When Prince passed away, many a non-Prince fan sud­den­ly found out that the man was not only a bril­liant song­writer, singer, dancer, gui­tarist, pianist, styl­ist, and super­star, but that he was also a vir­tu­al one-man band in the stu­dio, able to play almost any instru­ment, in exact­ly the way he want­ed it played. Prince fans knew this, as do fans of the musi­cian who made Songs in the Key of Life — or what Prince called the great­est album ever record­ed. And if Prince were here, he would agree:  Ste­vie Won­der deserves more appre­ci­a­tion for his mul­ti-musi­cian­ship while he’s still with us.

Yes, of course, we know him for his “stag­ger­ing song­writ­ing and vocal skills,” writes PC Muñoz at Drum! mag­a­zine, for his “prowess as a for­mi­da­ble, inven­tive key­boardist (and pop music syn­the­siz­er pio­neer)” and “his vir­tu­oso-lev­el skills on har­mon­i­ca.”

But do we know Ste­vie Won­der as a drum­mer? Well, “news­flash for those who did­n’t know,” Muñoz announces: “Ste­vie Won­der also hap­pens to be one badass drum­mer.” (In fact, his very first gig, at 8 years old, was on the drums.) Not that he hasn’t received his just due from fel­low musi­cians, far from it.

Eric Clap­ton called Won­der “the great­est drum­mer of our time” in 1974 — “hefty praise” (and maybe a bit of a swipe), wrote music jour­nal­ist Eric San­dler, “com­ing from a man who played with Gin­ger Bak­er.” See a demon­stra­tion of Won­der’s for­mi­da­ble feel and groove behind the kit in the drum solo at the top of the post. But, of course, you’ve already heard his drum­ming — all, or most, of your life per­haps — on his albums, includ­ing most every track on Talk­ing Book, Songs in the Key of Life, and Innervi­sions — songs like “Super­sti­tion,” “High­er Ground,” “Liv­ing for the City” … all Ste­vie.

“I grew up prac­tic­ing to Ste­vie Wonder’s music,” drum­mer Eric Carnes tells Muñoz, “but I actu­al­ly didn’t know he was often the drum­mer on his own stuff. Until I was in my twen­ties.” Carnes goes on to describe the hall­marks of Won­der’s style: “very relaxed – not so crisp and not so metro­nom­ic. He’s using dif­fer­ent parts of the stick at dif­fer­ent times, and his hi-hat parts change through­out the song. A lot of times, each cho­rus in a giv­en song is played slight­ly dif­fer­ent­ly, too. He esca­lates a song over a long peri­od of time, real­ly grow­ing the whole piece, instead of top­ping out ear­ly; it gives the music some­where to go.”

Bill Janovitz of the band Buf­fa­lo Tom — in a very thor­ough paean to Songs in the Key of Life – points to the “innate sense of groove in his drum­ming.… There is a musi­cal inven­tive­ness that might stem from being a well-round­ed mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ist, as opposed to some­one who strict­ly defines them­selves as a drum­mer.”

In his appre­ci­a­tion of Won­der’s drum­ming at Slate, Seth Steven­son also high­lights Won­der’s “expres­sive­ness.… No two mea­sures sound the same.” He offers a mini best-of roundup of Won­der’s record­ed drum­ming moments:

My favorite Won­der drum track comes on ‘Too High,’ the first song on Innervi­sions. Sub­tle snare rolls, sud­den tom-tom tum­bles, jazzy ride-cym­bal swings – they’re all scrump­tious and all in the greater ser­vice of the song. This is not the approach of a hired drum­mer attempt­ing to carve out his own ter­rain. It’s the work of a mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ist com­pos­er who fits his vision for each part into an inter­lock­ing whole.

Steven­son and Janovitz speak to a thread in so many dis­cus­sions of “vir­tu­oso” musi­cians: com­posers who are also musi­cal prodi­gies have ways of play­ing instru­ments in an idiom only they can under­stand. One imag­ines that if we had record­ings of Mozart or Bach – both prodi­gious mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ists from very young ages – we would hear clas­si­cal instru­ments played in ways we’ve nev­er heard them played before. The mag­ic of record­ing — and Ste­vie Won­der’s record­ings espe­cial­ly — means we can hear the drums on his songs exact­ly as he heard, and played, them, and exact­ly as he want­ed them played.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Catch Ste­vie Won­der, Ages 12–16, in His Ear­li­est TV Per­for­mances

Decon­struct­ing Ste­vie Wonder’s Ode to Jazz and His Hero Duke Elling­ton: A Great Break­down of “Sir Duke”

See Ste­vie Won­der Play “Super­sti­tion” and Ban­ter with Grover on Sesame Street in 1973

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

So, you want to play gui­tar like Mark Knopfler? I mean, who wouldn’t, right? His style has been “leg­endary in the gui­tar com­mu­ni­ty for decades,” notes Ulti­mate Gui­tar. Seems every­one who’s picked up the instru­ment has har­bored a secret or not-so-secret desire to knock out “Sul­tans of Swing,” flaw­less­ly, no mat­ter what kind of music they play.

Accord­ing to the Inter­net, it’s easy. There are How-to guides, promis­ing 5 Ways to play like Knopfler. At least one les­son admits, “imi­tat­ing Mark Knopfler’s play­ing style is much eas­i­er said than done.” I’ve seen it done con­vinc­ing­ly once, by a gui­tar prodi­gy, raised by musi­cians, who toured with Bud­dy Guy. Oth­er­wise, I’m here to inform you that you can­not learn to play like Mark Knopfler in Five Min­utes.

For one thing, it took Knopfler him­self decades to hone his style, tone, and tech­nique — years and years of lis­ten­ing to old records, learn­ing Blind Willie John­son, Chet Atkins, and every­thing in-between. “Even when I would be about 20 or so,” he says, “I was already steeped in a lot of ear­ly coun­try blues and every­thing.” Then there were the “years of liv­ing hand to mouth as a gig­ging gui­tarist,” Jamie Dick­son writes at Music Radar.

Knopfler also admits, mod­est­ly, to being a bit of a prodi­gy. “I could do Elmore James-style steel from the very, very begin­ning when I was just a kid. After I heard it, I could just kind of do it.” When Dire Straits released their huge-sell­ing fifth album Broth­ers in Arms in 1985, it seemed like blues gui­tar was the last thing any­one want­ed. The era was all about show­ing off. Syn­th­pop, new wave, met­al, and rap ruled. Dire Straits played clean, laid-back tunes with tasty, taste­ful Amer­i­can licks.

Tak­ing show­man­ship cues from big sta­di­um acts (what he’s called “jack­boot” rock bands), Knopfler adapt­ed the folk blues styles he’d learned on acoustic and Nation­al res­onator gui­tars to the red sig­na­ture Stra­to­cast­ers he became famous for play­ing, pick­ing loud, elec­tri­fied roots rock with his fin­gers and thumb. “I real­ized the pick was becom­ing redun­dant,” he tells Gui­tar.

So, if you want to play like Knopfler, you’ll have to lose the pick. More­over, you might want to con­sid­er switch­ing to your non-dom­i­nant hand. “I’m left-hand­ed,” he says in his Gui­tar inter­view, “but I play right-hand­ed. They tried to teach me vio­lin at school for two or three years — right hand­ed– so by the time I was 15, I was into the habit of play­ing that way round.” It’s a lot to ask of any gui­tar stu­dent.

But there are plen­ty of ways to start pick­ing up Knopfler’s basics, then prac­tic­ing them year after year as he did, and lis­ten­ing to all of his influ­ences. Watch his whole appear­ance at the top, giv­ing brief fin­ger­pick­ing demon­stra­tions — from Singing Nun syn­co­pat­ed bass lines to his trade­mark singing dou­ble and triple stops. Learn more about his “fin­ger style finesse” at Pre­mier Gui­tar and see how his sound devel­oped around his favorite gui­tars in the short film above.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Mark Knopfler Gives a Short Mas­ter­class on His Favorite Gui­tars & Gui­tar Sounds

Gui­tar Sto­ries: Mark Knopfler on the Six Gui­tars That Shaped His Career

Mark Knopfler Plays a Poignant, Over­driv­en Ver­sion of “The Last Post,” Remem­ber­ing the Many Lives Lost in World War I

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness