Sina (ft. Deep Purple) – "Highway Star" (2019)

Nobody going to beat my car

It’s going to break the speed of sound

In the previous 2 or 3 lines, I introduced you to Sina, the young German drummer who has posted dozens of drum covers of classic-rock songs on her YouTube channel.  (You can click here to read that post.)

Sina’s videos have been viewed by millions of people from all over the world.  In fact, the video of her drum cover of the Dire Straits classic, “Sultans of Swing,” has been viewed almost 40 million times.

Sina

Without further ado, here’s part two of my conversation with Sina.

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2 or 3 lines: I recently heard an interviewer ask Metallica’s drummer, Lars Ulrich, which classic rock drummers were his favorite.  He picked John Bonham of Led Zeppelin, Ian Paice of Deep Purple, Neal Peart of Rush, and Phil Rudd of AC/DC.  You've covered songs by all of those groups – do you agree with Ulrich’s choices? Or would you substitute Keith Moon of the Who, or Ginger Baker of Cream, or someone else?

Sina: I can not really answer this question.  I never really had a list of my five favorite drummers.  It kind of exists in my head, but the names change almost every day.  Also I think it’s really unfair to rate  drummers that way.  Each and every drummer of a famous band was the perfect choice for that band, otherwise the band would not have become famous.  Take Ringo – he might not be the most amazing drummer on the planet but I seriously doubt the Beatles could have found a better drummer for the job.  The Beatles wouldn't have worked with Keith Moon, and the Who would not have worked with Ringo.

2 or 3 lines: I know you are a big fan of Jeff Porcaro, who is best known for his work with Toto, but who was also a legendary studio drummer who recorded with an incredibly diverse group of artists – including Steely Dan, Michael Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Jackson Browne, Don Henley, and Carly Simon, just to name a few.

Jeff Porcaro

Sina: If I had to name my favorite drummer, it would be Jeff Porcaro.  This is not only because of his work with Toto – although this was how I became aware of him – but also because he has proven that he can find the perfect drum part for every single song he has recorded in his career.  And that’s a lot of songs!

2 or 3 lines: I want to ask you about Keith Moon, who is my personal favorite of all the great drummers of his era.  One rock critic has written that Moon is “soloing all the time” when he plays.  We usually don’t think of drummers as soloists – their primary job is to keep time for the rest of the group – but I would say that Moon is clearly functioning as the lead musician on “I Can See for Miles,” which is just an amazing record.  Tell me what you think about Keith Moon.

Sina: Keith Moon was an amazing drummer and he was perfect for playing in the Who, but his style of playing would not have worked in all bands.  I also really like listening to him and I really enjoy covering Who songs.  I admire Keith's way of thinking in melodies instead of only focussing on the rhythm.  He also was able to completely lose himself in the music, which helped him to not only find the perfect ideas for a song but also play with this incredible energy everyone can see when watching and hearing him play.

2 or 3 lines: Have you covered “I Can See for Miles”? If not, why not?

Sina: I don't know why I haven’t covered that one yet.  Of course, I can not do every song at the same time!  I guess “I Can See For Miles” was never my favorite Who song.  It’s also not the most popular one on YouTube, so the opportunity has not presented itself yet.

 

Ginger Baker

2 or 3 lines:  One thing I noticed about Ginger Baker of Cream is that he seemed to use his toms a lot.    For example, in “Sunshine of Your Love,” he went 40 seconds using just his toms and bass drum – he never hit a cymbal during that entire time.  

Sina: There are a lot of things that set Ginger apart from other classic rock drummers.  I am no expert on the subject, but I think he wanted to find new ways to accompany a song.  You can hear a lot of very innovative ideas when listening to him play.  His playing also always seems perfect for the particular song he is playing at that moment.

2 or 3 lines: One of my favorites of your videos is your cover of Deep Purple's “Highway Star.”  You seem to be turned a little to the left when you are playing that song, and there are times when you are playing so fast that you sort of have to reach behind yourself and hit the right-hand cymbal without looking at it.  

Sina: Hmmm, I don't really know why I did that to be honest.  I know where my cymbals are, so I do not have to look anymore.  I guess because of the tempo of that song I did not want to turn my head all the time.  It would look like I was watching a tennis match!

2 or 3 lines: How long did you have to practice before you were ready to record “Highway Star”?

Sina: I did not have to put a lot of time into this.  I had already played this song with a band before, so I knew the basic structure.  I tried to copy the basic feel and groove of the original recording but I did not play every fill exactly like it is on the record – I just played what came to my mind.

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“Highway Star” is a mind-blowing recording.  It’s six minutes long and played at breakneck speed – listening to it is exhausting, and I can only imagine how challenging it was for each and every member of Deep Purple to get through it – including Ian Paice, one of the best rock drummers ever.

That makes Sina’s drum cover of “Highway Star” all the more remarkable.  She’s a petite young woman, but her drumming on ‘Highway Star” is VERY physical – it’s almost shocking how powerful her performance is.

The video utilizes split screens as it progresses.  We go from one view of Sina, to two views, then three – at the four-minute mark, there are five different views of her drumming.  

That may sound like overkill but it’s not.  The standard head-on camera angle is good, but the overhead view and the stage-right view reveal additional aspects of her drumming.

A split-screen view of Sina

I found the views of her feet particularly interesting because you never see what a drummer’s feet are doing when he or she performs.  

I was a pretty good pianist back in the day, and I could handle playing the foot pedals of a church-type organ while my hands were occupied playing the keyboards as long as the pedal part was simple.  

But I find it mind-boggling to watch Sina’s Chuck Taylor low top-clad feet as she plays – they are working quite independently of each other, and also quite independently of her hands, and I’m not sure it my brain would ever be able to handle that.  

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There’s not much for Sina to do during the first 35 seconds of “Highway Star,” but then all hell breaks loose.  

I love the sequence that begins just before the one-minute mark, which is where the first verse ends and the chorus begins.  Sina mixes supersonic drum fills (usually with her eyes closed) with attacks on her cymbals that seem to come out of nowhere – watch closely at 1:08, when she is turned slightly to the left concentrate on her snare, hi-hat, and left-side cymbal, but somehow manages to reach almost behind her body to nail her right-side cymbal three times.

But enough of my yakety-yak.  Better that I just shut up and let you watch Sina’s “Highway Star” drum cover for yourself.   

Click here to watch Sina covering “Highway Star.”  (That video has had over five million viewers, and it deserves to have five billion more.)

Sina (and friends) – "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" (2017)

In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby

Don’t you know that I’ll always be true?

I was doing research for a 2 or 3 lines post about “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” earlier this year when I stumbled across a YouTube cover of that song featuring a young German drummer named Sina.

Sina

We’re talking the l-o-n-g version of the Iron Butterfly classic, boys and girls – the version that lasted over 17 minutes, and occupied the entire second side of the group’s eponymous 1968 LP.

Most of the video is split screen, with individual windows not only for Sina, but also the singer and the lead guitar, bass, and keyboard players who performed with her.

Click here to watch Sina and her friends cover “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.”

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Sina is 21 now.  She was several years younger when she recorded the “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” drum cover I watched on YouTube – and she looked even younger than she actually was.  

You rarely have a chance to focus on a rock drummer’s playing all the way from the start of a song to its finish – movies or videos of live performances usually show only brief snippets of the drummer.  

But Sina’s many YouTube videos usually capture every drum hit and cymbal strike.  In fact, some of them show views of her from two or three different cameras simultaneously, so you don’t miss a thing.

The drum parts in many of the classic rock songs she covers are incredibly complex, and often include rapid-fire sequences that I can barely follow.  (Her feet are often working quite independently of her hands.)  I find watching her videos to be absolutely mesmerizing. 

Maybe that’s because I always wanted to be a drummer.  Most rock music fans I know are wont to start playing air guitar after a few drinks at a party, but I’m an air drummer.

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After watching “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” and a dozen or so of Sina’s other drum covers, I e-mailed her and asked if I could interview her.  Fortunately for me and for you, she agreed to answer my questions.

Here’s part one of my conversation with Sina:

2 or 3 lines:  Sina, about how many classic rock covers have you recorded for YouTube?

Sina: I’m clueless! It depends if you also count the ones that are blocked or songs that we recorded from scratch or songs that launched on collaborator's channels. I would estimate about 150?

2 or 3 lines: Which one has been viewed the most?

Sina:  The cover of “Sultans of Swing,” by Dire Straits. That video has 38 million views as of today.

2 or 3 lines: I discovered your videos while doing research on "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" – I came across the YouTube video of you and some of your friends doing a cover of the album version of that song. Why did you choose to cover "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"?

Sina: I chose to cover this song because it was requested a lot. Of course I get a lot of requests for all kinds of songs every day, but this one I could not ignore!  To be honest, I did not know this song before reading about it in the comments to my other videos.  Of course, the epic drum solo almost begs for a cover.  I looked up the song on YouTube and found several covers of this solo, but no video was really accurate, so I decided to learn the whole 17-minutes-plus song, and learn every note of the drum solo.

2 or 3 lines: Did “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" require a lot of takes to get right?

Sina: I put a lot of time into learning this song, a lot more than I usually do.  I transcribed the whole solo and learned it by heart.  The groove part of the song was not so hard for me to do, so at the actual recording session it did not require a lot of takes.

2 or 3 lines: Do you attempt to play your covers exactly like the original drummer? Is it even possible to tell from listening to a record exactly what the drummer is doing?

Sina: That really depends. I try to sometimes do very exact covers and sometimes do more of a “freestyle” thing.  It also sometimes depends on how much time I have to learn a song and whether or not I know it very well.  It is almost always possible to tell exactly what a drummer is doing just by listening to the original recording.  Of course you can not hear things like what hand does he use to hit the cymbal.  But usually you can hear and distinguish the sounds pretty well and then imitate it easily.  Of course, if there’s a video, that’s a great help. :-)

2 or 3 lines: I understand that you departed from the recorded drum track on your “Sultans of Swing” cover.

Sina:  I grew up in a time when there were still CD players in the car.  My dad had a mix CD of his favorite songs that he played in his car all the time – including a live version of “Sultans Of Swing,” which was the only version of the song I ever knew.  When I wanted to make a drum cover of the song, I tried to learn the studio version, but found that difficult because I was so familiar with the live version on my dad’s CD.  So we found a drumless track of the studio version and I added the drums from the live version, which are much more energetic than the drums on the studio recording.  I assume that’s why it has become so popular on YouTube.

2 or 3 lines: How do you actually learn the drum part to a particular song? For other instruments, you can write the musical notes down and you know exactly what to play – you look at the music while you are practicing it. Is there a way to do that with a drum part? Or is it more just a matter of memorizing it while listening to the recording over and over?

Sina: Of course you can write down notes for drums as you would do with a piano or violin piece.  Personally, I prefer learning a song by listening to it.  If it is a difficult song it helps to watch a video of the original drummer playing it, or if there’s no video, you can slow the song down digitally to be able to hear details. 

2 or 3 lines: Tell us a little about how you actually record a cover. Are you usually able to get a version of the original recording with the drums silenced?

Sina: There are many drumless tracks to be found in the internet.  Just do a search on YouTube for “drumless tracks” and you find a lot.  If there is no drumless track available, we use the original recording and try to remove most of the original drums through filters.  This is not 100% reliable – sometimes you can still hear part of the original drum part.  So I have to be really exact with my drumming in order to cover all those random hits from the original recording.  Otherwise you would hear drums that I didn’t play.

2 or 3 lines: Are you left-handed or right-handed? I was a left-handed pianist, and most piano pieces have much more difficult right-handed parts. Do drummers use both hands equally, or are there certain things you tend to do with your dominant hand?

Sina: I am right-handed. I play like most right-handed drummers do, with the dominant hand on the hi-hat.  This makes sense because in a basic groove the hi-hat usually plays eighth notes while the snare does a backbeat on the second and fourth beats.

2 or 3 lines: Is there anything unusual about your drum kit, or how you position your drums and cymbals? Anything unusual about your playing style – for example, the way you hold your sticks?

Sina: No, not really.  I am currently trying to learn how to play with the traditional grip though.  That’s a pretty unusual technique for rock drummers, but there are exceptions – for example, Stewart Copeland of Police plays with the traditional grip.

(If you want to see what a traditional grip looks like, click here to see Sina’s brand-new cover of a live Elvis Presley performance of “Polk Salad Annie.”  Focus on the way Sina’s left hand holds the drumstick as she plays – that’s what drummers call a traditional grip.)

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The next 2 or 3 lines will feature part two of my interview of Sina.  We’ll find out which classic-rock drummers are Sina’s favorites – and you’ll find out which of Sina’s classic-rock drum covers is my favorite.

While you’re waiting for that post to become available, why don’t you click here and join Sina’s YouTube channel?  You’ll have access not only to dozens of drum cover videos, but also to many videos featuring original music.

Or you can click here and become a patron of Sina on Patreon.