House of Drumming.com

I was thinking about this while working on a song in the studio the other day; I ended up deleting the hihat pattern we had and instead tried different ways to make it groove using other sound sources.

Of course there are a number of styles (world, folk, etc.) where hihat use is not prevalent, but I'm thinking mainly of pop/rock songs for the purpose of this thread. Well-programmed electronic suggestions are of course welcome!

I can think of a few, like a lot of Keith Moon's drumming with the Who, Bruford with Crimson, Jerry Marotta with Peter Gabriel. When I googled a little, I found a cool clip I hadn't seen before: Leon Parker with the Jacky Terrasson trio:



Do you guys have any favorite hihat-less songs?

I always loved that song, but I guess we can say that hiting the rim is like playing the hi-hat innit ?

Though not in the pop/rock vein, Patitucci's 'If You Don't Mind', with Vinnie, comes to mind:

http://grooveshark.com/#!/search/song?q=John+Patitucci+If+You+Don%27t+Mind

I remember reading somewhere, maybe in an interview with Keltner that the drummer on Neil Young's Harvest was forced to sit on his right hand so to not play the hi-hat. True or not, I do believe that there is no hi-hat on Old Man off of that record.

A bit off topic, Michael Tretow (legendary ABBA engineer) didn't like cymbals and frequently recorded without them, here's a quote:
"In most cases I don't use any mics on the hi-hat - I always seem to get enough, or even too much, hi-hat anyway. By the way, must be time for someone to say something about the annoying brass plates that every drummer carries around! I do not regard the cymbal as a musical instrument. I regard it as a tool with which the drummer can ruin a good drum sound in the overall kit mics. It's about time somebody put a stop to them. Put a tax on cymbals, that would do the trick! "

[youtube]http://youtu.be/s1tAYmMjLdY[/youtube]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1tAYmMjLdY

Crap. it won't embeed

This is a cool groove..

Hard to play on snare and rimclick for an entire song consistently.

Phil Collins!