How Can You Tell a Good Drummer from a Bad Drummer?: Ringo Starr as Case Study

Yes­ter­day Josh Jones made the case for appre­ci­at­ing the sub­tle genius of Ringo Starr. And as if to sec­ond that, Dirk K. sent this video (above) our way.

Asked what sep­a­rate good drum­mers from bad, drum­mer Bran­don Khoo gives a short demon­stra­tion that puts Ringo’s tal­ents in the right light. It’s not about the flash, the shock-and-awe dis­play of tech­nique. It’s about his ability–as Dave Grohl echoes below–to “sit in the song” and “find the right feel,” true to the phi­los­o­phy that some­times less is more.

Thanks Dirk for send­ing this our way. And thanks Ringo for putting on a great show in Marin on Sat­ur­day night.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Cleese, Ringo Starr and Peter Sell­ers Trash Price­less Art (1969)

Watch the Evo­lu­tion of Ringo Starr, Dave Grohl, Tré Cool & 19 Oth­er Drum­mers in Short 5‑Minute Videos

Hear the Bea­t­les Play Their Final Con­cert (August 29, 1966)

The Neu­ro­science of Drum­ming: Researchers Dis­cov­er the Secrets of Drum­ming & The Human Brain

Iso­lat­ed Drum Tracks From Six of Rock’s Great­est: Bon­ham, Moon, Peart, Copeland, Grohl & Starr