Another low-key post for this week — I need to take it easy after my “Early Summer” article! But in all seriousness, I do realize that I've looked at a lot of intense stuff so far, so let’s calm down with a neat little Steve Smith moment off the Journey track “Separate Ways.” I wouldn’t say this is necessarily easy, but probably more… accessible to the average drummer.
I did this for fun a while back; “Separate Ways” has always been a favorite of my college marching band. I'm not exactly sure why, but you know how it goes — some things about school ensembles just can’t be explained. To be fair, we do have a pretty kickass arrangement, stolen from the University of Oregon’s band (we kick ours up a notch to 150 BPM):
The CU band did a full Journey show my Sophomore year, which we premiered almost exactly four years ago, on October 1st. Truth be told, I’ve never been huge on Journey — a friend of mine once described Journey as “cheese rock.” I can’t say I disagree… still, I like Steve Smith as a drummer and an educator. He’s got some cool moves on the drum solo for this track, so I took a quick look at it. Enjoy it while I reminisce about the fleeting moment when CU football was good. Also, remember when you could go to college football games?
Well, apparently the PAC-12 will be starting football in November, but I can't say that’s a smart move, considering my alma mater has become a national disaster site… and I’m not talking about the football team this time!
