Music
Bruford chose to play drums because after watching American jazz drummers of the 1960s on BBC TV. His sister then gave him a pair of brushes as a present. He later took a few lessons - while still attending Public School - from Lou Pocock of the Royal Philharmonic.
He said that he never acquired drum technique for the sake of acquiring it, but as a solution to a particular problem, and if he heard something that he couldn't do, he would learn how to do it. Bruford applied this way of learning to other instruments as well, although acknowledging that he has the 'classic amateur's technique'; meaning that he knows some very difficult bits and that he has some large gaping holes in his knowledge, but his amateurism can sometimes be helpful in forging a style, because he has to work around his weaknesses.
Bruford's pre-Yes bands included The Breed (1966–67), a Sevenoaks-based r'n'b/soul band which included future Flash bassist Ray Bennett, future Canned Rock singer/guitarist Doug Kennard and guitarist Stu Murray (since Bruford was at boarding school and not available for all gigs, the band occasionally used another drummer, Pete Skinner, and sometimes both), a short-lived band named The Noise (1967) with whom he gigged in Italy, and Savoy Brown (1968), his first professional engagement - which lasted all of three gigs.
Read more about this topic: Bill Bruford
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.”
—Joseph Addison (16721719)
“The dignity of art probably appears most eminently with music since it does not have any material that needs to be discounted. Music is all form and content and elevates and ennobles everything that it expresses.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (17491832)
“People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed aroundthe music and the ideas.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)