Eight-Year-Old Drum Prodigy Plays Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times Bad Times;” Robert Plant Watches in Wonder

On her Vimeo page, Yoyoka Soma, an eight-year-old-drum­ming prodi­gy, tells you every­thing you need to know to appre­ci­ate this video. Her blurb, accom­pa­ny­ing the video above, reads as fol­lows:

My name is Yoyoka Soma. I am 8 year old Japan­ese drum­mer.

When I was a just small baby, my par­ents had a home stu­dio and there were var­i­ous kinds of instru­ments. My par­ents were per­form­ing music activ­i­ties as ama­teur singer-song­writ­ers and they cra­dled me with their music. When I lis­tened to their songs and gui­tar per­for­mances, I was eager to join them and couldn’t stop beat­ing out a rhythm. That was why I start­ed play­ing the drums. The drum was the first instru­ment in which I felt an inter­est in my life. My par­ents’ music peers often vis­it­ed us to play togeth­er. I was glued to the pow­er­ful and dynam­ic per­for­mances by the drum­mers. At age 2, I was play­ing the drums as if I were play­ing with toys. At age 4, I start­ed per­form­ing at con­certs. At age 5, my fam­i­ly band “Kaneaiy­oyoka” was formed by my par­ents. We have released 2 self-pro­duced CD albums so far. Not only the drums, I also play the key­board and per­form as a vocal­ist. I com­pose lyrics and music as well.

My favorite drum­mers are John Bon­ham, Chris Cole­man and Ben­ny Greb.

As a drum­mer, I enjoy being groove, tones and try to sup­port vocal­ists care­ful­ly. My dream is to be the best drum­mer in the world. In addi­tion, I want to be an artist who can do any­thing: play­ing all instru­ments, record­ing music, mix­ing the sound and design­ing the CD album jack­ets. As I am aim­ing at over­seas activ­i­ties, I am study­ing Eng­lish con­ver­sa­tion. I want to become friends with peo­ple all over the world through my musi­cal activ­i­ties!

As HLAG [Hit Like a Girl] is a con­test only for women, I def­i­nite­ly can’t lose it. I want to be the best female drum­mer. Thanks to the great sup­port by my fam­i­ly and fans, I can con­tin­ue the prac­tice and oth­er musi­cal activ­i­ties. I want to show the best result of my dai­ly prac­tice and come out on top of this con­test!

Yoyoka’s glee­ful per­for­mance of John Bon­ham’s drum sec­tion from Zep­pelin’s “Good Times Bad Times” served as her entry for the 2018 edi­tion of the Hit Like a Girl con­test. She was­n’t amongst the win­ners this year alas. But she undoubt­ed­ly has time–plenty of time–to take anoth­er shot.

Below, you can watch Robert Plan­t’s reac­tion upon view­ing Yoyoka at work. “I know where she could get a good job.” “That’s amaz­ing, isn’t it?”

h/t Mike S.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

What Makes John Bon­ham Such a Good Drum­mer? A New Video Essay Breaks Down His Inim­itable Style

John Bonham’s Iso­lat­ed Drum Track For Led Zeppelin’s ‘Fool in the Rain’

Decon­struct­ing Led Zeppelin’s Clas­sic Song ‘Ram­ble On’ Track by Track: Gui­tars, Bass, Drums & Vocals

Decon­struct­ing Led Zeppelin’s Clas­sic Song ‘Ram­ble On’ Track by Track: Gui­tars, Bass, Drums & Vocals