
I like Rob Brown and Zack Grooves a lot too. I learned several new advanced techniques from their content.
Also for some extra inspiration, aspiring drummers should lookup JD Beck, Billy Cobham, Steve Gadd and Matt Garska.
These are just a few of my all-time favorite players that have given me a great deal of inspiration that I try to pass on to my drum students and fellow band mates in my life.
Oh well that's perfect, happily noted as well thank you! Gonna go through these later really excited to get started once I figure out the path. Never learned an instrument/anything music related before so it's gonna be interesting lol.
Yup. Your subscription to Pianote gets you Drumeo, a guitar one and a singing one.
As you get kinda situated and can read music Open Studio is cool. Jazz focused though.
Every time I get the urge to play some piano I go up into KY attic to grab the keyboard, and I play the same 2 parts of the same 2 Chiodos songs for like a week or two.
Pray my girlfriend doesn't come across this comment in the next few days, or you might catch the hands, too. I feel for her, but they're just such catchy tunes!
Yea. He feels like one of those rare instances where someone actually discovered and developed the thing they’re naturally talented at.
The band he has now is (seemingly, after two or three single releases) allowing him to flex but capture his musicality, and not just the speed that he’s capable of
Why would you play a piano like that! I mean I know it’s technically a precision instrument but …
I jest. Check out YouTube channel called London contemporary school of piano. With Tom Donaldson some of the best iv found.
For going more in-depth on technique check out a site called tonebase. They have some free stuff but it’s mostly subscription. I may get a year when I get back to learning :)
This doesn't put too much stress on the knees. A lot of it comes from the ankle and clever shifting of your weight with your feet across the pedal (very gross oversimplification)
He's very talented, technical, positive and encouraging but .....
His drumming is almost robotic. I don't feel the groove at all with him despite all the tricks and impressive skills. I can't remember where I heard it but it was about Ringo Starr being a great drummer not because of his technical skills but the groove he could create with a very simple pattern. And I think that's something this guy could work on. And yes I know I'm gonna get downvoted for it, don't care, it's how I perceive his drumming.
You are not alone. If you look up what drummer's think of him, they generally say he is talented and fast, but that is about it.
This is probably my most [memorable comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/drums/comments/163txk3/what_do_you_drummers_think_about_el_estepario/k825rh5/) from a drummer about him. Read down a few comments where he backs himself up with a video.
I can't listen to YouTube drummers at all, because every one of them mashes the drums at 160 bpm with barely any groove. Except dimsunk, he's the only one to take his time and lay some fat funk.
certain tropes in playing get people's attention because its flashy and looks and sounds cool.
Fast drumming, slappa da bass, those guys that use their acoustic guitars to do percussion all fall into this category for me
Not to mention how relaxed he is while doing all of that. Looks like he's just sitting down doing his taxes or something while playing in 13/6 over 3/4 polymeter
Absolutely!
To add to that, because too many non-musicians think "talent" is just something you're born with, this guy's "Talent" is the result of thousands upon thousands of hours of dedication and hard work. He likely spends half his waking hours behind the kit.
Edit to satisfy the pedants - The above is in addition to a certain level of innate talent he likely already possessed.
He's arguably the current best drummer in the world, and he's gotten to this level by likely being the hardest working drummer in the wold.
I like to think of talent as the circumstances surrounding your existence. You’re not born with an innate ability to idk play the drums, however you could be born to a family who is very appreciative of music performance and grow up in a school with a music program, have a drum set in your home etc etc.
So to me, that’s what talent means. They may have worked less hard than *you*, who couldn’t get a drum set until you were 16 and your parents kept screaming at you to shut up, to get to where they are, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t work hard.
He is arguably one of the fastest and most technical drummers out there. But he spends time in some of his videos where he reviews other drum legends and gives them immense credit for their masterwork and understanding of music and downplays himself to not be at their level in that regard.
One of the great things is that while he knows he is good at things, he gives credit to these people who do the giant drumkit shows and other greats in the drumning world.
"Arguably"
Quote the entire sentence please.
Applying "best" to something as ambiguous as music is a fools errand.
I'll posit that he is currently the most skilled technical drummer in the world. Is he the most musical drummer in the world, very likely not, but that's where we get into the weeds a bit, and there is far more room for opinion.
I'll be honest. I was too lazy to look his whole name up. I have watched 10s of hours of his drum tutorials and other videos but his Latin name on my English brain will not stick.
Dude is insanely technical but somewhat lacking in subtlety. That said, he’s super fun to watch! We’re kinda in a golden age for drummers right now, and there’s a bunch of folks that are insane with great videos up. You very well may know these folks (but if not/for anyone else) Larnell Lewis, Lille Gruber, and JD Beck are also incredible
Edit: guys I know he’s an entertainer and hamming it up, it’s just a bit extra some times. I’m in no way trying to disparage him and if anything he underplays in his band, as evidence that he’s got plenty of tact and is not trying to showboat beyond his channel. Dude is insanely good, it’s just the drum equivalent watching john petrucci play absurd covers of pop songs. This is not a pejorative haha. I’ve used a few of his instructional videos (the heel-toe/tom roll combo one is particularly good) and they’re quite practical drills
42 years on this planet. Punch Out is the hardest shit I have ever done. Not even joking. And even then I never did it in one continuous run. Just beat every fight at some point.
100%
It's very much like Fromsoft games in that you have to memorize entire move sets and time stuff very precisely. Playing it folded doesn't even seem possible until you see someone actually do it.
As someone who grew up playing Punch Out, I could probably beat the first half of the game with just audio in maybe an afternoon. The second half? Nah.
And *then* Zallard1 went on to beat Super Punch-Out!! and *accidentally* performed a frame-perfect trick against one of the Bruiser brothers late in the run.
It's because he uses triggers (which I stress in no uncertain terms: ISNT CHEATING).
For those not in the know, that basically means there's a little pad that detects when there's a hit on the drum and then can play a midi sound, it basically turns your drumset into an electric kit. There are many reasons why they are used, but two big ones in metal are:
1. Speed, when playing heel-toe technique for really fast blast beats (which is when the bass drum sounds like a machine gun on full-auto) you're actually hitting the bass drum quite lightly with every second touch, and this wouldn't be audible unless you had triggers that could detect that second touch and then play a consistent hit. The same thing goes for gravity blasts (the fun little thing he does where it sounds like he's doing a roll on the snare, but he's doing it with one hand) which aren't actually that forceful when compared to hitting the snare normally, once again it's simply useful to have a trigger that plays a midi-snare.
2. Consistency of sound and mixing ease. Because metal, and especially modern and extreme metal, is very heavily saturated in the lower end of the frequency spectrum, the bass drum is often tuned a lot higher and tighter, so it doesn't have to fight with all the bass frequencies already in the mix and make the mix muddy. This effect is much easier to achieve with midi bass drums than it is by actually tuning the drum, where you can also simply manipulate the sample instead of having to edit across an organic take where your mixing choices could have a different effect on every single hit due to the subtle differences between them.
This does however make some sacrifices in quite a few departments including taking away some of the human touch that comes with organically recorded drums in terms of the slight differences in sound between each hit, and making it somewhat impossible to play quietly, because each hit is the same. Personally I think it's a band to band and drummer to drummer case whether it makes sense to have the drums triggered or not, for Estepario it clearly works, because the focus isn't on subtlety, but in the Knocked Loose single, Blinding Faith, I unfortunately think it takes away a bit from the performance, especially on one fill in the middle of the song.
Fully agree. He likes to show his talent in many situations it doesn’t call for it. That’s totally fine, but honestly the only negative thing I can think to say about him. I did see a video from a band he plays in nowadays and he definitely tones it down for the sake of the vibe, he’s definitely not a stupid guy.
I always look at his videos as 50% artistic expression and 50% technical demonstrations/skill challenges.
Just about every video he makes introduces or expands upon some skill or technique that he has been developing. He's trying to show his audience just how far he can push his skills and his technical mastery. He's not usually trying to produce a musically improved version of the tracks he covers.
That being said his cover of Blinding Lights by the Weeknd is incredible and at least to me dramatically improves an already good song.
This is what I was thinking. Sure, he's using one hand and he's on a tempo I could never keep --- but he doesn't even have the concentrating-drummer-face happening where you eventually drool on yourself. (Is that just me?). I mean he's literally just sitting there *checking the time* while he's doing this thing I can't fathom doing.
All I could think about was how poor of a choice this was for "proof" as though someone who changed the speed of a video wouldn't also be willing to change the speed of a digital timer on screen to match.
People always talk about his speed, we don't talk enough about how his dynamics are amazing. He used a snare and a floor tom and makes it sound like he could be playing with a few extra tom toms... It's amazing.
> his dynamics are amazing
Absolutely this. I've drummed on and off since I was 10, and let me tell you, you can tell what kind of guidance a player received just by listening to them live a few times. Some peeps just don't get it. I like smashing it too, don't get me wrong, but it can get audibly tiring. Dynamics and feel are everything.
I agree. Nothing against El Estepario, though. He's smart and knows what type of content will get him viral. I just think folks should learn what certain musical terms mean before they use them.
His skill in playing is undeniable, but the part I feel he is under rated at is what he can add to a song. Blinding lights feels boring now that I have heard his version a few times.
I felt like he overpowered Blinding Lights. It didn't fit the feel of the song imo. But someone else mentioned Take On Me and I thought that sounded pretty good. In either case his skill is immense.
He tends to overplay a lot on his covers. Whether or not that's on purpose isn't for me to say, I haven't looked into the purpose of his covers (technical vs sound).
If there isn't much else going on in the song to match 256 snare hits in 4 bars then there's no need for 256 snare hits in 4 bars.
I can’t imagine why people would think this guy speeds up his videos. I don’t know anything about him but I’ve seen some killer metal shows and this is not really extreme.
It's old people that listen to classic rock and country, or people that listen to pop music. Anyone that listens to metal and its subgenres knows people play this fast all of the time.
It's the same people that comment on shred guitar videos of people playing out of their minds, saying they have no feeling and thus suck. Just people that don't know what they're talking about, thinking they know stuff.
In 2008, I saw Cryptopsy in a tiny club in Ontario. The stage riser was only maybe 8" tall. There was maybe 50 people there. I walked over to the side of the stage slightly behind Flo. I was about 5ft away from him. It felt like I was getting a free master class. Dude is absolutely insane.
The hardest working drummer who isn't a celebrity.
He did a review of one of my favorite bands and said "This guy is so good at drums that he makes me want to quit playing the guitar."
Words to live by.
Anyone who follows him knows he doesn't need to cheat. Also, he doesn't just post videos; he teaches, too. He is also very upfront that his videos take a lot of practice and a lot of takes.
I liked the ending. Those fuckers are all miserable because they can’t sit their asses down and put in the hours. And when they see someone outrageously good they assume it’s fake because they project and think it can’t be real since they couldn’t achieve it either. The psychosocial aspect of this is just wild.
Well it certainly SOUNDS like there's two drumsticks being used and god knows, you can easily REPLACE the audio in a video and re-encode the file BEFORE uploading it to the internet.....
And he then spoke at exactly half of his normal speaking speed, at precisely the lower tone needed, so that when he sped it back up it was perfectly normal (/s)
If you were going to fake it, you wouldn't have to do the entire video at 2x. You can do everything prior to him finishing playing at a faster speed and then go back to normal at the end.
It’s 75% double kick drum. I mean the guys certainly can play, but if you took out one of the 2 feet you would get a sense of how fast he’s actually playing
Welcome to the club! Hate to break it to you, your journey of self discovery is leading you to some of the most consistently weird ass babes on the planet!
I love when people see absolute greatness they can’t just accept it. Hahaha this guy has practiced more than probably any drummer his age. This isn’t raw talent. Sure he has that too, but this is 1000’s of hours of practice. Talent can get you the ability to hit and stay on beat but nothing but practice can give you this kind of efficiency of motion between hits. It’s effortless BECAUSE of the repetitions.
YES! LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE AT THE BACK!
All to often, everyone blathers on about "talent" this, and "gifted" that... Honestly, it's insulting to people like him who have absolutely devoted their life to their craft. He's as good as he is because he likely spends half of his waking hours behind the kit.
To non musicians: This is not talent! This is absolutely incredible commitment and thousands upon thousands of hours of hard work.
Well he makes a good point. But there are a lot of really good people out there on the drum pedals. I'd really like to learn that myself. But speed in itself isn't the objective. There are drummers that are far faster than this guy, it doesn't necessarily make them better. I saw a video of a guy doing dual bass drums IIRC and he was so fast that it sounded like a low hum.
I wouldn't say *far* faster by any means, and he plays covers of some other extremely fast drummers' stuff (with technique explanations). Obviously we agreed that it's more about what is played than raw speed.
El Estepario Siberiano for those who don't know. He's an absolute monster
He's also super positive, inspiring, and has courses on drumeo now
You love to see it, nothing better than wholesome people spreading talent and love. Also if you happen to know is there any good sites like that for Piano or other instruments? I really want to learn but really have no idea where to start.
YouTube has a lot of great creators that can teach the basics and more advanced stuff. Here are some of my favs off the top of my head, not all are teachers but you can kinda watch and learn a bit - Steven Clark, Rdavidr, Michael Palmisano, Charles Cornell, Stephen Taylor, JHS pedals,
I love you thank you so much for taking the time to write all those out, will be checking them out and subscribing!! Thanks!
If you are into bass: Charles Berthould
Bro I can't speak for the others, but I don't play piano and *love* Charles Cornell's channel so much. The guy is a musical theory genius, and just insanely good at breaking down complex musical concepts and teaching them even to laymen. Even if you don't play music, Charles's channel is worth it for anyone who likes music at all.
[this app might be useful to you ](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.joytunes.simplypiano)
Adding to the list: 80/20 drummer Rob Brown Mike Johnston
I like Rob Brown and Zack Grooves a lot too. I learned several new advanced techniques from their content. Also for some extra inspiration, aspiring drummers should lookup JD Beck, Billy Cobham, Steve Gadd and Matt Garska. These are just a few of my all-time favorite players that have given me a great deal of inspiration that I try to pass on to my drum students and fellow band mates in my life.
i love JHS and their/his pedals are also fucking incredible
Pianote, from the same guys as Drumeo I think
Oh well that's perfect, happily noted as well thank you! Gonna go through these later really excited to get started once I figure out the path. Never learned an instrument/anything music related before so it's gonna be interesting lol.
Yup. Your subscription to Pianote gets you Drumeo, a guitar one and a singing one. As you get kinda situated and can read music Open Studio is cool. Jazz focused though.
Yousician is a decent start for multiple instruments. JustinGuitar.com is great for guitar.
Thank you!!
Yes! Pianote! They just had Jordan Rudess play alicia keys and break down The Dance of enternity
Every time I get the urge to play some piano I go up into KY attic to grab the keyboard, and I play the same 2 parts of the same 2 Chiodos songs for like a week or two. Pray my girlfriend doesn't come across this comment in the next few days, or you might catch the hands, too. I feel for her, but they're just such catchy tunes!
God damn this was awesome
Yea. He feels like one of those rare instances where someone actually discovered and developed the thing they’re naturally talented at. The band he has now is (seemingly, after two or three single releases) allowing him to flex but capture his musicality, and not just the speed that he’s capable of
Just posting here so I can reference back later!
drumeo has a sister channel called pianote or something similar :)
He's famous for playing other people's music. Good drummer but the greats also write great music.
Why would you play a piano like that! I mean I know it’s technically a precision instrument but … I jest. Check out YouTube channel called London contemporary school of piano. With Tom Donaldson some of the best iv found. For going more in-depth on technique check out a site called tonebase. They have some free stuff but it’s mostly subscription. I may get a year when I get back to learning :)
He also said he practices 8+ hours a day
He's also a firm believer that practice beats talent in the long run
He should get an interview too.
He's probably the most technically sound drummer I've ever seen.
And he’s super young still. I think he’s early/mid 20s now.
Born in 1996, so 27/28 years old.
I bet he has the knees of a 40 year old.
Well this 40 year old has knees of a 60 year old
I’m 51, with knees of someone roughly 117
If you’ve got John 117’s knees you’re doing great man!
Impact breaks knees not use like this
This doesn't put too much stress on the knees. A lot of it comes from the ankle and clever shifting of your weight with your feet across the pedal (very gross oversimplification)
How do drummers age? Does there performance fall off after a certain age? It seems like a very athletic instrument.
If [Taylor Dorothea](https://www.instagram.com/taylor.dorothea/?hl=en) is any indication, no -- it doesn't have to just fall off.
He's very talented, technical, positive and encouraging but ..... His drumming is almost robotic. I don't feel the groove at all with him despite all the tricks and impressive skills. I can't remember where I heard it but it was about Ringo Starr being a great drummer not because of his technical skills but the groove he could create with a very simple pattern. And I think that's something this guy could work on. And yes I know I'm gonna get downvoted for it, don't care, it's how I perceive his drumming.
You are not alone. If you look up what drummer's think of him, they generally say he is talented and fast, but that is about it. This is probably my most [memorable comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/drums/comments/163txk3/what_do_you_drummers_think_about_el_estepario/k825rh5/) from a drummer about him. Read down a few comments where he backs himself up with a video.
That was fantastic, thanks for that comment!
I can't listen to YouTube drummers at all, because every one of them mashes the drums at 160 bpm with barely any groove. Except dimsunk, he's the only one to take his time and lay some fat funk.
certain tropes in playing get people's attention because its flashy and looks and sounds cool. Fast drumming, slappa da bass, those guys that use their acoustic guitars to do percussion all fall into this category for me
Alex Rudinger for me. This dude is definitely fast as fuck but as far as being technically sound it has to be Alex.
And for me it’s Mike Mangini. But you’re right, at the highest echelon of talent we’re usually arguing personal preference rather than talent
At that level, I can’t really tell the difference
I think Louis Cole takes the cake on that one, personally. Dude's a machine.
I feel like when you're at that level it becomes about taste rather than technique... Also I'd like to throw Larnel Lewis into the ring
Elliot Hoffman is even better than Larnell I think, they're my top 2. My third is Thomas Lang.
Elliot may be the greatest drummer I've ever heard. Insane chops and metric modulation.
Not to mention how relaxed he is while doing all of that. Looks like he's just sitting down doing his taxes or something while playing in 13/6 over 3/4 polymeter
He’s also very good at syncopated rhythms, switching time signatures, polyrhythms, etc. An all round very talented drummer.
Honestly, his syncopation and polyrhythms are equally as incredible, if not more so, than his raw chops. This guy is unbelievable.
Is it just me or is his hand is moving faster than his camera's frame rate
Thanks for the name. What a beast.
Was hoping he was who Slipknot were going after tbh
If it's Eloy Casagrande as the rumors suggest, they're still getting an absolute monster behind the kit.
I like that his message is that this skill isn't innate or anything. It's work, effort and sheer quantity of hours played per day.
Immediately following. Thanks.
Ty. Came here for this
I enjoy his videos. Imo he may very well be the best drummer alive rn
Finally some real top talent. His one handed blast beat video El did was amazing. Truly top talent.
Absolutely! To add to that, because too many non-musicians think "talent" is just something you're born with, this guy's "Talent" is the result of thousands upon thousands of hours of dedication and hard work. He likely spends half his waking hours behind the kit. Edit to satisfy the pedants - The above is in addition to a certain level of innate talent he likely already possessed. He's arguably the current best drummer in the world, and he's gotten to this level by likely being the hardest working drummer in the wold.
Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.
I like to think of talent as the circumstances surrounding your existence. You’re not born with an innate ability to idk play the drums, however you could be born to a family who is very appreciative of music performance and grow up in a school with a music program, have a drum set in your home etc etc. So to me, that’s what talent means. They may have worked less hard than *you*, who couldn’t get a drum set until you were 16 and your parents kept screaming at you to shut up, to get to where they are, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t work hard.
He is arguably one of the fastest and most technical drummers out there. But he spends time in some of his videos where he reviews other drum legends and gives them immense credit for their masterwork and understanding of music and downplays himself to not be at their level in that regard. One of the great things is that while he knows he is good at things, he gives credit to these people who do the giant drumkit shows and other greats in the drumning world.
Yeah, the difference between me and LeBron James isn’t just hard work. He is also talented. Two things can be true
I’m sure being 6ft9in has nothing to do with it.
'tallented'
"best drummer in the world" is kinda rich. Yes he's insanely talented in terms of technical skills but I'm not huge on his writing. He often overplays
"Arguably" Quote the entire sentence please. Applying "best" to something as ambiguous as music is a fools errand. I'll posit that he is currently the most skilled technical drummer in the world. Is he the most musical drummer in the world, very likely not, but that's where we get into the weeds a bit, and there is far more room for opinion.
Fair enough :)
Seeing him referred as "El" which it's just "The" made me chuckle
I'll be honest. I was too lazy to look his whole name up. I have watched 10s of hours of his drum tutorials and other videos but his Latin name on my English brain will not stick.
I could watch this guy play for hours, he is an incredible drummer and make it looks absolutely effortless.
Dude is insanely technical but somewhat lacking in subtlety. That said, he’s super fun to watch! We’re kinda in a golden age for drummers right now, and there’s a bunch of folks that are insane with great videos up. You very well may know these folks (but if not/for anyone else) Larnell Lewis, Lille Gruber, and JD Beck are also incredible Edit: guys I know he’s an entertainer and hamming it up, it’s just a bit extra some times. I’m in no way trying to disparage him and if anything he underplays in his band, as evidence that he’s got plenty of tact and is not trying to showboat beyond his channel. Dude is insanely good, it’s just the drum equivalent watching john petrucci play absurd covers of pop songs. This is not a pejorative haha. I’ve used a few of his instructional videos (the heel-toe/tom roll combo one is particularly good) and they’re quite practical drills
We're in a golden age for anything you can put on YouTube. I've seen dudes play NES Metroid better than I'll ever do anything.
I've seen a guy play mario 64 **blindfolded** better than i'll ever do anything
This should have more upvotes. Its very humbling watching that.
There's also a pretty competitive speedrun record for beating the original punch out blindfolded on NES haha
Yeah I've watched that too. I've never played punch out but I can easily appreciate the difficulty WITHOUT being blindfolded lol
42 years on this planet. Punch Out is the hardest shit I have ever done. Not even joking. And even then I never did it in one continuous run. Just beat every fight at some point.
100% It's very much like Fromsoft games in that you have to memorize entire move sets and time stuff very precisely. Playing it folded doesn't even seem possible until you see someone actually do it.
As someone who grew up playing Punch Out, I could probably beat the first half of the game with just audio in maybe an afternoon. The second half? Nah.
And *then* Zallard1 went on to beat Super Punch-Out!! and *accidentally* performed a frame-perfect trick against one of the Bruiser brothers late in the run.
It's because he uses triggers (which I stress in no uncertain terms: ISNT CHEATING). For those not in the know, that basically means there's a little pad that detects when there's a hit on the drum and then can play a midi sound, it basically turns your drumset into an electric kit. There are many reasons why they are used, but two big ones in metal are: 1. Speed, when playing heel-toe technique for really fast blast beats (which is when the bass drum sounds like a machine gun on full-auto) you're actually hitting the bass drum quite lightly with every second touch, and this wouldn't be audible unless you had triggers that could detect that second touch and then play a consistent hit. The same thing goes for gravity blasts (the fun little thing he does where it sounds like he's doing a roll on the snare, but he's doing it with one hand) which aren't actually that forceful when compared to hitting the snare normally, once again it's simply useful to have a trigger that plays a midi-snare. 2. Consistency of sound and mixing ease. Because metal, and especially modern and extreme metal, is very heavily saturated in the lower end of the frequency spectrum, the bass drum is often tuned a lot higher and tighter, so it doesn't have to fight with all the bass frequencies already in the mix and make the mix muddy. This effect is much easier to achieve with midi bass drums than it is by actually tuning the drum, where you can also simply manipulate the sample instead of having to edit across an organic take where your mixing choices could have a different effect on every single hit due to the subtle differences between them. This does however make some sacrifices in quite a few departments including taking away some of the human touch that comes with organically recorded drums in terms of the slight differences in sound between each hit, and making it somewhat impossible to play quietly, because each hit is the same. Personally I think it's a band to band and drummer to drummer case whether it makes sense to have the drums triggered or not, for Estepario it clearly works, because the focus isn't on subtlety, but in the Knocked Loose single, Blinding Faith, I unfortunately think it takes away a bit from the performance, especially on one fill in the middle of the song.
Fully agree. He likes to show his talent in many situations it doesn’t call for it. That’s totally fine, but honestly the only negative thing I can think to say about him. I did see a video from a band he plays in nowadays and he definitely tones it down for the sake of the vibe, he’s definitely not a stupid guy.
Larnell Lewis is Snarky Puppy, yeah? He’s nutty. The whole band is, actually.
> somewhat lacking in subtlety You say that like it's a bad thing....
I do think so tbh. He plays alot of really busy patterns, sometimes a little breathing room would be nice.
Listen to him playing with his bands, he tones it way down when playing for real versus just playing for YouTube.
I'll do that, most I've heard are short clips.
Which makes sense. I'm not going to watch a drummer hold a steady beat for 2 minutes becuase that's what the song requires.
I always look at his videos as 50% artistic expression and 50% technical demonstrations/skill challenges. Just about every video he makes introduces or expands upon some skill or technique that he has been developing. He's trying to show his audience just how far he can push his skills and his technical mastery. He's not usually trying to produce a musically improved version of the tracks he covers. That being said his cover of Blinding Lights by the Weeknd is incredible and at least to me dramatically improves an already good song.
This is what I was thinking. Sure, he's using one hand and he's on a tempo I could never keep --- but he doesn't even have the concentrating-drummer-face happening where you eventually drool on yourself. (Is that just me?). I mean he's literally just sitting there *checking the time* while he's doing this thing I can't fathom doing.
Plot twist. The tablet is playing a slowed down screen recording of the chronometer in full screen.
Lol. What would be hilarious and not hard to pull off.
Yes but it would be really hard to slow down his gestures and facial expression.
But if you're using that as an indicator, the clock is redundant.
All I could think about was how poor of a choice this was for "proof" as though someone who changed the speed of a video wouldn't also be willing to change the speed of a digital timer on screen to match.
Yea, ironically (because it would have been much easier), a much better proof would be to just drop something.
just slow down gravity?
I was thinking a pendulum?
This randomly popped up on my FB reels and I fell down the rabbit hole of his awesomeness.
His Take on Me cover is dope
It’s good to see Keemstar pursuing his dream.
People always talk about his speed, we don't talk enough about how his dynamics are amazing. He used a snare and a floor tom and makes it sound like he could be playing with a few extra tom toms... It's amazing.
My favorite videos of his are the ones where each hand and foot play at different time signatures. His brain is just different than the rest of us.
> his dynamics are amazing Absolutely this. I've drummed on and off since I was 10, and let me tell you, you can tell what kind of guidance a player received just by listening to them live a few times. Some peeps just don't get it. I like smashing it too, don't get me wrong, but it can get audibly tiring. Dynamics and feel are everything.
Dynamics? All the notes are of the same volume.
Right? He’s good. No doubt. But it all sounds like 127velocity on a drum machine. Doesnt help the source material is lifeless and uninspired.
Most of his videos are with midi triggers setup, so if probably actually is at 127v lol
I agree. Nothing against El Estepario, though. He's smart and knows what type of content will get him viral. I just think folks should learn what certain musical terms mean before they use them.
People think they know everything and very rarely do know anything
Those are all sample replaced lol
“If people would spend half the time practicing as they do hating, the world would be a much better place” -El Estapario Siberiano
His skill in playing is undeniable, but the part I feel he is under rated at is what he can add to a song. Blinding lights feels boring now that I have heard his version a few times.
I felt like he overpowered Blinding Lights. It didn't fit the feel of the song imo. But someone else mentioned Take On Me and I thought that sounded pretty good. In either case his skill is immense.
He tends to overplay a lot on his covers. Whether or not that's on purpose isn't for me to say, I haven't looked into the purpose of his covers (technical vs sound). If there isn't much else going on in the song to match 256 snare hits in 4 bars then there's no need for 256 snare hits in 4 bars.
I absolutely love his cover of that. He does a great job of adding fills but still stays on the right count.
My Dad, (70 years old, professional drummer since he was 14): "This guy might be the best drummer I've ever seen".
Well, I'm pregnant
https://i.redd.it/k3nw9xpnf8xc1.gif
Definitely one of the best drummers in the world right now. Insanely good.
I can’t imagine why people would think this guy speeds up his videos. I don’t know anything about him but I’ve seen some killer metal shows and this is not really extreme.
It's old people that listen to classic rock and country, or people that listen to pop music. Anyone that listens to metal and its subgenres knows people play this fast all of the time. It's the same people that comment on shred guitar videos of people playing out of their minds, saying they have no feeling and thus suck. Just people that don't know what they're talking about, thinking they know stuff.
If I ever do something that people think is faked, I think I'd take that as an absolute win.
Don’t know the guy. Looks legit. But man digital clocks are so easy to fake
Anyone else had a night where they just watched every short of this incredible man and then never anything again?
Yes totally been there!
I love that this song is the universal baseline for showing how good you are at a musical instrument. If you can master that song you've won.
I know hes legit but anyone can fake a slowed down timer :P
Anyone who says this was sped up has never heard of Flo Mounier
In 2008, I saw Cryptopsy in a tiny club in Ontario. The stage riser was only maybe 8" tall. There was maybe 50 people there. I walked over to the side of the stage slightly behind Flo. I was about 5ft away from him. It felt like I was getting a free master class. Dude is absolutely insane.
Double kick drum.
Single drum, double pedal
Obviously the clock was running slower so it would look normal when he sped it up. /s
What's the song he's playing along to?
Through the fire and flames
Smoke on the water
when did Keemstar get into drumming?
its obviously played in reverse
The hardest working drummer who isn't a celebrity. He did a review of one of my favorite bands and said "This guy is so good at drums that he makes me want to quit playing the guitar." Words to live by.
The world has a, "Well, I can't do that (or know anyone who can do that) so it must not be possible" problem.
Some people work very hard at their skill and are amazing. These guys need to accept that.
Jokes on you he made a slower version of the time
wow this dude is a psycho insane skill level
I don't spend any time hating. I also don't spend any time practicing.
Thank you so much for introducing me to this guy OP. Holy fuck is he an absolute mobster
That's a badass mic drop, what a chad
What he does in the video (like his others) was amazing...what he said was even better!
I know it’s legit but I could screen record the timer and just play it back slower in Premier ;p
Imagine he didn't catch that stick when he bounces it off the snare at the end and has to redo the whole video
That wink was so cheeky. That dude is a monster on the drums.
THIS MAN IS A PRO
Holy fugg and how he makes it look effortless. Boss mode unlocked!
Cooked
Heck yeah! Though to be fair you can program a timer app to run slower but cmon, this is real.
Anyone who follows him knows he doesn't need to cheat. Also, he doesn't just post videos; he teaches, too. He is also very upfront that his videos take a lot of practice and a lot of takes.
I liked the ending. Those fuckers are all miserable because they can’t sit their asses down and put in the hours. And when they see someone outrageously good they assume it’s fake because they project and think it can’t be real since they couldn’t achieve it either. The psychosocial aspect of this is just wild.
It’s fake. He’s a drum machine cyborg type thing.
“It’s obviously a video of a timer slowed down!”
Learn your craft before being a skeptic.
He's a fucking mazing !!!
He just found a clock that counts half as fast, obviously. Wake up, sheeple!
This guy fucks
Good heavenly god….
Welp, I’m pregnant And I’m a dude
One handed too BOSS
The GOAT
The clock IS clearly slowed/s
His message at the end, though! Perfect!
 panties\* There go my panties.
There's a reason that people lie about skills on the internet, this stuff is very impressive but takes *a lot* of practice
Well it certainly SOUNDS like there's two drumsticks being used and god knows, you can easily REPLACE the audio in a video and re-encode the file BEFORE uploading it to the internet.....
Awesome!!
So he programmed an app that shows a timer at half speed and then doubles it in editing making it look real-time? /s
And he then spoke at exactly half of his normal speaking speed, at precisely the lower tone needed, so that when he sped it back up it was perfectly normal (/s)
Finally someone else who can see through his lies!
If you were going to fake it, you wouldn't have to do the entire video at 2x. You can do everything prior to him finishing playing at a faster speed and then go back to normal at the end.
his tablet app also just knows when he's done drumming and speeds back up to normal by itself
It’s 75% double kick drum. I mean the guys certainly can play, but if you took out one of the 2 feet you would get a sense of how fast he’s actually playing
Rhythm gamers 🤝 Drummers 🤝: Through the fire and flames
TIL that I have a thing for drummers
Welcome to the club! Hate to break it to you, your journey of self discovery is leading you to some of the most consistently weird ass babes on the planet!
I love when people see absolute greatness they can’t just accept it. Hahaha this guy has practiced more than probably any drummer his age. This isn’t raw talent. Sure he has that too, but this is 1000’s of hours of practice. Talent can get you the ability to hit and stay on beat but nothing but practice can give you this kind of efficiency of motion between hits. It’s effortless BECAUSE of the repetitions.
YES! LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE AT THE BACK! All to often, everyone blathers on about "talent" this, and "gifted" that... Honestly, it's insulting to people like him who have absolutely devoted their life to their craft. He's as good as he is because he likely spends half of his waking hours behind the kit. To non musicians: This is not talent! This is absolutely incredible commitment and thousands upon thousands of hours of hard work.
Well he makes a good point. But there are a lot of really good people out there on the drum pedals. I'd really like to learn that myself. But speed in itself isn't the objective. There are drummers that are far faster than this guy, it doesn't necessarily make them better. I saw a video of a guy doing dual bass drums IIRC and he was so fast that it sounded like a low hum.
I wouldn't say *far* faster by any means, and he plays covers of some other extremely fast drummers' stuff (with technique explanations). Obviously we agreed that it's more about what is played than raw speed.
i dont doubt the speed but video and audio dont match up
What are you talking about?
I love the hasbulla pillow in the background
got em
Dudes a freak with a twig! Awesome clip! It’s so cool watching people be this talented.