Yoni Madar | Simple is not simple

The title of Yoni Madar’s Drumeo podcast episode is “Simple Is Not Simple”, and it is a fair summary of his entire position.

He is a drummer with genuinely extreme independence — one of very few players who can do what he does with four limbs — and his actual teaching is largely about playing simple things properly and not overthinking it.

That combination is rarer than it sounds, and it is why other drummers pay attention to him.

Who is Yoni Madar?

Yoni Madar is an Israeli drummer, multi-instrumentalist and educator.

He plays four instruments at a professional level — drums, guitar, bass and keys — which is unusual and shapes how he thinks. Drummers who play harmonic instruments tend to make different choices, and it shows in his phrasing.

He works largely independently: releasing his own material, teaching through MadarDrum, and appearing on the drum-education circuit including Drumeo and the Drum Channel podcast.

Drumeo’s panel gave him the Viola Smith Award for Defying Expectations in 2022.

The open-close technique

This is what he is best known for teaching, and it is worth explaining.

The open-close technique is a hand method for generating multiple notes from one arm motion — the hand opens and closes around the stick so that the fingers produce the second (and third) stroke rather than the wrist repeating the effort.

Done properly it gives you speed and control at low volume with far less fatigue, and it is the mechanism underneath a great deal of high-level modern hand technique. It is also genuinely hard to learn from watching, because most of the motion is inside the hand.

Madar built a 175-minute video lesson and an accompanying book specifically to teach it in depth — which is a serious amount of material on one technical concept, and the reason his name comes up whenever drummers discuss it.

What Yoni Madar actually does

Independence, at an unusual level. Four genuinely separate limbs, playing genuinely separate parts.

Technique in service of feel. His argument, repeatedly, is that most drummers should spend less time on complexity and more on making a simple part sound good.

He is a multi-instrumentalist. The drum parts on his own material are written by somebody who also wrote the bass line.

He teaches the mechanics. Not “watch me do it” — actual explanation of what the hand is doing, which is much harder to produce.

Yoni Madar’s setup

His gear is not documented in the sort of detail we would be willing to print as fact, and for an independent educator that is entirely normal — endorsements come and go, and the teaching is the product.

What we can tell you is that the material that matters is on MadarDrum, and that essentially none of what he teaches requires a particular drum kit.

If you have a current, sourced specification for his setup, the Rig Vault takes suggested edits on every page and we will happily build him one.

What to take from him instead

Learn open-close properly. It is the single highest-return technical investment an intermediate drummer can make, and it is what our how to drum faster piece is really about — speed comes from mechanics, not from effort.

Then play something simple, extremely well. Record a plain eight-bar groove and listen back honestly. That is his whole point, and it is uncomfortable.

Our rudiments guide covers the foundation, and the Gear Guru will spec a kit if you want one — though a practice pad will do for this.

Where to start

• The Drumeo Gab podcast episode, “Simple Is Not Simple”. The clearest statement of his position.
• His open-close video lesson. 175 minutes on one technique, and worth it.
• His independence demonstrations. For the sheer improbability.

Final thoughts

Drum education splits fairly cleanly into people who show you things and people who explain things. Madar is firmly in the second camp, and the topic he has chosen — hand mechanics — is the one where explanation matters most, because you cannot see it happening.

The Viola Smith award is for defying expectations. Being an extreme-independence specialist whose main message is “stop overplaying” qualifies.

Read about Emmanuelle Caplette and Dom Famularo — two more educators who won Drumeo Legacy awards for teaching rather than playing.