On induction day, the students of the One Year Diploma in Drums were graced with the
presence of an industry legend. Woody Woodmansey came to Drumtech to give all the
newcomers a truly inspirational Master class.

Woody is a guy who has done it all in the business, having got his big break as the drummer for the one and only David Bowie in the 70’s. Since then, Woody has also played with other legends such as Paul McCartney, Lou Reed and Edgar Winter, so naturally to have him at Drumtech was always going to be a unique experience.

Woody started the Master class by telling students about his background. Influenced by
Mitch Mitchell, Ginger Baker, Keith Moon, and John Bonham among many others, he
started drumming at the age of 15, although he has been told he started at the age of 4. His
neighbours always complained about the noise he made on the drums, even though he
actually didn’t have any. So his uncle bought him a snare drum and said “Go for it kid!”, and
he did, to great success. It wasn’t until he was 15 that he was inspired to start drumming
again after pestering a local early R&B band to let him in to see one song. This one song
changed his life and from that moment on, combined with his first gig where his band were
the only guys in a room of 3,000 girls, he knew exactly where his future lied.

He filled students in about life on the road with David Bowie, as well as the 7 albums he
recorded with him, declaring Ziggy Stardust the proudest moment of his highly impressive
career. He then proceeded to talk about his approach to practicing with rudiments on the
drum kit, his approach to purchasing sticks, and setting up the drum kit so you can hit it
without much effort.

As well as talking about the importance of tuning your drum set accurately, Woody talked
about delivering an emotional impact through song. An example he gave us was from the
song “Five Years”, the opening song to the Album “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and
the Spiders from Mars“. The song is about the end of the world, and Woody explained to
students how he wanted to express this sort of feel to the song, which is why he selected the drum beat he uses in this song, to express the end of the world through playing.

After 45 minutes of inspiration words given to the students, Woody gave us his all by
demonstrating some grooves and showing us some of his chops for 15 minutes on the drum set, which left the whole room amazed. After telling some more hilarious jokes and answering questions asked to him by Drumtech students, Woody ended the master class to a deafening applause. A truly inspirational master class by one of the industry greats.