That’s right! Drumtech was treated to a great master class with the country’s highest
paid session player. Ralph has worked with so many people and on so many projects
ranging from theatre to the BBC. At present Ralph is mostly in the studio, he has
been involved on soundtrack recordings that include Madonna's 'Evita', “Harry
Potter”, Tom Jones 'Reload', his live performances with Van Morrison and the
acclaimed Robbie Williams 'Swing When You're Winning' DVD at the Royal Albert Hall.

Now with all that under his belt you can imagine the excitement towards the master class. To kick things off in style Ralph began playing along to a track that switched between a lovely samba groove into a more “Big Band” feel featuring a lot of tightness with stabs from the horn section, it was very catchy and had everyone tapping along! After the great response Ralph began to talk, sharing the secrets of his success and gave nothing but sound advice about getting into the industry and what skills are needed from all us drummers. His main message of the evening was “not to panic”. At present people easily think you need to have all the chops and be at a level such as “Vinnie Colaiuta”, and as Ralph put it himself “Vinnie isn’t Human!” To be successful it’s quite the opposite most of which is just the simplest of things such as being on time and having the correct equipment.

Of course playing ability comes into it key things are consistency making sure your playing is consistent, Time playing (Click Track) – obvious but often over looked and nobody wants a drummer that can’t keep time! “Sight Reading” there are drummers who don’t but it’s very valuable and will get you more work, And “Feeling” the one thing that separates us from a drum machine and has made so many records Famous! Ralph also went through structuring a song such as dynamic awareness and getting everyone to think about the actual song and where to put fills so the listener can hear the piece has gone to a new section. This can range from just a cymbal to usage of toms etc.

After playing through more songs Ralph then demonstrated his mastery of the metronome! Starting off very basic with just a groove and the click at a nice decent volume, gradually he would signal to Drumtech’s very own “Ronan Crahe“ to turn down the metronome. Five of these signals later you can only hear Ralph and no click! Then as the metronome was brought back up in volume Ralph the legend was still bang in time! Making it look easy as
he lectured at the same time!

Having Ralph visit the school is a real treat, not only is he a top session player he is a top
man that knows his craft intimately. Cheers Ralph!