Matt Bowers 2008 I&E 1st Place

[drumline451]

@c2dinc where if anywhere could i get the sheet music to this, please and thank you

[KyleLovesGingers]

He's doing a clinic within an hour of where I live in september :ooooo Excitement

[DrMasterJ]

HE PLAYS AT BLINDING SPEED!

[tower72]

Wow! I have so much respect for drum line drummers, especially when you see talent and dedication like this. I play a set but every time i see something like this, I am like DANG!!!! I need to work on my technique lol.Thank you sir for humbling people everywhere :) good job.

[TheCodygiles]

More diddles..

[BSBINC1]

MAD effen CHOPS

[MBlood08]

He missed at the end. Nice.

[MHSTenors]

You guys know that the rest of the line told him to miss the last note... they were like, "dude, you're blind, just miss the last note, it doesn't matter and it'll be funny"

Also, i think this won because there are so many places that make you say "wow. that was awesome."

[EzEkEiL4life]

im pretty sure i just saw the dopest tenor break ever except that he missed the last note HAH!!!!....dope shit

[NearestWelcome]

@EzEkEiL4life im pretty sure your gay

[drummersean518]

"aargh bowers"

[TricoreSonata09]

Theres always that one guy that says "WOOOO" after a lick in a DCI vid.

[ghettttttto]

I seriously think the blindfold is one big joke

[HarmoniousChirp]

Anyone know where I can find sheet music for this if possible?

[MBlood08]

He mussed his last big hit! Be made up for it by almost breaking the low drum's head.

[zsparling]

awesome.10 stARS!

[bltsponge]

These drums sound so much better than the pearls. Dynasty and remo is the way to go!

[ddarkness1627]

@bltsponge my drumline at my highschool uses pearl and evans heads. our snares sound ok, but the tenors have to be medium to high tuned to sound even decently good.

[karminehw]

HI guys ...how can I get hold of this guy? Does he has an agent or something like that? Please do let me know ...it is very important.

[thsma2009]

did he do winter 2010??

[c2dinc]

Nope, he aged out of DCI in 2008 and did Rhythm X the following winter.

[thsma2009]

@c2dinc oh, but isnt WGI age out like 23 instead of 21??

[c2dinc]

@thsma2009 I think it's 22...maybe if you turn 23 after a certain date you can still do it just like if you turn 22 after what, May 1st, you can do drumcorps the following summer.

[thsma2009]

@c2dinc oh, kool.

[BSBINC1]

@c2dinc Like Matt R from RCC his age out yr is 07 but he had WGI bouns

[lij2015]

@thsma2009 WGi is if you you turn 22 before the season ever begins. But if you do it it mid season you're okay( I march WGI)

[thsma2009]

@lij2015 OH! ok then thank you very much good sir or madam. lol. thanks bud.

[lij2015]

@thsma2009 welcome haha.

[MrSnareplaya]

@thsma2009 the changed it to 23 after he already aged out and left

[thsma2009]

@MrSnareplaya awwwww lame!!! lol

[blackman520]

@c2dinc and he did rhythm X in 09

[pkim9]

well, i don't get why the blindfold thing is so OMFG. when my instructor marched cadets, they made them use blindfolds when playing so they don't rely on sight. but that WAS 95 96 so idk about now.

[drummerrr95]

Beast mode. 

[jonval95]

holy shit man this guys is going places i swear i have near heard such amazing drumming ever our school best drummer is like a person first learning how to play drums compared to him damn. just want to say amazing keep quading.

[guitarmansegovia]

He goes on sound and feel.

Who needs to see? He totally rocks it.

[MrRockcrawling]

holy shit that was intense!!!!!

[PCMB4LyFE]

one of my favorite solo's of any instrument.

Ever!

[toriooreo944]

i want to marry him. sooo badly. :)

[JonnyHammersticks]

That's really cool how he uses a blindfold. Goes to show he'll still be shredding if his vision goes.

[redbull23952395]

hes blind....

[JonnyHammersticks]

Is he now? I'm pretty sure he's not in this video.

[redbull23952395]

@JonnyHammersticks He pretty much is

[c2dinc]

@redbull23952395

He is most definitely legally blind...let's just say he has very poor vision. He can still see though.

[crazymonkyclown]

I want this guys cock

[Flammin5s]

Regardless of his vision disability, this guy is a fucking badass

[rikuantu]

oh no he didnt...blind folded!

[grammylea55]

i can remember watching you play next to my son at betsy. he dragged you all over the field. yes i am ebs mom and i think you are great

[wannabeAOB93]

MATT BOWERS!!! went to my high school and marched with my instructer. hes butt rapin amazin. he helped out our line a little bit after his 08 season wit bd

[MeatXLoverX69X]

Blue Devils drumline....Making Promark look like the shit.

[mrTooKanSam]

Lol if hes blind then that blindfold is pure ironny

[MeatXLoverX69X]

hahahahahaha. thats great

[helpmemarch]

@mrTooKanSam but most people watching didn't know that.. it's pretty smart on his part to do that

[Tenorcapacity121]

@mrTooKanSam it's still badass though

[RimAlexa]

@mrTooKanSam if you knew, he is only partially blind, more things far away.

[Aaaronicus]

i love that riff he keeps bringing back throughout the piece. it's awesome.

[W3zZy72]

That guy was already legally blind?

[xXW4RH3ROXx]

if he marched with blue devils then i highly doubt it

[c2dinc]

He is legally blind. He did march the Blue Devils with vision bad enough that he can't drive a car.

[jazzman3071]

Matt has macula degeneration...not sure if thats the correct spelling but thats what he has. He wore shades last year with RX...at night and I beleive during the show as well...he has an extreme sensitivity to light and unless they find a cure will eventualy be completely blind.

[c2dinc]

Yeah, macular I believe.  But yeah, he will eventually be blind :(

[jazzman3071]

Yeah pretty sad...the Lord giveth the Lord taketh away I guess.

[IPstixrawesume]

He seems to be quite okay with that fact though. I mean, he DID win four total championships: one with BD, two with RX and this.

[DrumManTX]

@c2dinc I bet that wouldn't stop him though.

[c2dinc]

@DrumManTX

Too true.

[killerdud363453]

@jazzman3071 yeah i watched him at 2009 WGI finals, he had the shades on at finals

[7229willy]

WHAT are those tenors called?

[shaneloveshisdrums]

they are made by Dynasty

[gfaithw]

BALD

[bassdrummer414]

loll that wuz funny

[JBtenors08]

@gfaithw

MY EYES!

[xfactormunky]

frikkin awesome but umm..... does the blindfold really make a difference?, well i guess it does kinda since he misses the last note, but still, i think he was kinda, idk, cheating with the blindfold thing

[Jerahmeel]

Well, he is legally blind.

[xfactormunky]

thats my point.....

[ptowndrummr]

promark fail. solo win. lol

[MeatXLoverX69X]

you should do some research on promark. theyre gonna be good in the next 5 years.

[ptowndrummr]

ummmm.....okay. i have no clue what you are talking about right now.

[UberJumpTactics]

Wow ive seen you comment on like all drum vids lol including the one by quakertownbands

[StevenHGiang]

why.

[dssk1023]

what was his score?

[drummaboy15]

he looks like a dude from the blue man group haha

[MisterFace88]

This guy graduated from my high school. I've got to meet him twice and the second time I was at a drum lesson (he's good friends with my sensei) and he played a tuba. said it was his calling haha.

[alton020]

um.....long arms...

[yeahyeahyeahyeahya]

When he puts the blindfold on, he sort of looks like Professor Xavier.

[SilverRegiment08]

did he miss that last shot?

[LittlezDDR]

No, of course not.

[SilverRegiment08]

then it must have been like a super ping.

[LittlezDDR]

Remember, he is legally blind, so if he misses it, who cares.

[Avedisdrummer09]

Looks like it to me.

[smurd82]

I marched with this guy at Spirit in '03. One of the hardest workers I've ever seen!

[monicoconuts]

rhythm x 08 and 09?

[c2dinc]

Yup.

[nike2105]

1:30 cool groove

AWSOME

[MadSmokerBBQ]

Sweet!

[TenorsFourever]

I've heard some people saying on here that Jeremy Somers should've won and he only lost because he dropped a stick. Well if that would be true then Tim Jackson shouldn't have won '05 and '06 and Colby Beers shouldn't have won '07. I think Matt deserved first place. Jeremy did really good but Matt just did a little bit better.

[knreal]

this dude marched with the cadets correct? this dude marches with the best corps

[BlueDevilsTowelBoy]

people don't really know that he's legally blind so its like if tim jackson were to have done it just for flash

[betaomega04]

Matt has a condition called immaculate degeneration, which renders him legally blind. He told me that when he sees, he sees sporadic splotches of color; that he has a general idea of what things are, so it helps him move around a football field. When it comes to music, he uses a large electronic magnifier that blows up the image of a bar several times and he has to put his face very close to it. So before he ever plays something, he has to memorize it first.

How's that for sight-reading?

[Angelzxairwaves]

That's amazing!

[EnterTheOcho]

@betaomega04 It's actually called "macular degeneration."

[FatGocks]

@betaomega04 Immaculate degeneration hahahaha

[greenbayunited11]

@betaomega04

it's actually macular eye degeneration. my grandpa had it... needless to say, it sucks. absolutely amazing for anyone to play a musical instrument with that, let alone be one of the best percussionists in the world. in my opinion, this truly is a miracle.

[ozarkapwns]

It was beast, just well the "missed" shot, but at least he didn't drop a stick (tim jackson). It was pretty awesome. He's one of my "tenor Heroes".

[OldSchoolLovin15]

you can tell he put a lot of work into this solo

[snarerator]

isnt the blindfold pretty redundant for him? i mean. from what i understand, hes almost blind.....

but either way, he shreds.

[Gribbs81406]

a valid point right there

[snarerator]

lol. thank you :)

[ghettttttto]

how is he almost blind? just curious

[i8apizza]

Check out youtube video Matt Bowers DCI 2006 ESPN for his own explanation.

[thasnargoblin]

he can only see out of his peripheral vision. and hes just a beast at everything else

[TooLegiTT11B]

Yeah it was redundant it was a joke and it was halarious lol - he desearved the win, the solo was very clean unlike others.

[snarerator]

agreed

[MalfHunter]

I just meant when's his age out...if anyone know's?

[thdominat0r]

don't quote me on this but i'm pretty sure he aged out this year (meaning Touch was his last show ever). i'm not positive though, but i think so.

[nathanthesnare]

He looks like Malcolm McDowell without hair.

[MalfHunter]

Does anyone know how old he is? Just curious...

[Promark25]

he looks like hes freakin 35

[saue6143]

you cant even tell the singles from the diddles. unbelieveable

[sn00z0nica]

well done, loved the transition between the sticks and the puffies.

[Born2drum24]

lol hes misses the 3 and 4 drum haha but that was amazing

[NateMaster]

That's on purpose.

[raptriforcee]

I don't think it was on purpose. I think he actually checked if there was damage.

[NateMaster]

It is on purpose.

[raptriforcee]

Yeah, never mind. Just rewatched it. Obviously intentional.

[sfz4536]

i met this guy at america fest!!!

lol it was quite something cuz he introduced me to more of the Q-5

he also showed me this i&e solo lol

its crazy, he got 1st place

[DrkGK]

i'm guessing he tried to hit the bottom two drums at 3:34 but missed, and improv-d the last hit out of frustration o_o

if so, poor matt.

[c2dinc]

Nah, he meant to miss. Seriously.

[RoNM214]

how can u so sure ?

i thought he missed 0_o

[c2dinc]

Talked to him afterwards. I go to school with him too.

[RoNM214]

you are soooo lucky !

[c2dinc]

Matt's awesome. Luckily, he's not graduating yet so I get to hang with him for another year.

[ztothewood]

this solo is totally tits.

[whsquads]

He hit less rim with the fold on.

He is so good it is actually funny.

[PulsePercussion]

LoL. IT's cheating he's already blind

[whsquads]

Not completely.

[Shortmediumtallguy4]

almost tho lol

[marc1ano]

shit... i peed a little....

[darksion]

nice groove part

[Dreamdrummer33]

he is no tim jackson...lol

cool tho

[Jaysen6740]

He sure doesn't hit as many rims as Tim Jackson when he won it.

[thekorruptid]

2:30 is sick as fuck

[whsquads]

That whole groove section was "sick as fuck"

[mathes107]

You DCI idiots kill me..........If you were serious musicians at all the things that would jump out at you are the musical elements of his composition: it has a repeating motive that is developed through the piece, dynamic variance, variance in technique and texture, variance in rhythmic feels, etc. So far most of the comments are either people noticing only his disability or even having the temerity to criticize him......tisk tisk. Bravo Matt!!

[ChristianEggers]

Agreed. The one thing that always impressed me about Matt was that he has absolutely ridiculous chops but still backs them up with technique and musicality.

[c2dinc]

Yeah man, you and I both had the privilege of marching with him too--totally awesome.

[wazzzzuuuppp]

what did you play?

[c2dinc]

Snare, at Purdue University. Not in a drumcorps sadly.

[Snebasseor]

I might have been intentional. It was a visual in their show.

[c2dinc]

You are correct, it was intentional.

[SubtleIntricacy]

@Snebasseor OH MY GOD HE'S BLIND. Repeck.

[DesertFox101]

*jizz*

[Rogers1977]

Wow, his slicing is worse than mine. I'm not bagging on him, it's just that I didn't think that he would slice. I always thought that they didn't slice and that's why my instructor always harped on me to stop slicing.

[c2dinc]

I don't know much about quad technique but Bowers' technique doesn't look much different than most other quad players I've seen. If anything, it's a ton better than almost any other quad player I've seen. I know when you're doing scrapes (diddles split across two drums) it's really hard to keep the stick going straight up and down so a slice occurs. On snare drum, slicing is bad, don't know if it's so bad on quads though.

[Rogers1977]

Well, my instructor always harps on us on slicing. When Bowers played a roll on one drums, you can see the slice mainly in his left hand (since that's like the only hand you see). Otherwise, it's the angle that the video was taken at. My instructor said that this guys was probably the best sounding, as in sound quality, that's he's heard in a long time.

[Tenorsarefun]

this is amazing.... but i still think he should've got 2nd, and jeremy should've took 1st.....

[dkdDarKeneDdkd]

Was he born with bad eyesight? Or was he just "oh hey, I can't see because of some random occasion just now!" ?

[c2dinc]

He was born with macular degeneration...it's a degenerative eye disease--his eyes are only getting worse and worse.

[dkdDarKeneDdkd]

That sucks.. :(

How'd he march?

[c2dinc]

He's not blind. He can still see. Just not very well. Marching isn't really too hard. When you're in a drumline, you don't have to watch the drum major, you just listen in to the center snare.

[dkdDarKeneDdkd]

I am in drumline, I am bass 1, but we always have to watch the drum major and keep time or we get push ups. :D

I see how you;re right though. I sometimes find myself not paying attention and just listening to the center snare and just... marching xD

[c2dinc]

Yeah, in a lot of bands and drum corps, the drum major actually watches the center snare's feet and keeps time off of him/her instead of the drumline watching the drum major. Then everyone listens into the center snare and hopefully the band will follow.

[dkdDarKeneDdkd]

Well of course. That's how it always goes. It's still nice to watch anyways. :p

[carpeyourmom]

yeah, you've obviously never been in...

[DeathYell]

I like how he missed the last shot

[khairta]

that just means he is in fact human

[DeathYell]

and he is also 80% blind

[PhantomPhire25]

10 bucks says this guy routienly does this in his sleep.

[jijahjiah]

oh my O_O

THAT'S SO GOOD.