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Old 03-05-2021, 09:24 PM   #42
Xcacel
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Things I didn't know about Dave Matthews Band

Since we are speaking of Carter... A couple of things I didn’t know about Carter


The Babysitter Story
Most of the people already know that Carter’s passion for drumming started at the age of 3, when he was taken by his father to watch Buddy Rich perform. He grew up in a household full of music. Everything from jazz, gospel to the Beatles was played.
So, his father was going to a Buddy Rich concert, but he couldn't find a babysitter for young Carter. His only solution was to take Carter with him. From the moment Carter laid eyes and ears upon Buddy Rich, he was enthralled and facinated with Rich.

Carter speaks about that is “Under the Table and Drumming” (check it here).
Upon hearing his son's playing, Carter's father was impressed and bought him a Roy Rogers drum kit made with paper heads and tin shells. This was all Carter needed.


Ambidexterity
Carter plays Open-Handed, we all know that, but he is also ambidextrous. The story of its ambidexterity is quite interesting (source here)

When he was just starting out, Carter Beauford would set his drum kit as a mirror image of the ones played by the drummers he watched on TV. He wasn’t concerned about leading with his stronger hand, but rather in playing like the guys he watched. So he would set the snare and hi-hat by the right side of the bass drum, while leading with the left hand crossed over the right hand. This led him to the strong development of his weaker side. As time went by, he started noticing that most of the drummers played in a reversed position from his, that is, with the hi-hat and snare on the left side of the bass drum, while leading with the right hand over the left. Since he preferred that look over the one he add with the lefty drum set, he decided to switch over, which lead him to the development of the right side of his body also. As you may imagine, this resulted in Carter achieving one of the holy grails of drumming, ambidexterity. At the time, Carter thought that ambidexterity was something common to every drummer, which as we all know, it’s something that is actually pretty rare.
One of the main issues young drummers have when starting out is the lack of strength and control over their weakest limbs. Pursuing ambidexterity is desirable since it’ll not only give you a lot of freedom while you play, but will also help you in further developing your weaker side, acquiring some of the facilities inherent to the stronger side. Although Carter developed both sides of his body, it still felt more natural to him to play with his left hand leading. This ultimately led him to dabble around with open-handed drumming, since he liked playing on a right handed kit.
Open-handed playing allows Carter Beaufrod’s right hand to be a “solo hand”, playing some shots on toms, cymbals, and auxiliary percussion, while the left hand plays ride patterns and the snare drum. This gave birth to another very cool concept Carter has developed primarily since he started playing with the “Dave Matthews Band” – playing percussionist’s parts on the drum set. You see, throughout his career almost every band he was in had a hand percussionist. When he began creating music with the “Dave Matthews Band”, and since there wasn’t any hand percussionist in the band, he felt the need to add some percussionist patterns with his drum set to better complement certain songs. That resulted in him adding different splash cymbals, wood blocks, cowbells, and timbales to his drum set, so he could better emulate or add some percussionist based patterns and texture.



Golf Gloves
From the first time I saw this guy playing, I have been so fascinating by his smile, is bubble gums (not anymore) and his white gloves.
As he explained once, is not fashion, it is just to protect his hands and to have more grip (so that he can relax his hands more).
Carter tells the whole story here, together with some other insights about his Vic Firth sticks.
He uses golf gloves since he was injured once, since doctors wanted him to protect the tendons on this thumb. He couldn’t play well with a brace, so one cold night in San Francisco someone gave to Carter a pair of golf gloves, and they worked great. So, he wears golf gloves every night since then.


Carter’s real age
If it is certain that Carter’s birthday is on November 2, for a long time it was not clear Which year. Most of the sources stated that he is from 1957. However, recently Wikipedia was edited, and most probably he is from 1958. So, he will turn 63 next November.


How long will he play
How long will be Carter playing? That’s a good question. He says something here:

I work out before the shows, then do a three- and-a-half-hour concert where I leave everything on that stage. Nothing’s guaranteed, but all we can do is our best. I try to eat right. I want to play forever. There’s no stopping for me. A lot of drummers played into their later years—Elvin Jones, Max Roach—and they were still killing it. I want to do that. I want to go as far as I can possibly go, and then some.
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Last edited by Xcacel; 03-05-2021 at 09:29 PM.
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