altar song jim gordon...

Word has just come out that Jim Gordon passed away on the 13th. Hal never gave up on him and corresponded with him until one day Jim ended the correspondence. I believe he wanted Hal to remember only the good times. Jim is finally at peace now 

One of the things I notice is that as much as I’ve tried to pass on what Hal has said as advice to people to be better drummers people think listening to him play on his hit records is enough. They don’t seem to realize that although Hal had natural talent, what made him so good were factors he worked hard to achieve. Now I will say he definitely had above average intelligence. That’s evident in how he spoke and wrote. And also when he was explaining something you could see how everything he did was very thought out and methodical. Hal expressed to people how important is was to read music. He would even get people at his clinics tell him “I don’t want to read music because it would hurt my soul”. Maybe if you can’t read music you can get work and even do recordings but you’re never going to have additional opportunities like he did in arranging and conducting. And you certainly wouldn’t be able to play a complex piece of music like for someone like Lalo Schiffrin. It’s impossible to memorize something like that.

Hal called himself a musical drummer. Because Hal had a broader interest in what he could do with his drums musically, that’s how he came up with the idea to create his Monster Set. He said he designed them after Boobams. He said he wanted an octave of drums to play riffs like a guitar. He paid extreme attention to his drums and how they sounded. He wanted all sympathetic vibrations and overtones eliminated and he modified them to achieve that. He had custom muffling in for instance his bass drum made out of a thick piece of foam. He used Rubbermaid stick on bathroom tiles. He did things to the springs and screws etc. And on and on. That’s what gave him his “sound” that is unique on his recordings.

Hal was very careful about the ergonomics of his drums. He said he learned in school that everything was to be within reach. Otherwise you’ll end up with physical problems and arthritis. I could go on and on about what he thought about people back there smashing and crashing on their drums too. The point is, and even he would have told you this, is that he worked very hard to become an incredible drummer. Yes he had natural talent and no doubt genius level intelligence. But the rest of it came from studying, lifelong learning and observing. And finding things he could do to his drums to make them stand out. He used his mind and he also found ways to work smarter, not harder and that’s a whole different chapter I could write here