The word Pompatus, is a neologism used in the lyrics of Rock and Roll Hall Of Famer Steve Miller and conceived in 1973 for the album and song, ‘The Joker’... Pompatus has since secured a place in 20th Century folklore and popular culture.
Gordy Knudtson is a drumming enigma: professor, inventor, educator, philosopher, and theoretician are a just a few of the titles Gordy has achieved in a lifetime of music. His legendary Open/Close technique has subsequently taken the drumming world by storm.
Last year, I wrote Gordy Knudtson: The Visionary. Afterwards, I believed that my follow-up article would be somewhat easy since I had already done most of my research. However, nothing prepared me for what came next. While delving deeper into Gordy’s history, an entirely new picture began to develop...
That mindset didn’t happen by accident... When Gordy started playing the drums at age fifteen he immersed himself in the instrument practicing numerous hours every day. Two years later in his hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota he did his first professional gig. From then on, the telephone never stopped ringing. From 1975 to 1981, Gordy played with Minneapolis based bands Passage, The Doug Maynard Band, and The Lamont Cranston Band. Coupled with lots of studio work...He was busier than ever. In 1982, Gordy joined jazz pianist Ben Sidran’s group playing gigs with him through the early 1990’s. He also appears on the Sidran albums – ‘On The Live Side, ‘Too Hot to Touch’ and ‘Cool Paradise’.
Here are a few tunes from these records posted at Gordy’s YouTube channel.
The Ben Sidran group recorded Steve’s “Born 2B Blue” in 1987 with Ben producing. Steve then used Ben’s band to tour from 1988 to 1991. Gordy continued to play occasional Sidran gigs and projects when ‘The Steve Miller Band’ wasn’t on tour.
“ Back in the day - in Minneapolis in the ‘80s - they called Gordy “the sergeant” because his time was so good and he insisted everybody knew what was going down and stuck to it. He led from behind, as they say. His playing was simple and direct and belied the fact that he was a master technician and could cover absolutely any style. We made a half dozen recordings together and when I listen to them now they are as fresh and swinging as the day we made them. Gordy is the guy you want to have in the foxhole with you when the excrement is approaching the spinning blades.”
-- Ben Sidran
I had the opportunity once again to spend a couple of hours with Gordy before a recent show. He broke down the Open/Close technique showing how it has evolved over the years. In 2015, I began experiencing pain in my fingers from arthritis. My primary care doctor recommended a hand specialist who said “there wasn’t much that could be done, and that surgery could worsen the problem”. For me, it was going back to the very beginning when I first studied with Joe Sefcik (Joe Morello’s teacher). Morello was always sending Sefcik. the latest Billy Gladstone and George Stone based exercises being developed for his latest books. Sefcik also had us working on the Sanford Moeller, and Buddy Rich / Henry Adler techniques. In fact, Buddy Rich and Joe Morello used to share technique ideas whenever they got together.
“In 2002 Gordy created and published the first books and instructional videos on the Open/Close Technique. These materials introduced nomenclature, notation, and synchronizations, then showed how it could be used to create a family of single stroke rolls built from multi-note strokes which directly parallels double stroke rolls.”
Beginning at age fourteen I had begun studying all of these different methods. Joe Sefcik was always emphasizing the importance of new ideas and gave all of his students multiple directions to explore. This is similar in spirit to Gordy Knudtson’s Open/Close technique. He always presents unlimited possibilities to explore. I have found it virtually impossible to run out of different variations on the Open - Close exercises to work on.
When my arthritis kicked in, I decided to re-invent myself with the knowledge that these different methods initially taught me to play loose and relaxed. It was also around this time that I had discovered Gordy’s Open/Close technique online. Within weeks I was experiencing less pain, and the flexibility in my fingers returned. I began developing a hybrid of the five drum methods with an emphasis on Gordy’s techniques.
My biggest challenge was adapting Open/Close to traditional grip. It took lots of extra work to make it happen, but was well worth those many hours of practice... I’m now pain free and playing better than ever thanks to Gordy Knudtson.
Once again I would like to thank Gordy Knudtson, and The Steve Miller Band for backstage passes and great seats at Tanglewood and Foxwoods Resort Casino. During sound check I took a number of great photos. I then interviewed Gordy for the second time focusing on his revolutionary Open/Close technique. I was in ‘Drummer Heaven’ hangin' with Gordy Knudtson on 'The Steve Miller Band' tour bus...Talking non-stop drums for two hours. Watching him up close is a sight to behold. Gordy shares all of this extensive drumming knowledge with the world. His free instructional videos rule the Internet. Check them out, you’ll be amazed by what you see and hear.
-David Barsalou
Gordy demonstrating the open close technique.
ACCOLADES FROM GORDY’S PEERS
“I’m so glad you did this! Billy Gladstone was messing around with this when I was studying with him, but he never documented it. I think you took it further than he did!”
- Joe Morello
“You have developed an historically important form of technique that ranks with the Moeller system!”
- Ed Shaugnessy
The Steve Miller Band “The Heartbeat of the Band... On The Drums – Mr. Gordy Knudtson!”
-- Steve Miller
“When I first saw and heard Gordy at a sound check he was smoking a pipe and sitting up straight on his throne with proper posture. He looked professor-like and not rock n roll at all. Then I heard his toms. They sounded like cannons. He didn’t attack the kick like a jazzer either. He moved air. I thought, “Who is this guy and where in the hell did he come from?” I later found out he had been the drummer on Steve Miller’s final album for Capitol Records, Born to Be Blue. He was part of a rhythm section that Ben Sidran had put together for the making of the record that Ben was co-producing with The Space Cowboy, a song they had written together in college in the 60s. When I heard the show that night after being out of the band for five years, it was the drums that remained with me as I drove home that night. A year later I’d be back in the band on guitar, then bass for the last ten years.
Gordy is probably the finest drummer I’ve ever played with. I recorded and played live with Jeff Porcaro and Jim Keltner, but never Vinnie Colaiuta or Keith Carlock. But, I bet if I had played with either of those guys, I’d still pick Gordy all day long. His time is perfect but not too perfect like Ralph Humphrey, who I also had the pleasure of recording and playing with live. Gordy leans into the choruses, then pulls back again for the verses in a delightful passive aggressive variable. When he plays monster fills, he always attacks with power and anticipation, then slows down near the end to make the rhythmic dovetail neat and pretty. He also can play odd- time subdivisions almost equal to that of Humphrey (see I paid you back Ralph!) and still be playful with the jigsaw of time. He makes my job easier so I can ham it up on bass in performance and give the audience the thrill they are looking for. Gordy Knudtson can play a multitude of styles and genres, but he is definitely Rock n’ Roll!”
-- Kenny Lee Lewis / The Steve Miller Band
“I have played music with Gordy Knudtson since joining the Steve Miller Band in 1993. I’ve played with a lot of drummers and he is one of my favorites. Gordy has monster chops and innovative techniques on the drums - but that is not my favorite part of his playing. Gordy is very musical. His ears are his greatest assets, and his time is rock solid. He always knows what the vocalist is doing and he is aware of what every musician is playing also. Gordy never leads with his chops. He always does what is best for the song. He does a great job of “directing traffic” with his playing, letting us know where the bridge is or where the next verse starts, with a drum fill or an opening of the high hat. It also makes it easier that Gordy can speak to the language of the other instrumentalists, like “going to the 4 chord” and other vocabulary that often leaves the drummer out... Gordy’s musicianship makes him a great band mate. He never lets his chops cover up the music. When it comes time to show what he has, he has plenty of it! Mostly, he just makes the band better by his musicianship and awareness.”
-- Joseph Wooten
Keyboardist/Vocalist with the Steve Miller Band, and with the Wooten Brothers Band
"Gordy is a master of his instrument and his overall approach to performance spoke to me immediately after viewing his YouTube videos. Gordy’s open/close method is more than just a technique. It's a way of movement that informs the whole player. In less than 6
months it has revolutionized how I play and think about drumming.”
My instrumental background is a rather eclectic one stretching across classical studies, jazz, world, and electronic. Jamey Haddad, Tim Genis, and Nancy Zeltzman were among my most influential instructors as a student and now, in my professional career, Gordy Knudtson has helped to elevate my understanding of motion from open/close to movement around the kit. His approach is consistent with my prior studies focusing on efficiency and economy of motion. While observing his videos, I was immediately struck by his execution of the open/close technique. Equally as engaging is the relationship between open/close and what he refers to as the “wax on/wax off” motion. There is a direct correlation between what I have learned as a classical instrumentalist but also in the realm of hand drums.”
- Mike DeQuattro Professor of Percussion Rhode Island College
“Thank you for the opportunity to share information about Gordy Knudtson. It is a happy one for me. Gordy has taken his Open/Close concept and technique and made it possible now for all of us interested in improving our ability to make music to have it at our fingertips... pun intended...
I became aware of Gordy through friend, master drummer and colleague Jon Hazilla in the 1990’s. Conversations and professional courtesies led to my receiving copies of his print and video work and I was
on my way to fulfilling my quest for new ideas and better control and technique.
His methods and materials proved to be all that I envisioned they would. It’s not quite as easy as taking a pill but with a bit of time and effort it started to come along and help me to complete musical ideas and phrases that had been previously evading my execution.
I have included a link below to a recording done back in this time period using some of the developmental work done of Gordy’s material. Be impressed or not by the music but listen and hear how this material proved for me to be of great benefit. It definitely helped me have a day in the studio I felt very good about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i10ewiG0n5g&frags= pl%2Cwn
Thanks Gordy... long may you roll on...that’s right ...pun intended.
- Skip Hadden
Berklee College Of Music
The following links are a path to at least some of Gordy’s numerous worthwhile materials.
https://www.gk-music.com
https://www.gk-music.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/A- New-Approach-to-the-Single-Stroke-Roll.pdf
https://www.notsomoderndrummer.com/not-so-modern- drummer/2018/4/18/gordy-knudtson-the-visionary-part- one?rq=gordy
“I came to Gordy Knudtson because I saw his videos and wanted to strengthen articulation for my left hand. His hand technique, specifically the "Open Close” opened more doors for me by facilitating slicker left hand articulation. In reality, His tutelage allowed me to strengthen both hands and the technique allowed me to truly express my rolls/sticking with greater ease, particularly at higher tempos. I truly credit him for getting my drumming vocabulary and expression to the next level. Many teachers claim they have the keys to bringing the hands up to speed but Gordy has masterfully documented his years of work on hand technique through his books and his generous contributions on his YouTube channel. I will be forever in his debt and cannot thank him enough for patiently guiding me through the early hurdles of this very effective and practical technique”.
- Bill McCarthy
In Honor of Gordy Knudtson
By Dave Goodman for Not So Modern Drummer
In continually searching for the answers to as many of the biggest questions I can frame to ask about music, its meaning, its significance, and its purpose in life, in recent years I’ve come to the realization that I’m on a quest not unlike that of Galahad in the grail quests of the 13th Century. One of the central themes of the grail legends is this: The grail appears only to those who are ready for it, and it appears when they are ready for it.
One never really knows any more about where each step is actually headed any more than long-term weather prediction is possible (hint: it’s not!). As well as being somewhat of a mystery, then, having come to get to know Gordy Knudtson, and to learn what I’ve learned so far about music and drumming from him in recent times is amongst the greatest of gifts I’ve been fortunate enough to receive. It appears that I was ready to start receiving Gordy’s brilliant teaching from late May 2018 after nearly 30 years of drumming already.
I’d been playing traditional grip almost exclusively since I was about 12 or 13 in 1990 – about a year or so after starting to play the drumset. From early 2001 my left thumb started plaguing me with pain for reasons I didn’t understand at the time. I remember the gig. It was a New Year’s Eve gig, and I was playing out of town with the jazz pianist and organist Sean Wayland when shooting pain surged up my arm after a backbeat rim shot on the snare. I had to switch to matched grip for the rest of the gig, as well as for the following three months. I did all my gigs around Sydney at that time with matched grip, although I never really practiced with the grip, and I never took it particularly seriously as I knew I’d be back on traditional grip as soon as possible.
Fast forward to late 2014, and the pain started to resurface so I switched to matched again. Not without a mild sense of anxiety, I was starting to harbor serious doubts about my future as a traditional grip player despite having already invested a couple of decades worth of care into it. I’d even travelled to America and taken lessons with Joe Morello, Jim Chapin and Billy Hart – three fine and varied traditional grip players and teachers – but apart from the time when Joe said, “just relax your left hand a little,” no one ever really had anything to say about my left-hand traditional grip.
I continued to play matched for the following three years until, in mid-2017, I reintroduced traditional grip with a vow to get it right by tweaking my grip, as well as angling the drums properly, and so on. I really enjoyed playing traditional again for another year when, all of a sudden, some pain began to occur in my left index finger that similarly precluded my ability to go on with the grip at that time. By now, the third such time, the frustration had maxed out my tolerance levels, and I wondered what I was going to do from then on.
Then, on May 21, 2018, my old friend Andreas emailed me in a completely unsolicited and spontaneous manner casually recommending that I look up Gordy Knudtson on YouTube, and so I did. I’d heard his name before, but I didn’t know anything about him. When I started researching the Steve Miller Band, I remember thinking, “oh, I remember this hit from when I was a kid, but I didn’t know the artist’s name was Steve Miller. Oh, and this one too, and this one, and this one,” and so on. “Wow, and Gordy has been touring and recording with this guy for the last 30 years. That’s saying something,” I remember saying to myself. I also found some lovely playing of Gordy’s with Ben Sidran. After about a week of watching these incredible videos featuring Gordy, and subscribing to his channel, I wrote back to Andreas and thanked him profusely for the favour he’d done me in pointing me toward Gordy and his work as I’d decided to commit full time to matched grip, or, more specifically, to American Grip in both hands from that day on.
I started practicing Gordy’s recommendations on developing the Open / Close Technique as I knew I needed to work very hard on getting my double strokes to feel any good in my left hand. The technique reminded me very much of the Pull-out Accent technique that Jim Chapin showed me in 2002, but, with all due love and respect for what I learned from Jim Chapin, Gordy’s Open / Close Technique was more clearly thought out and better presented than Chapin’s Pull-out Accents, which he presented as being a technique for developing a fast and strong double stroke roll around the drum set.
In fact, I’d made public posts on my Facebook and Instagram pages about my decision to change to matched grip, and these became very popular posts amongst my followers. This was true to the extent that one of my friends told me that he’d contacted Gordy for Skype lessons immediately upon reading. After several months of practice (it took about six weeks to start feeling comfortable with the grip), and of hearing from more friends that they’d taken lessons with Gordy after reading my post, and about how cool he was, I knew I was going to need some direct guidance from Gordy myself, and so I very nervously constructed a brief introductory email to him.
Gordy wrote back almost immediately with a very lovely, warm reply, and a suggestion that we make a time to get together on Skype. Well, around October 2018, I finally met Gordy over Skype, and since then I’ve enjoyed having around eight or nine follow-up sessions. Leading up to making that first call, I was as nervous as I was when I sat on the train that took me from Manhattan to Ronkonkoma on Long Island for my first lesson with Jim Chapin all those years earlier – I felt as though I had no business whatsoever bothering these men with my questions about the drums and drumming.
But Gordy was so disarming, and immediately very likeable. He was very warm and encouraging with the specificity of his feedback, commentary and critiques of what he saw me do, and this was all interspersed with great and sometimes hilarious anecdotes about his professional history and associations with some of the world’s greatest musicians.
Around the time we first got together, I had to travel to be one of three judges in the National Jazz Awards for drums at the Wangaratta Festival of Jazz here in Australia, and at that time I was noticing my whole left arm and hand had become very, very sore and uncomfortable, as well as my right shoulder and ankle. To cut a long story short, it turns out that I’d been struggling unknowingly for a long time with inflammation caused by eating tomatoes over the years, and so my pains in my left hand were always due to my diet more than my technique. And yet, even though I’m now able to play with traditional grip again comfortably and pain-free since eliminating the inflammation by altering my diet, I’m choosing to continue primarily as a matched grip player because of the wonderful teachings I’ve received from Gordy.
If you consider just how rare it is for anyone to pioneer anything in any of the human disciplines, you suddenly come to the realization that Gordy Knudtson has a genius way of operating that led to his original development of the Open / Close Technique and The Singled Four, as well as the particularly interesting and useful ways this crosses into a domain that he calls Morphing Double Strokes, which I’ve come to understand as being a highly sophisticated presentation of the way Open / Bounce / Close Strokes can be used in the rudiments and grooves. It goes deep. The only other discipline I’ve come across that’s similar to Morphing is the idea of Continuity that I understand Murray Spivack to have taught. With all due respect to Spivack, in many ways, Open / Close and Morphing are more practical and useful than Continuity because not only do they allow you to practice the biomechanics that are actually involved with what Spivack classed as Rebound Strokes (which I now refer to as Multi-note Strokes), but they also allow you to practice the moves precisely at any tempo, particularly slowly, which is essential for developing accuracy, evenness and clarity of sound. As an unexpected bonus in addition to all the above, Gordy has also helped me by delivering a raft of ideas that continue to help me develop my creativity and my groove more deeply than I ever imagined any teacher could.
I’d been looking for a teacher for a long time, and I didn’t know who I’d go to. As it turns out, I’ve started to believe that, whether he knew it or not, my friend Andreas perhaps acted as somewhat of a guardian angel for me, and by having him introduce me to Gordy Knudtson and his wonderful teachings, I’ve started to believe that perhaps life has a little bit of magic to offer every now and again if only we open ourselves to it. The way Gordy has restored my love for music, as well as my love for the drums and drumming has been nothing short of magic. For this, and for now also being able to call him a friend, I’ll be forever grateful as everything he is has enabled me to continue in my quest toward the grail of music”.
-- Dave Goodman PhD
http://www.stevemillerband.com
