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Morgenthaler wrote:Shannon will join TOTO for their announced 2017 dates called 'and evening with'.

That's awesome. Love him with TOTO.

But to me he's Toto's drummer now, I don't think we'll see Keith with them anymore, but hey, you never know, we'll see.

Shannon is certainly the perfect fit for what's going on now.

It also seems Keith has made other things his main priority.

His groove sits better with the music, it's heavier and more grounded.

I was struck by Steve Hackett's drummer, who plays trad. I thought the music required a bit stronger and more consistent backbeat, and he was up and down. Great player, but I hear John Shearer and Phil laying it down on those tunes, and it fits better. It settles the music down.

Offcourse (thank you Odd!), players can have consistency with trad, but it does feel a little bit different, more "toppy".

It's possible, but more difficult, I think.

Those I know of who learned trad in their younger years and had to do mainly the rock thing switched over to matched. I've been surrounded by orchestral and jazz guys, so trad is what I grew up seeing most among those that really could play. Stewart, though such a great innovator and inspiration to us all is hardly a representation of loose well developed left hand. Even Brian looks stiff when he really goes for it, so it seems very few do the work to keep loose and relaxed, open it up for loud consistent playing and do it well both with whipping and formal, which you have to do to be full comfortable.

Vinnie is certainly consistent, but when he talks about building callus on the thumb, I dunno. I'm not at his level and I don't play a Sting show 5 nights a week.

Todd is mainly trad, too.

I've only ever experienced some where on 3 different spots during my development. Right index, right pinky when I first tried the Vics(wax thing, I think) and on the top side of of the webbing between thumb and index on the left trad hand.

Those two days of lessons I had back in April pretty much took care of the last little left hand issues.

When Hackett's music got going, the snare just disappeared. Ok for quiet bits, and there were plenty, but he couldn't quite reach it when the volume and intensity increased.

Don't doubt it, but I'd blame the drummer, not the grip.

He is a good player, and also sings (which may be the issue!).

It looked like there was no possibly way the way he held the stick that he could generate much power at all.

PAs are there to make that louder, but it wasn't working.

Yeah.

Apart from fine adjustments what that last lesson gave me was a legitimisation to open up the grip fully. In that case the stick itself does the same movement as with matched hence you make it do exactly the same thing. As I look around though, it seems not many really do that. They clamp down on it and bash. Since I'm 99% trad I can actually play louder with trad. In my case though, the few gigs I have, noone really asks the drummer to play louder. They basically liked me because I kept the volume down.

You can certainly get a lot with a short throw, Bruce Lee style. Weckl certainly does, but he did mention when I met him last summer that he does raise the hats when he needs a rock volume backbeat.

Rodge wrote:

Morgenthaler wrote:Shannon will join TOTO for their announced 2017 dates called 'and evening with'.

That's awesome. Love him with TOTO.

But to me he's Toto's drummer now, I don't think we'll see Keith with them anymore, but hey, you never know, we'll see.

I asked Keith about this when i saw him last year and he said that he would work with them again if they called him.

"If they called him..."

I'm sure they'll call Shannon first non, tough I know Luke is huge fan of Keith.