+Blake Wilson Well said it's all about the nuance rather than the "force" of the fill. The force of the fill is made to have a musically only with the nuance of the ghost notes !
on my channel i did these "snaredrum rolls" or " buzz strokes" on the ipad with an expensive ipad pencil. I do not recommend it, but it does work haha.
Joel McIntosh - Do it Joel! If you already know how then come back to those mesmerizing vibrations and resounding seductions of that passion you poured into each piece. (I had a dear friend who played the Drums like it was Sex! Phenomenal performances!) Without the drums all songs are unfinished (but for a few) and naked. Drummers complete them and "Define" each song through their instruments. It's not a backup - its the accompanied soul and life you give to the music. There are not enough Drummers in the World out there Joel! Get back in to them again. We crave it!! I was a dancer for eleven years and my expressions for music came through every beat on the drums. It stylized my routines and defined my choreographed Set's. Thanks for your contributions to a much ignored and often forgotten symbol of the most universal means of communication we share as a Race. M U S I C - & then Food!
All these comments about it not being right yadda yadda don't realize that Phil Never played it the same way everytime on stage. I personally think this version sounds superb.
Except of course that Phil was notorious for drilling perfection into his stage musicians, and himself for regularity, and hasn't even ever changed the drum duet he used to play with chester.
Damn!! Finally someone who knows how to play this piece!! You nailed it man....both the "famous fill" and the rest of the song. Glad to see you end the "fill" with a triplet....tom-bass-tom. That's how the studio version is played...though live Phil sometimes ended it with 2 tom strikes with no bass strike in between. Another way to really hear this fill is to listen to "Thru These Walls" from his 2nd album. It uses the same fill but slowed down a bit. With the gated-reverb and slower speed you can really hear every strike.
onlinedrummer You're welcome. Phil does the actual roll differently, but the net result is the same and that's really all that matters. There's a video named " Phil Collins - Face Value - In the Air Tonight" here on YT. It's part of a longer doc that was shot back in 2000 for the 20th anniversary of "Face Value". In it Phil talks about "In The Air Tonight" and actually plays the famous fill. Cool to watch.
This is an awesome tutorial - I appreciate your attention to detail and the extent that you break the various parts down making them easy to understand. Thanks!
I'm a 40 year old woman that been playing drums since in high school and in church ... I never played that song right even tho it sound right but u broke it down even better ... learning all over again Thank you
Your are excellent you would be surprised how drummers can read sheet music it's very refreshing the way you instructed this lessen excellent job bud. I know how to read and write music I've been playing guitar for most my life but know at 58 years old my hands are cramping up so just switched to the drums I've been playing for 9mos and enjoy the he'll out of it, which I had started with the drums when I was younger
The drum fill sounds great the way you played it and I think it's the best way to play it with four toms. Phil does it differently (hitting two toms at the same time) but it would sound rather repetitive with less than six toms. Nice work!
Awesome Nate! You're really channeling Phil's energy, feel, and you adapted his unique sound to your kit so well here. Just curious why you bring your hands/sticks together in between the snare hits in the opening performance? Appreciate all you do for the drumming community. Thanks brother!
Hi Nate, excellent lesson here! Points to note here from me are that Collins used his 6 concert toms of 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, 18, "flamming" each one around the kit with the obligatory bass completing 4 triplets before ending on the two floor toms to finish. Great story about how they discovered gated reverb too! Found your groove for the CR-78 works better than anything I've ever done-keep em comin'!
another awesome lesson, i never bothered to learn this song but now ill suggest it while jammin with my buds. Where do you get this trivia youre talking about
Wow. Awesome insight! It's definitely my favourite song of the 80s... it brings up all the Miami Vice memories again and again... whenever I hear it, I feel kinda mesmerised, and, like the most of all, anticipate the drums' entry most after the very long first 3.5 minutes or so. :) I'm not a drummer but always wanted to know how and what Phil is playing there, because as much as I love it, it's one of the few drums that definitly manage to get me out of step everytime when I try to follow it... It's great and entertaining to watch you explaining the set and how those drums everybody is always waiting for _'In The Air Tonight'_ (no pun intended) have to be performed correctly (and even adding your own ideas) and thus listening to it over and over... it really rocks. And awes. Subscribed. Oh, and not to forget, this drum set sounds awesome... it immediately conjured a big grin on my face after the first seconds of the video with this drums explosion, it's almost better than the original and definitely better than his son's version on the U.S. Open in 2016.
That’s a great lesson on an iconic sound! Phil is very creative for sure! Will you do Phil’s “I Cannot Believe It’s True”? Your camera placement is very helpful. Thanks. God Bless!
I would like to say I love your Website for the free music and your RU-vid Channel for informative videos. I would like to just make a small comment though: The Big opening Fill you did was actually wrong. The Fill does flams around the toms, not singles like the way you did them. I'm a big Phil Fill Fan, and I am a Drum Instructor and I just like to make things as accurate as possible. Thanks very much for what you do. You are awesome Keep Rockin' JOEDRUMS2112
+onlinedrummer I just got my set in august and am subscribed but always see other videos before i get to yours. Memory fails me for names sometimes but you are the best teacher i find online so far. just get to the business end of it and not all that yammer like on the nice blonde fellas channel. Sheet music?? i think i need a new printer and just be into this like i know i should be as a school taught trumpet/bartione player. this way i would at least know ahead of time when i was gonna need to make the changes . thanks for sharing of your time and knowledge . the one guy complaining about your pitches doesnt understand that you dont have the set that phil collins used in the studio. I want to be able to make what i have (two rides and a floor) work. that is the objective i think. there is a guy that does "Inside out" on a 3 piece and he MAKES it work WELL. again, Thank you, Kip
The iconic accent is a very processed sound. Gated echo would be MY way to put it. The hits are ALL ghost notes until he closes the phrase with 4 single notes. To get a REAL look at what he does.. There is a video (sorry do not know the name) , where Phil is plaintively singing to a mood feel .. There is VERY slight electronic percussion. This is Phil at the edge of the stage.... On the way to the "HOLLY SHIT WHAT IS THAT" moment he slowly climbs a semicircular stair lands his ass on the throne and nails the intro. There you can clearly see (from an over head camera) he enhance the notes with a echoing ghost (this has to be ALL post production) but he never plays two separate notes until he closes the figure.
I have TRIED to find the video here (before I wrote the post). There are about 4 of them but the one I am mentioning , the camera is right over him. I will keep looking. BTW . We "could" say "well it is a processed trigger (or even a prerecorded) piece so THAT is the awesomeness of it.... " BUT "nope" IT IS Phil's technique. Phil's son is playing drums on this last small tour and the boy sounds like crap. That flam is SO precise (when done by Phil) I thought it was all processing (not difficult with the right gear) but if the son can not do it , then it was Phil's sticking . The ghost note is so precise that it actually sounds like a sustain on a keyboard, and gated echo on the fade out . I will keep looking . You may want to search "In the air tonight" but there are like 20 versions in RU-vid. Blessings 2u2
KILLER - on ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Py0Qk64Xv3I.html there are no effects ( and as I suspected I read an article and the whole song was "gated echo" including voice) On this video you send me he is tighter on his flams . they do sound like one note with a slight echo BUT and echo is part of the decay. In the song the ghost has the same gain so it can NOT be echo. The man is a genius at effects & sometimes the effects are more awesome than the raw sticking. I saw a video yesterday of The Beatles "Tomorrow never knows" recording . I have heard that song a zillion times THEN I hear how it was recorded and it is inconceivable what went into that ONE song. Paul collected about ONE year of loops played backwards then mixed all the loops changing the tempo but maintaining the pitch. SIX people wrapped chucks of tape around glass and the tape was fed to one master of just noise and backward noise. George Martin blurred Lennon's voice with the mess that had come out. NOW .... they go to Ringo "So what ya got Ritchie" Ringo nods and says "Well the same thing I did in "What you doing" just compress it. And VOILA the first psychedelic song in history . About two years work. Geniuses man just BLESSED! Thanks for the video link . Blessings
mickavellian watch Phil’s 15 year old son (at time of US Open he was 15 now he is 16!) play the iconic drum fill of In The Air Tonight at the 2016 US Open from above: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--wWSKkFrjds.html Compare to the way the master drummer Phil plays it! It still sounds good though the way Nic plays it and it must be okay with Phil! God Bless!
Here is Phil playing the iconic fill from Classic Albums Face Value: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ku_wjHRNW9A.html Here’s Phil playing the fill on FFFT October 18, 2005 in St. Petersburg, Russia: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-IETKeCEYncI.html
I would love if you could play that drum fill Chester Thompson does on More trouble everyday track when he played for Frank Zappa. He did it with Phil Collins also when the played together on the Genesis song Afterglow. I'm trying to learn it on drums, but there isn't any videos showing how it goes.
when the drum solo comes this is what i do. High High Low Low Floor Floor Bass Bass Bass+Floor Bass+Floor. Hope i helped plus every drumset is different so experiment a little. Figure it out yourself, its part of being a drummer
If you watch Phil himself play this fill and if you really listen to the pitches of the drums it ends up not being the fill you are showing sorry to say. The actual fill goes large tom small to bass drum then s.t. l.t b.d then floor tom one, large tom b.d then l.t. f.t1 b.d then floor tom 2 , floor tom 1 floor tom 2 b.d. Anyone who doubts this I can show proof. Just think Ia classic fill like this should be taught correctly.
he did not play like that at all but with fla so next !! big drummers fans are there :) do you really know that Phil says to himself one and two and three and four ? lol the man does not know the notes, neither writing classic notes, he is a great drummer without all this boring and wrong lessons. first you need 6 concert toms so not possible here lol
