Practice Routines

[oddrax]

Hello, I am new in here, and I think that the entire website is Awesome, in fact I love every part of it, well my question is this, what is your Practice Routine? I saw NUTHA JASON's double stroke routine wich is interesting, but what is YOUR Practice Routine???

[zambizzi]

Hello, I am new in here, and I think that the entire website is Awesome, in fact I love every part of it, well my question is this, what is your Practice Routine? I saw NUTHA JASON's double stroke routine wich is interesting, but what is YOUR Practice Routine???

Here's what I typically do over 2-3 hrs. everyday, longer on weekends:

1. Warm-up w/ rudiments on pad. Singles, doubles, diddles, drags, flams, etc. including a few of the exercises my drum teacher has given me and some I've developed on my own. This portion fluctuates and sometimes includes Stick Control and a couple of other books I use. (30min - 1hr)

2. Jump to the kit - warm up feet w/ rudiments. Then, feet + hands using rudiments and basic patterns moving around the kit. (30min - 1hr)

3. Work on a short list of grooves & fills I've been developing over time....sometimes w/ metronome, sometimes without. I usually end up transcribing some stuff of my own in this time. (30min - 1hr)

4. Work from one or all of these books:
Chapin's Advanced Techniques...
Mel Bay's Modern Drumset
...and a few others I have laying around
(20min - 45min)

5. Play along to whatever set I'm currently working on w/ my band....and maybe a few other tunes I like to play along to otherwise. This sometimes includes some of the tracks from "Turn It Up and Lay It Down".
(1 hr)

I usually skip some of these steps or shorten them during the work week as it's hard to get more than 2 hrs.....but I usually shoot for 3. On Sat & Sun, including jamming w/ the band, I get 4-5 hrs. each weekend-day.

[jayp]

I practice rudiments on a pad for about 45 minutes to an hour working on exercises given by my teacher or practicing out of stick control basically whatever I think needs work.

singles
doubles
paradiddles

Try this exercise its great for learning how to throw in accents wherever you want!

play sixteenth notes at a low volume(ghostnotes) with accents on each quarter note for 1 measure then move the accent to the E for 1 measure then to the & for 1 measure and finally the A and REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT!

EXERSISE: make sure your ghost notes stay low and even

1-e-&-a-2-e-&-a-3-e-&-a-4-e-&-a

1-e-&-a-2-e-&-a-3-e-&-a-4-e-&-a

1-e-&-a-2-e-&-a-3-e-&-a-4-e-&-a

1-e-&-a-2-e-&-a-3-e-&a-4-e-&-a

Then after I've warmed up my hands I play grooves given to me by my teacher and my own improv

[zambizzi]

1-e-&-a-2-e-&-a-3-e-&-a-4-e-&-a

1-e-&-a-2-e-&-a-3-e-&-a-4-e-&-a

1-e-&-a-2-e-&-a-3-e-&-a-4-e-&-a

1-e-&-a-2-e-&-a-3-e-&a-4-e-&-a


Those are really good exercises - I believe they're from Jeff Queen's DVD.

[samthebeat]

My timing varies but roughly, I practice everything as both grooves and on single surfaces. Independance and extra co-ordiantion aspects are allways indcluded, like keeping the hi hat going, or playing a foot ostinato underneath.

The execrsises/patterns change as I get them down. Once I am comfortable, say after a couple of weeks I move on to a new pattern

30 mins on various Hand and Foot Stickings
30 mins on varrious Hand Stickings
30 mins on Accents
30 mins groove control/independence

I also work on rudiments away from the kit, doubles, singles and flams mainly. This can be as much as 2 hrs watching a film, or an hour focused with a metronome and stuff.

[Mr. Pasquini]

If I had the patience to do what I used to do... This is me now

5-10 min. Stretching: Ankles, wrists (very important for me especially because of wrist problems), Shoulders, knees, all leg muscles just whatever comes to mind. Back is becoming more important now.

15 min. warming up: Singles, Doubles, Paradiddles, Flams

10 - 30min: Simple grooving with fills. Standards with no real variation.

?: Groove and fill experiments

?: play alongs

[fromyesterday]

I try and vary as much as possible. I usually warm up for 20 minutes by playing stuff from stick control with my hands and feet and then do a hour+ of various things depending on how I feel about my playing.

A good example is I was recently in the studio and realized I'm letting click tracks restrict my playing because I'm afraid to experiment and get off beat. So I've been practicing a wide variety of metronome settings with a groove and fills, focusing on not stumbling and staying on beat.

Or I might devote some time to a book, like New Breed

Sometimes I just work patterns I hear in my head or in a song out which typically works out coordination problems if the ideas are new to me or odd to me.

I'm also in a band so I get a few nights per week of live band playing some of which involves sequencing and sampling so I have a few tracks with a click in my phones.

At home I'll bust the practice pad out while watching TV or sitting around. I usually work on Stick Control or Master Studies style stuff.

Before this I used to just work on chops with a metronome. I found that I was having trouble applying the stuff musically without devoting some time to the more musical aspects of playing drums. Also when I worked on chops 24/7 I would overplay with the band which can be more than crippling to a song.

[fazzybOO`]

Wow, some of you guys. I just jump on a kit and do what I feel like.

[Spreggy]

I like to warm up by playing the 4 paradiddle permutations on ride and snare (RLRR LRLL, RLLR LRRL, RRLR LLRL, RLRL LRLR) as 8th notes over a samba pattern on the feet. It seems to sort of break my limbs loose of each other pretty nicely. I play it straight, swing it, up and down tempo, move it around the toms. 10 minutes maybe.

I must say of all the many exercises I've played, that paradiddles over samba did the most for my 4-way independence.

[groovemaster_flex]

Right now...

1. Start off with the a drill. Iunno what it's called. Repeated 7 times.
Single strokes for two bars, 4 counts each, then double strokes for two bars, 4 counts each, then single paradiddles 4 counts, two bars each.

2. The 8 to 1 drill. I think everyone should know this one. Repeated 7 times.
8 strokes left, 8 strokes right, 7 strokes left, 7 strokes right, etc....

3. Paradiddles. Lots of paradiddles. 2 minutes each, done at a faster speed than what's comfortable. Single paradiddles, double paradiddles, paradiddlediddles. Etc.

4. Triplets and variations on triplets. RLR RLR RLR.... LRL LRL LRL... for two minutes. Alternate sticking RLR LRL... for two minutes etc. RRR LLL RRR LLL... for two minutes.

5. Applying rudiments to grooves. Play a straight rock beat for 2 bars, then break into a paradiddle fill for a bar. Back to a beat for two counts 5 stroke rolls for a bar, etc...

6. Then whatever my drum teacher assigned me for 5-10 minutes, depending on the difficult.

7. Play along to a song I sort of have troubles with for 15ish minutes.

8. Cool down with an easy song.

And stretch my arms after :)

[jayp]

Right now...

1. Start off with the a drill. Iunno what it's called. Repeated 7 times.
Single strokes for two bars, 4 counts each, then double strokes for two bars, 4 counts each, then single paradiddles 4 counts, two bars each.

2. The 8 to 1 drill. I think everyone should know this one. Repeated 7 times.
8 strokes left, 8 strokes right, 7 strokes left, 7 strokes right, etc....

3. Paradiddles. Lots of paradiddles. 2 minutes each, done at a faster speed than what's comfortable. Single paradiddles, double paradiddles, paradiddlediddles. Etc.

4. Triplets and variations on triplets. RLR RLR RLR.... LRL LRL LRL... for two minutes. Alternate sticking RLR LRL... for two minutes etc. RRR LLL RRR LLL... for two minutes.

5. Applying rudiments to grooves. Play a straight rock beat for 2 bars, then break into a paradiddle fill for a bar. Back to a beat for two counts 5 stroke rolls for a bar, etc...

6. Then whatever my drum teacher assigned me for 5-10 minutes, depending on the difficult.

7. Play along to a song I sort of have troubles with for 15ish minutes.

8. Cool down with an easy song.

And stretch my arms after :)

Great routine my friend, sounds almost exactly like what I do.

[andyplaysdrums]

i'm a big fan of diddle rudiments across the kit with quarter notes on the bass drum
something along the lines of:
RLRR LRLL RLRLRR LRLRLL RLRLRLRR LRLRLRLL RLRRLL RLRRLL
B B B B B B B B B B B

also doing double stroke rolls on the kit making the second stroke on another drum/cymbal

T being a tom tom
S being a snare drum
H being a hihat
with the hand pattern RRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLLRRLL and so on and so forth

TSHSTSHSTSHS and whatnot
it's also a really good excercise for doing a dennis chambers one handed fill
it is a floor tom, snare drum, bass drum fill all in 16th notes

STBBTSBBSTBB it is somewhat of a swinging motion

hopefully this helps
andy in kc

[James_E]

I was thinking about this... and I'd like some opinions on this, when the question is posed "how would you structure a 1 hour practice routine"?

I have about 1 hour per day to practice. I'm at the beginner level but can certainly play some tunes and have some basic rudiments going.

If you had 1 hour per day, how would you structure it?

here is what I currently do:

Rudiments with hands - 25 minutes (for me I'm just working on single stroke roll, single stroke 5, paradiddles, and double stroke roll.) I use that drill where you do 1/8ths, 16ths and bursts of 32nds based on that grid Nutha Jason provided)

Feet - 10 minutes. Work on bass drum techniques using method's from Matt Ritter's DVD
Double bass - 5 minutes (just slow double bass and some beats from that mirrored double bass book)

beats from realistic Rock - 15 minutes

Play along to some songs, either Tommy Igoe Groove essentials tracks or cover songs I want to learn - 10 minutes

That's a full hour. I use a metronome for everything except the songs.

When I do get extra time during the week I work on songs/beats more.

On weekends I can get more time in and I spend more time on songs, and also try to work a bit from "Four Way Coordination" or from "Advanced Techniques For the Modern drummer", but I'm still on the first 2 pages.


So.. how would YOU structure it if you only had 1 hour per day?