How good a musician wa Nick Mason??

[mosespa]

That was my point, Peart would be lost at sea!

I disagree. I think he would be BORED out of his mind...but I also think that he would be able to embellish the fills in a way that only he could.

Here's the thing about Pink Floyd. Gilmour and Wright were the musicians in the band. They were the ones who actually wanted to create music for it's own sake. Waters wanted to create music, but I think more for the agenda of the "rock star life." I also think this is why seeing what that life really entailed is why he got disillusioned and ended up writing his greatest stuff.

Mason was already independently wealthy...he didn't need Pink Floyd to make him rich. He was kind of already there. Music was important to him to a degree...enough to learn how to play drums, obviously...and at the beginning, he was rather interesting.

I think of Mason as a competent drummer. He's not terribly technical...but neither was the music that he kept the beat for, really. They weren't playing Yesmusic.

Mason's true strength as a drummer, imo, is that his fills are melodic. Those fills become just as important to the song as the vocal melody, imo. Mason has a way of punctuating certain lyrics with tom fills that add to it. You don't see that in a lot of drummers.

Mason, like Gilmour, is a tasteful player. So was Wright, so is Waters. We were lucky to get that all in the same band.

[snifferdog]

I don't think anyone would claim that Nick's the best drummer in the world. He did a good job in Pink Floyd and his drumming worked. I think it's an awful shame that in later years the Floyd toured with a second drummer. It's a far cry from the man who gave it socks on the Live at Pompeii film

[nosaj]

Echoes with Neil Peart on drums anyone?

Its called Xanadu!

Anyway, I find that Nick does alright with the cymbals in a laid-back jazzy sort of way.

[apocalypse]

Echoes with Neil Peart on drums anyone?

Its called Xanadu!

Anyway, I find that Nick does alright with the cymbals in a laid-back jazzy sort of way.

Indeed his extensive use of the ride cymbal makes me think of bebop playing

[alframsey]

I don't think anyone would claim that Nick's the best drummer in the world. He did a good job in Pink Floyd and his drumming worked. I think it's an awful shame that in later years the Floyd toured with a second drummer. It's a far cry from the man who gave it socks on the Live at Pompeii film

Yeh i could never quite understand why they did that? It seemed to me like they were saying "Well we don't think you are quite good enough to play alone, so we'll get someone else in" after he gave most of his life doin a very good job drumming for the band. Or was it just that the music they were playing demanded the need for two drummers, no matter who they were?

[Yucateco]

I don't think anyone would claim that Nick's the best drummer in the world. He did a good job in Pink Floyd and his drumming worked. I think it's an awful shame that in later years the Floyd toured with a second drummer. It's a far cry from the man who gave it socks on the Live at Pompeii film

Yeh i could never quite understand why they did that? It seemed to me like they were saying "Well we don't think you are quite good enough to play alone, so we'll get someone else in" after he gave most of his life doin a very good job drumming for the band. Or was it just that the music they were playing demanded the need for two drummers, no matter who they were?

i think Nick Mason himself said that during the time of AMLOR he was completely out of training and not sure if he could handle the tour alone. And they already had a second drummer during The Wall anyway.

[alframsey]

.

[alframsey]

i think Nick Mason himself said that during the time of AMLOR he was completely out of training and not sure if he could handle the tour alone. And they already had a second drummer during The Wall anyway.

Oh, ok. That explains it then, also i think i heard somewhere he was suffering from a lack of confidence after it was eaten away by Waters. Anyone else hear that?

[mosespa]

i think Nick Mason himself said that during the time of AMLOR he was completely out of training and not sure if he could handle the tour alone. And they already had a second drummer during The Wall anyway.

Oh, ok. That explains it then, also i think i heard somewhere he was suffering from a lack of confidence after it was eaten away by Waters. Anyone else hear that?

From what I've gathered, it was partially because of Nick's low confidence level at the time but also because they were starting to incorporate other kinds of percussion into the music and needed someone else to recreate the stuff live.

For those who are wondering why they would suddenly decide to make auxilliary percussion so important to the sound as to require a second drummer, keep in mind that at the time of AMLOR, Gilmour had been playing with Townshend, who had a percussionist in the band as well as a drummer, and Gilmour probably liked how that broadened the sound.

Nick Mason may not be the greatest drummer in the world, but as has been stated before, he IS the perfect drummer for Pink Floyd.

[danielcaux]

I don't think of Mason as a musician, for me he is just a drummer, a decent one. Does that make sense to you?

I mean, I don't see music coming out of Mason's soul, as a way of creatively expressing his inner being, emotions, thoughts, etc. I have the feeling that drumming was for him kinda like a hobby, some way of hanging out with a group of friends, and he unexpectately ended up being part of one of the most influential rock bands of the world, but at the bottom of his heart he was/is really a motorhead car driver and graphic designer. (That's kind of the same case, to a lesser degree, with Waters, especially latter days Waters. He was more the philosopher type than the musician type. But then again, it baffles the mind that he wrote the whole bulk of "Ça Ira" )

Can you imagine Mason playing/rehearsing/composing music when he is alone at home?

That said, I think his drumming was quite tasteful and enjoyable when the focus of the band was on space/psychedelic jams rather than midtempo epistles set to music.

[alframsey]

(That's kind of the same case, to a lesser degree, with Waters, especially latter days Waters. He was more the philosopher type than the musician type. But then again, it baffles the mind that he wrote the whole bulk of "Ça Ira" )

Can you imagine Mason playing/rehearsing/composing music when he is alone at home?

That said, I think his drumming was quite tasteful and enjoyable when the focus of the band was on space/psychedelic jams rather than midtempo epistles set to music.

Yeh, i agree that his playing is verytasteful. and im equally shocked at the fact that Roger wrote Ca Ira all by himself, well most of it!

[moom]

I was wondering what the rest of you think on the matter, how good a drummer was Nick? His drum parts dont sound that technical.

What do the rest of you think?

I always thought the same about David as well. But their point is, everything genius is simple.

[Peter Beasley]

The fact that other drummers had to be called in to play ‘Mother’, ‘Two Suns in the Sunset’, much of ‘AMLOR’, plus Nick’s difficulty in getting his drumming together for the WYWH recording sessions and Roger’s quote that it was essential Willie Wilson played on The Wall shows because Nick was incapable of keeping time, says a lot.

But I still love Nick as a drummer. He was a great influence on me as a young teenager learning to play, because his uncluttered style was easy to copy and his drums sounded so good.

But how often has he warranted two bass drums?

[PublicImage]

He's about as good as Billy Cobham, and slightly better than Tony Williams.

[my breakfast.]

He's about as good as Billy Cobham, and slightly better than Tony Williams.

But Cobham played on crack, so he was about 200000 beats per minute.