John Donovan is in the 2010 Vater Catalog on page 17! 

Download your online copy today!

http://www.vater.com/survey/VaterCatalog2010.pdf

The first ever Drum Summit at Sam Ash Music on 2-19-09 hosted by The Legendary Dom Famularo and Lou Gervey

There may be press coming out on this, but for now here are two videos, thanks to Daniel Britt. It was an honor to be amoung some of the hardest working professional drummers in New York and New Jersey. The first video is of my Rudimental tenor pad demonstration and the second video is the intro anouncing all the members of the panel. I was truely humbled by this opportunity.

Is there a Blue Man inside you?

AMNewYork, Written and Produced by Lauren Johnston

http://weblogs.amny.com/entertainment/urbanite/blog/2008/08/casting_call_seeking_new_blue.html

When we heard about an open casting call [PHOTOS] for the Blue Man Group, we expected to find a manic-panic-cacophonous affair, and it was, but it turns out there are some rules too.

Rule No. 1: Don't show up painted blue

"We look for someone who kind of has a Blue Man inside them already, and then we work to bring that Blue Man out," said Blue Man casting director Deb Burton at Monday's auditions, which were held at the Blue Man Training Center at 412 Broadway, just south of Canal St.

Rule No. 2 - Don't PhotoShop your face blue on your headshot or send your resume disguised as a pipe bomb.

Both of these things have happened says Burton, adding, "those types of things are entirely unnecessary because part of our process is for US to discover what the person will look like in the makeup. [laughing] We don't really need people to do that ahead of the game."

Rule No. 3 - You must be between 5'10" and 6'1"

No elaboration here, them's just the facts. You must be tall and you must have rhythm -- but you DON'T have to be a man to play a blue man. So all you blue ladies out there, come on down. We met one woman in the audition waiting room Monday, dancer Oceane McCord, who lives in Manhattan.

"It's kind of out of my normal auditioning experience, usually i'm surrounded by hundreds of women," McCord said, adding she thinks as a female performer, she might bring an interesting layer of vulnerability to the Blue Man character.

Blue Man hopefuls don't get painted blue in the first round, it's more of a screening and drum check, said Burton, to see "what kind of person they are, how they react to drumming with another blue man performer." The full audition process can last up to six months.

Drummer John Donovan, 32, from Deer Park, Long Island, said the week-long wait to find out if he makes it to round two will be "the longest week of my life so far."

He's a drummer and he misses working with drummers. "I miss it all the time," he said. "I miss playing with other drummers terribly -- like it aches at me."

What Drum Corps Did For Me; Part 2 by JohnDonovan.biz

MarchingLive.com, A Publication of The Woodwind and Brasswind - July 24th, 2008

What Drum Corps Did For Me; Part 1 by JohnDonovan.biz

MarchingLive.com, A Publication of The Woodwind and Brasswind - June 13th, 2008

As the 2008 season kicks off, it makes me not only think about the great memories from when I marched, but more importantly, how it changed my life. Drum Corps for me was formal percussion training. To this day, I am convinced that drum corps training for an aspiring professional drummer is extremely valuable.  I knew from the time I was playing with Transformers that I wanted to be a professional drummer.  What drum corps taught me went far beyond just the technical side. It taught me about intense work ethic  and constantly adjusting to new situations.

On the technical side, I choose a training path that is still to this day, uncommon. While most corps style drummers choose to stick with one section for the duration of their training, I knew early on that it would benefit me to become proficient on snare, tenor and bass. Not only did this benefit my drumline arranging skills by producing parts that sound well balanced, but each of the segments has it’s own unique educational advantage. I feel that snare drum training focuses on rudimental proficiency, tenor training focuses on movement mechanics and bass training focuses on fills and crazy timing. I touch on these subjects more in my Instructional/Performance DVD entitled: Drumline Vs. Drumset, which is still in post production.

Work ethic is very important in the music business. Often, as a professional musician, you have to work three times harder then someone who has a normal 9-5 day job, just to make ends meet.  If you don’t have an intense work ethic, you will be eaten alive in this business. I really credit my work ethic to drum corps training, as well as watching directors Roman Belenski and Bob Jacobs in action. To wake up everyday and love doing what you do to financially survive is rewarding,  but it sure can be stressful. My work ethic is what keeps me involved in professional music every day, and I will never quit. I might have been forced out of DCI because of age, but my heart never left. I still strive to become better every day.

Learning  to constantly adjust  to new situations as a professional drummer is an art. Every day, week, month and year is different. You never know what is going to happen. Control is an illusion. You can have a week where you have it figured out that you are making a grand and then all hell breaks loose. A musical director dissolves his band, and sells his contracts off to the highest bidder, half your private students miss for various reasons, checks from clients bounce, your truck breaks down, all on top of catching a cold from your wife and your toddler son. Then there are times that you know the week is going to be really tight, and then opportunity after opportunity pours in. No matter what type of week I am having, I can go to sleep at night knowing one thing: I am a professional drummer that did not quit after aging out of DCI. I will admit it is depressing knowing that probably more than 96 percent of all that performance talent coming off the field at finals just vanishes into thin air. The music business would be a better place if more drummers that aged out became full time professionals.

John Donovan has played with professional dance bands, rock bands, metal bands, jazz bands, musical theater pit orchestras, cruise ship bands and DJ’S.  In 2002, John performed with One Man Religion, which opened for internationally recognized Metal band, Breaking Benjamin.  He is also a multi-world, national and state rudimental drumming champion,  marching with Pioneer, Jersey Surf and The Reading Buccaneers Drum and Bugle Corps.  A music business graduate of McNally Smith College of Music, formerly known as MusicTech, John has served as composer, arranger, instructor, and manager for drumlines across the Northeast and Midwest. John was featured in Modern Drummer Magazine, March 2008, pg 192. John is a performing artist and clinician for Mapex Marching Percussion and can be reached through http://www.JohnDonovan.Biz

Modern Drummer Magazine – March 2008, Kit of the Month, pg 192.

Written by Rick Van Horn

The Glowing Mutated Beast

No, the name of John Donovan’s kit doesn’t  allude to a monster from some grind house flick. However, the kit was designed to be in a movie. According to John, “This drumset is the result of what happens when the worlds of drumline and drumset go to war.”

                When John decided to create his self-produced movie, Drumline Vs. Drumset, he needed a kit that would reflect his regimented drumline training. The Glowing Mutated Beast includes eleven acoustic drums, twenty five cymbals, five electronic triggers and multiple percussion instruments-all strategically positioned like an ultra-massive set of tenor toms from a drum and bugle corps drumline. “The design of the kit is based on a set of marching tenors,” says John, “because the basic flow of the instrument makes so much logical sense.

                “The drums were custom-built to keep costs down and quality up,” John continues. “The cymbals are top-of-the-line Paistes supplemented with Wuhan Chinese models. I also used matching marching equipment. Pearl hardware holds up this 1,700-lb. beast. The drums and the decorative mic cable sleeves are all luminescent. Two of my percussion toys and one of my two custom Manhasset music stands are phosphorescent. All of my lug casings and hoops were powder coated flourescent. To top it all off, we dumped over 1,400 watts of black light on half the film footage.”

                Johns kit was created in the fall of 2005, and it remained in the same place until the end of pre-production on Drumline Vs. Drumset in the spring of 2007. In May of that year, John, his wife, and their baby son-with trailer in tow-drove 1,200 miles to Minnesota to start filming his opus. Twenty nine days later, production was over. Says John, “I hope that my performances and comments on the movie will inspire drumset players to train with a well-managed drumline program, and will inspire drumline players to explore drumset performance as a way to earn a living.”

                Information about John and his movie is availible at www.johndonovan.biz.