Carter Beauford is famous for his capability to adjust to many different genres, and both his ambidextrous and his open hand drumming styles. He plays the drums and sings backing vocals in the group. Beauford was ranked with a “Rolling Stone” magazine reader’s survey in 2010 as the tenth best drummer ever.
Carter Beauford was exposed to the drums at age three. At that time, his dad had purchased tickets to some Buddy Rich concert and couldn’t locate anyone to see his son, so he took youthful Beauford along to the show. Next show, Beauford’s dad purchased his son a tin drum set with paper heads, since Beauford revealed so much interest in learning the instrument. Beauford started performing professionally when he was nine. Beauford describes his unusual playing fashion in his educational video “Below The Table & Drumming”, crediting his usage of left hand-lead on a right handed kit to playing his own kit before a mirror as a kid in a effort to emulate his favourite drummers, like Buddy Rich. Carter Beauford unknowingly put in place his drums in inverse of whichever performer and place that he’d in mind, in an endeavor to make the mirrored picture of himself fit that of the crowd’s viewpoint, as he’d seen it on stage and TV. This helped him to become fully ambidextrous at an extremely early age, albeit by accident.