Riaan van Rensburg

About me:

I am a musician. I play drums and percussion and am very fortunate to make a living out of something I love: MUSIC. Since I can remember I played drums and knew from a very little age that music would be my career and that I'll be making my living by playing drums. I grew up in Johannesburg (SA) in a successful musical family. I was 3 years old when my dad came home with my first ever drumkit. I taught myself how to play and since the age of 4, I started playing drums in my parents' shows and tours. These tours carried on throughout my high school career. After school, I studied Jazz for 3 years and finished my diploma. That was when my freelance career as session musician started. I was very fortunate to have worked with great South-African artists. As a drummer I specialised in African rhythms and focused the early days of my profession in the African Jazz market. Here in SA, there is a big market for that type of music. That got me into percussion. I then made a study of West-African rhythms and apply these rhythms to the drum set, which gave my playing a different sound. But being a drummer/percussionist, my motto was always to be as versatile as possible. I wanted to be able to play anything. Especially as a drummer, I thought that I want to be able to adapted myself to any given situation(live or studio). I'm not going name all the groups and musicians that I've worked with, because there are so many. You can go to my website www.riaan.net and read all about that stuff. I will just say that everything I've done so far has been very different from each other and has ranged from African to Pop, from World-Music to Heavy Metal, from Hip-Hop to Drum and Bass, from playing percussion with house DJ's to Latin/Salsa, from Country to Reggae, and to even raw drum and percussion groups. Something else I really enjoy is facilitating drum circle events. I have worked in many companies that do these events in either schools or corporate team-buildings. One great thing about being a musician is that you tour a lot and therefore you see a lot about the country and other parts of the world. I've been to many different African countries, The USA, Japan,Finland Netherlands and UK. I lived in London for 17 months and played in many groups(had one of my own, check-out www.drumheads.com) and toured England, parts of Ireland and Cardiff with some of these bands and artists. Not to mention some of the lovely festivals and venues we've done. Currently I've just launched my first solo album here in South-Africa. It is an Afrikaans album. I am Afrikaans and wanted to put something back for our community doing it in such a way with the rhythm as the focus point. I incorporate all the different rhythms from the world into music with Afrikaans lyrics. Besides music, I love playing sport, watching sport and party. Having good times with my friends, is very important to me, and we love having a few drinks and going dancing, or just hanging out at someone's house. Don't you? .. .. .. .. .. ..music layout @ HOTFreeLayouts.com