He is considered to be one of the most skilled drummers in the world and is a master of polyrythms and odd time signatures. He has achieved incredible speed and accuracy at drumming, he is perhaps most well known for his fast double kicking and his unique technique on the bass drum. He holds the drum sticks in the traditional style and is also quite proficient at the keyboard.
His pearl drum kit consists of a 22×18 bass drum, 10×9 tom, 12×9 tom, 14×12 tom, 16×16 floor tom, 18×16 floor tom, 14×5 Virgil Donati snare drum accompanied by a sopranino snare. He also frequently uses innovative 'air toms' which are toms that meet the players head height above the existing toms. Virgil also uses Pearl hardware. He's playing Sabian cymbals, Remo drumheads and Vater sticks.
Virgil was born inMelbourne,Australia and got his first drumset at age 3.
He started playing right away with his fathers showband, and kept on doing these shows until he was around 6 years old. He began taking lessons at age 7 with Brian Czempinski and later Graham Morgan,- now a legend in the Australian drumming community.
Joining his first rock band at age 15 was surely the right choice for the young drummer. The band was called `Cloud Nine`, later to become `Taste`.
Donati left school when he was 16, focusing mainly on the drums, but also piano, and practicing hard every day! These days he spends most of his time in the US playing with a number of different bands. Playing 6 nights a week with `Taste` was what really “got his chops together”. Australia was very isolated as far as instructional books and big international tours, so he had to rely on self-motivation and listening to records.
With his fathers choice of records, includingLouie Bellson and Buddy Rich albums, Virgil quickly became a fan of those great jazz drummers, trying to emulate their solos.
Virgil Donati
The first rock drummer to make a big impact on him was Ian Paice of `Deep Purple`. Donati was “blown away by his clarity and power”,- something for which he later would become famous himself.
Practice became a way of life for Virgil, who tried to learn as many different styles as possible, enabling him to cope with any musical situation he was confronted with.
At age 19 Virgil travelled to the U.S. to study with Philly Joe Jones and at Dick Groves School in L.A. He also took lessons from snare drum specialist Murry Spivak.
Returning to Australia at age 21 was where Virgils career took off! Playing jazz with Alan Zavod and Brian Brown,- and rock with Peter Cupples band, he was a busy touring and session drummer Down Under.
His own pop band, `The State` turned into `Southern Sons`, which led to Virgils first taste of international fame, with their selftitled debut selling multiplatinum and producing the international hit single 'Heart In Danger'.
The big break came in 1995 where Virgils first solo album Stretch was released to a stunned community of drummers worldwide, not knowing what had hit them! Since then, especially On The Virge: Serious Young Insects with tracks like the timebending Native Metal cemented Virgils status as progressive musical mastermind as well as drumgod.
Virgil was voted the number 1 clinician of the year (2004) by the readers of the popular drummer magazine, Modern Drummer. Virgil's own band Planet X' is arguably the most advanced progressive fusion group, setting new standards for other musicians to follow. They have released two studio albums; Universe (2000) and Moonbabies (2002), and one live album, Live From Oz (2001).
Virgils website, accordingly located here, amongst other features presents an extensive gallery, videos, audio samples from his albums, and – pioneering the world of drummers websites – online lessons + a rapidly growing messageboard of 6000+ drummers from all over the world, talking and learning about Virgil and drumming in general.
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