3PIECE - Darryn Farrugia

In 2010 I had the good fortune of recording this interview and performance with Darryn Farrugia while he was in my home town of Brisbane, Australia. Darryn is an iconic Australian drummer who has worked at the top level of Australian music for decades. His mastery of the drums is renowned in our country and abroad, so it's with great pleasure that I present this performance.

The concept of the three piece kit is not a new one, but to me it is a fascinating concept. I wanted to explore the notion of boundaries being a catalyst for creativity. Stripping back a drum kit to it's bare essentials and seeing what some of our countries top drummers can do within those restrictions is an interesting experiment. It's a real challenge to take away the top tier of colour from the drum kits pallet and see what the artist can do with the primary colours. There's no hiding here and I respect the musicians who are up for the challenge because it really exposes your musical core.

What shines through in this video is Darryn's deep musical roots. He has a solid technical grounding that you would expect, but the way he makes musical choices and builds this performance so naturally shows he has a lot of tools in his toolbox. Dynamics, patience, maturity and flare are words that I thought of a lot while producing this piece. I was planning on editing the performance down to less than 10 minutes but on reflection I felt it was criminal to cut anything out. There is a beautiful arc to this performance and Darryn has given us a lesson on how to build an improvised piece using some interesting yet essential tools.

CREDITS:
Performed by Darryn Farrugia - darrynfarrugia.com
Filmed by Graetz media on R3D cinema cameras - graetzmedia.com
Audio recorded by Darran Muller - facebook.com/darran.muller
Concept and post production by Mark Peric - markperic.com