need tips for practicing with bands

[lovemysonors]

I practice with my band twice a week and then once a week on my own to work out any sections that I feel weak on.

I'm not the greatest drummer and am at intermediate level or so I would say, and feel that a good drummer wouldn't need to spend one night soloing to practice sections, that they would just be able to roll it out during band practice and after practicing the song 5 times each practice, get it down. That's about playing the song 10 times a week with the band. And I think the song should be down by then, no?

Am I being hard on myself or is this realistic to expect from what I believe to be a 'solid, good drummer?' I realize everyone has their own style and pace, but I am getting frustrated that I can't just lay down fills or make everything clean perfectly after playing the song several times.

[Casper "DrPowerStroke" Paludan]

I practice with my band twice a week and then once a week on my own to work out any sections that I feel weak on.

I'm not the greatest drummer and am at intermediate level or so I would say, and feel that a good drummer wouldn't need to spend one night soloing to practice sections, that they would just be able to roll it out during band practice and after practicing the song 5 times each practice, get it down. That's about playing the song 10 times a week with the band. And I think the song should be down by then, no?

Am I being hard on myself or is this realistic to expect from what I believe to be a 'solid, good drummer?' I realize everyone has their own style and pace, but I am getting frustrated that I can't just lay down fills or make everything clean perfectly after playing the song several times.

Okay, to me it sounds as if you are thinking too much. Relax a little more and maybe ask your bandmates what they think? If you can, post a recording of you playing to a song with or without the band and we will be happy to comment!
Casper

[lovemysonors]

Okay, to me it sounds as if you are thinking too much. Relax a little more and maybe ask your bandmates what they think? If you can, post a recording of you playing to a song with or without the band and we will be happy to comment!
Casper
ok, here's a song with a few flaws, and i know the buildup tempo increases but it's one of our rehearsal recordings...well, actually i just got fired from this band because i was told we didn't mesh musically. i'm just trying to figure out how i can improve my drumming. this recording isn't tight, the kick drum lags at points and i know that, but we've been playing together for 2 months and for the majority of the time, i played a shitty kit with Thai sticks very lightly so as not to piss the upstairs neighbours off in their crammed bedroom in their basement apartment and this is one of the first few recordings on my nice kit with regular sticks, hitting at almost regular volume (still in their bedroom but when the neighbours weren't home, haha). these could be a list of excuses i suppose, and if i were a solid drummer, i should probably be able to play on any kit in any situation or setup in any teeny tiny space or wherever...this is what they told me and i believe it to some degree. on the other hand, you can't an acoustic guitar and tell a guitarist to practice only on that at a reduced volume and then play a show and rip into guitar solos and sound technically stellar with no error, can you??

[Joel Woody]

actually, what i used to do with my bands, i would have them record them playing to a click track (without drums) and have them burn that on a cd...i would take that home, and practice and make stuff up...do you think that might help??

[lovemysonors]

actually, what i used to do with my bands, i would have them record them playing to a click track (without drums) and have them burn that on a cd...i would take that home, and practice and make stuff up...do you think that might help??
i'll keep that in mind for sure, thanks

[davidr]

From my band experience, I spend time writing parts for a song but if I have to practice a part to be able to play it in the band room its probably something that pushes my ability so I will practice it but I will play a simpler part in the band room. I think it's more important when playing with your band not to be experimenting with difficult things in the songs. If you can't play a part comfortably I wouldn't have it as the foundation for a song.

[davidr]

in the song you play below my advice is as follows: keep your fills simple, work on the main groove of the song to a metronome just to tighten the screws. Remember, a lot of what makes a drummer sound good is confidence. Relax, trust yourself to stay in time and just feel it. Metronome practice will build your confidence and remember that the biggest thing to watch out for is fills for every beginning drummer. When you do fills nod your head or tap your left heel along to the groove to so the fill doesn't change speed.

Importantly: HAVE FUN

[what the funk of it]

First of all, let me say you have a very consistent sounding rim click.

Spend some time on your timing, always practice to a click. It helps if the band you're joining already has a CD that you can just play to over and over at home (assuming the recordings are of solid tempo). This is more of a luxery though, not all bands you join will have something released already.

If you don't have anything to work with just memorize the songs (or chart them out) and play them - just you and your best friend Dr. Beat (or whatever make of metronome you happen to own). Focus on staying tight and not speeding up during those climactic moments of the song - I'm guilty of doing this all the time.

When practice time with the band comes along, really lock in with your bass player. His lick and your groove should be making love to one another, in perfect unison - as one. If you're locking in with the bass, you're meshing with the band. Good luck with the future bands!

[drumsnmind]

i'll keep that in mind for sure, thanks

ok what would you like to know about working with different bands?
keep in mind when you sit in, with a band that your not used to.first listen,second count it out,third find out what their wanting to feel"the groove" Fourth keep it simple don't be a rock star you will piss off the leader and get fired.

[sauceisback]

I practice with my band twice a week and then once a week on my own to work out any sections that I feel weak on.

I'm not the greatest drummer and am at intermediate level or so I would say, and feel that a good drummer wouldn't need to spend one night soloing to practice sections, that they would just be able to roll it out during band practice and after practicing the song 5 times each practice, get it down. That's about playing the song 10 times a week with the band. And I think the song should be down by then, no?

Am I being hard on myself or is this realistic to expect from what I believe to be a 'solid, good drummer?' I realize everyone has their own style and pace, but I am getting frustrated that I can't just lay down fills or make everything clean perfectly after playing the song several times.

you just said you're getting frustrated trying to do the same thing all over again, and not even getting it right... let me tell you bro, in drums we try to develop muscle memory, which can be gain by doing a pattern more FREQUENTLY, rather than in a long duration of time like 3 hours a day but doing it once a week only. and the higher muscle memory you have, the simpler the things in drums that you can do.

if you practice everyday for just even 30 mins, or better yet an hour and then do it everyday, progress will be a lot faster trust me. this has nothing to do with how many IQ you have or what college degree you have, short frequent practice is better than long hours of practice in a once a week basis.

actually if you are going to look at pro drummers and how do they do the things that they do, actually they practice everyday for 5 hours! so that really nails everything, but in our case, we work, we go to school and stuff, an everyday practice of atleast 30 mins - to 1 hour is good.

[grannydrums]

I am in an amateur band that practice once a week. but i still practice by myself every day. I use a metronome. I dont often play the whole song, but make up an excercise of the different beats and fills. I practice changing from say the verse to the chorus and vica versa and practice practice practice the fills making sure that as i come out of them i am still on the beat. I also practice the introductions a lot.

If i cant get to the studio a do rudiments on a practice pad with a metronome, and again practice the fills. Even if they are normally round the kit the timing is still the same. In band rehearsal if there is one i am not solid on (actually i mean one where i am less solid than all the others--- i do have timing issues) then until the band have jelled i dont do any fills, then once we get it together we practice it with me doing the main beats and then one with me trying the fills. Everyone in the band should respect each others space and needs.

[ace76543]

tip: bands don't usually get a song down by only practicing at band practice. each member works a lot more behind the scenes. you should practice as much as you possibly can if you want to be able to get songs down perfectly. i usually practice songs 10-12 times a night if i really want to get it down

[grannydrums]

anyway I would have thought that whilst we play because we want to be in a band dont we also want to develop our own techniques--you need time to do this by yourself. I dont mean highly advanced polyrythms and things, just improving speed and co-ordination. Perhpas it is because I am older but I find i need regular practice to keep up speed and help with timing.

[larryace]

Also, just keep at it. Keep plugging away. Mastery comes with many hundreds nay thousands of hours playing. Don't get discouraged, keep improving a little at a time, understand that you need a flawless sense of meter. Out of everyone in the band you have to be the most developed at tempo, meter and having a sense of the correct feel for whatever song you are attempting. You have to be confident beyond confident about what you play. This takes a lot of time.

[veggo32]

There are books that actually have drum fills written out for you. They are called drum books. Pick one up open it and begin digesting all the fills you can eat. There is no other way. In order to experiment effectively you need to learn some fills to the point where you can instantaneously spew them out in your sleep. What's the use of pulling off a great fill (by accident) if you can never repeat it again. Sorry, to sound a bit harsh but there really is no other way around it, don't expect to wake up one day and all of a sudden you are busting wicked fills out of nowhere, that's never going to happen.

[Chris LIS]

I practice with my band twice a week and then once a week on my own to work out any sections that I feel weak on.

I'm not the greatest drummer and am at intermediate level or so I would say, and feel that a good drummer wouldn't need to spend one night soloing to practice sections, that they would just be able to roll it out during band practice and after practicing the song 5 times each practice, get it down. That's about playing the song 10 times a week with the band. And I think the song should be down by then, no?

Am I being hard on myself or is this realistic to expect from what I believe to be a 'solid, good drummer?' I realize everyone has their own style and pace, but I am getting frustrated that I can't just lay down fills or make everything clean perfectly after playing the song several times.

It is possible that you didn't take enough time to develop certain skills before joining a band. If you are having trouble, then just play simple and what your comfortable with. If trouble continues, practice by yourself and play SLOWER until you have your desired groove down.(mess up, play slower, mess up again, play even slower, etc.) Make time to practice with a metronome as well. and honestly, simple is often better anyway! Remember to think of how your band sounds then just yourself!

and if you want to learn to play fills at the spur of the moment, then practice improvising until your fills sound good.

[RUBB3R DUCKIE5]

I practice with my band twice a week and then once a week on my own to work out any sections that I feel weak on.

I'm not the greatest drummer and am at intermediate level or so I would say, and feel that a good drummer wouldn't need to spend one night soloing to practice sections, that they would just be able to roll it out during band practice and after practicing the song 5 times each practice, get it down. That's about playing the song 10 times a week with the band. And I think the song should be down by then, no?

Am I being hard on myself or is this realistic to expect from what I believe to be a 'solid, good drummer?' I realize everyone has their own style and pace, but I am getting frustrated that I can't just lay down fills or make everything clean perfectly after playing the song several times.

Yeah your being a little hard on yourself...
One thing that will always help you is...Listen to the bass player he'll never lose time if he does...He sucks haha...Bass players shoulden't ever loose the timing.

[nhzoso]

I have only been playing for a few years so I won't try to get in over my head but some parts sounded great and others sounded like you lost confidence or started thinking about something else. Is that an original song?

Props for having the cajones to post a song, I have yet to do that.

[aydee]

I practice with my band twice a week and then once a week on my own to work out any sections that I feel weak on.

Thats a good amount of band practice.

I'm not the greatest drummer and am at intermediate level or so I would say, and feel that a good drummer wouldn't need to spend one night soloing to practice sections, that they would just be able to roll it out during band practice and after practicing the song 5 times each practice, get it down.

Depends on what you are playing. Like you said there are 2 parts to practice.. with the band collectively and working out /perfecting your own individual part.

That's about playing the song 10 times a week with the band. And I think the song should be down by then, no?

Depends on the level of musicianship and b) the musical chemistry of the band

Am I being hard on myself or is this realistic to expect from what I believe to be a 'solid, good drummer?'

No one is ever too hard on oneself, imo. One has to learn how to deal with it and get to the next level, if that is indeed your goal.

I realize everyone has their own style and pace, but I am getting frustrated that I can't just lay down fills or make everything clean perfectly after playing the song several times.

Thats because you first have to internalize your part and explore various ways of playing it. Once that become charted territory, then playing fills ( or NOT playing fills, and the kind of fills..) is the easy part. For some thart come in 2 rehearsals and for others it takes many more.

The question that needs to be answered is does everyone know and can play their part? Its point you have your schtik down when the guitar player is changing things around every run thru...

[veggo32]

I just got a student who spends all of his time recording with his band. He is also frustrated like you, he has been playing for 2 years but he has never learned the basics, never practiced rudiments, just his double bass skills which are less than mediocre.
I admit its fun to record and listen to yourself. but the truth of the matter is that unless you put the time in to learn your instrument or at least become fairly proficient at it, it does not matter how many times you practice a song, your lack of skill will always be the limiting factor. You have to have good time and know the basics.
You should be hard on yoursef and sorry to say you will not receive sympathy from me. Denial will limit your advancement. You know what you have to do. So do it. Be the best drummer you can possibly be.

[Avendesoran]

For the longest time when I was practicing with my old band all we did was run through our songs one by one or play mock set lists for a show. This is very limited in how much it will help you learn the song.

Almost all modern songs are composed of a few phrases with repetition, eg) Chorus, Verse, Bridge, Solos etc..

Every member of the band must know what each of these parts off by heart. You should be able to tell your band "start at the second verse" and 1 2 3 4! you start. This will make the song a lot easier to memorize in your muscles and transitions between the different riffs a lot easier.

Going about to gain this kind of mastery of a song with 5 members of my band was not an easy process. An example of one of my practice sessions:
"Okay everyone lets play song X, pay attention to any parts that sound like they need to be smoothed out"
--after the song make a list
"okay the intro transition into the first verse is sloppy"
"Chorus beat needs to be tighter"
"Guitars need to be tighter in the bridge leading up to the guitar solo, we're speeding up"
--Bring out the click track and set to the tempo of the song
"Okay we're going to play the last two bars of the intro and then the first half of the verse (4 bars long) and we'll loop after one bar of clicks"
For example lets pretend that one bar of Intro is A and one bar of verse is B
1 2 3 4! A A B B B B <-- rinse and repeat untill you feel the transition is SOLID
Now if we were still feeling like it was kind of sloppy I would reduce the click track speed by 1/4 and we play the same reptition at 75% speed. I would keep reducing speed a little bit at a time if we were really stuck on a complicated part. Slowly we would move back up to regular speed.
Once it felt good we moved on to the next item on our list.
We did this for everyone of our songs
One of the most unproductive things that I know a lot of bands do, is when they think there's a problem in the middle of the song they'll "take it from the top". Isolate the problem, then work it out.

As a result of this new practice regime, our band chemistry developed and we learned how to really groove with eachother on the various riffs and transitions.

This style of practice can get very difficult to manage. Example: If your singer doesn't play an instrument then he/she will probably get very bored at times where the band needs to practice sections without vocals. Often when all 5 of us were in the room at least one of us is itching to play our instrument and it can get very difficult to organize everyone. A regular problem with my band was when one of us needed to talk about a part in our song another person couldn't help but play a few licks. It is very difficult to talk over someone else's instrument. One solution to this problem was to have extended improvised jam sessions, sometimes these would last upwards of half an hour.

For drumming, practice with a click but try not to be completely dependant on it, practice using your left foot to keep time. Dont worry too much about the fills untill you have the groove solid. Fills will come after. Listen to what your mates are playing, imo more important than impressive chops is dynamics. As the drummer you control most of the dynamics in the song. If you want to add a fill, listen to what everyone is playing at that spot. What kind of mood is portrated? is it a build up? the denoument of a song? Is it leading into a soft part? heavy part? You can make some very nice fills with simple 8ths and 16th notes if you use dynamics. Learn the stickings of the rudiments to get more complex.

This is wat worked for me.

Casper,
I really like the idea of having rest of the band record to a click and then being able to jam to that at home. That would have really helped me but I never thought of doing that, lol.

[charvinaldo]

I just got a student who spends all of his time recording with his band. He is also frustrated like you, he has been playing for 2 years but he has never learned the basics, never practiced rudiments, just his double bass skills which are less than mediocre.
I admit its fun to record and listen to yourself. but the truth of the matter is that unless you put the time in to learn your instrument or at least become fairly proficient at it, it does not matter how many times you practice a song, your lack of skill will always be the limiting factor. You have to have good time and know the basics.
You should be hard on yoursef and sorry to say you will not receive sympathy from me. Denial will limit your advancement. You know what you have to do. So do it. Be the best drummer you can possibly be.

Thank YOU!!! do you have any suggestions on how to develope band chemistry? im probably way weaker on set than on trumpet piano and guitar, but when im working out these seperate parts, my band is composed of me on guitar 1 and 2, piano, and drums, while the other guys plays his bass. its impossible for us to get any chemsistry even though we know eachother really well. he refuses to clearly outline the structure, he can't remember when to change time signatures, and he thinks that ill come up with rythems and melodies for the lead while he plays random stuff that he thinks sounds good. ive been studying music almost all of my life, and while he can nail down various parts of songs, he cant ever play the whole thing as a whole, and he just goes off into his own little world playing his own tempo. We have some solid ideas, and our drummer who sits in with us who is way stronger a player than me locks in a tempo and plays wiht perfect crisp structure and dynamics and everything, we all practice enough to be pretty solid players especially for our ages and experience, but we can never get the full band clicking. You seem to be a teacher of some sort, and sorry if im just being a cvetch (complainer) but do you know how to increase chemistry? like i said, we followed your advice and we study and practice hard, and we strive to do our best but he can never translate this as a team.

[drummingdunc]

There are books that actually have drum fills written out for you. They are called drum books. Pick one up open it and begin digesting all the fills you can eat. There is no other way. In order to experiment effectively you need to learn some fills to the point where you can instantaneously spew them out in your sleep. What's the use of pulling off a great fill (by accident) if you can never repeat it again. Sorry, to sound a bit harsh but there really is no other way around it, don't expect to wake up one day and all of a sudden you are busting wicked fills out of nowhere, that's never going to happen.

On a related note, when you are writing a new song and once you have got your main part sussed, do you always play the same fills every time you play? My band are progressive metal, so the song structures are solid and there's a lot of playing in unison (matching riffs, etc), but where there is an obvious fill point, I tend to play something random. Often it will be similar each time, but should I get into the habit of writing a fill and sticking to it? As Veggo says, I might blast out a really cool fill but not remember it by the time we get to the end of a song! We sometimes record our practices so some good ideas can be built on, but a lot of the time we don't record and I have no idea what I played!

How does everyone else approach a new song?

[cdawg]

On a related note, when you are writing a new song and once you have got your main part sussed, do you always play the same fills every time you play? My band are progressive metal, so the song structures are solid and there's a lot of playing in unison (matching riffs, etc), but where there is an obvious fill point, I tend to play something random. Often it will be similar each time, but should I get into the habit of writing a fill and sticking to it? As Veggo says, I might blast out a really cool fill but not remember it by the time we get to the end of a song! We sometimes record our practices so some good ideas can be built on, but a lot of the time we don't record and I have no idea what I played!

How does everyone else approach a new song?

yeah, i have that prob, too. and if i'm having beers too, forget it. i think recording it would be the best tool, as a writing tool, specifically. it'll give you a chance to step back and hear what works and what doesn't. then, when that part comes up again when you're playing, you might recall the lick like you're listening to it.

[HeadRush]

I used to have the same problem with the band I was in
I really liked that idea of just letting the band record it with a click track while you take that recording home and practice to that in a situation where people aren't necessarily being hard on you or something like that.
also, just be open with your band and talk to them about mistakes and/or things you could make better

-Erik

[Class A Drummer]

It all depends on how difficult the music is. If its something really basic, and you are still having trouble, you need to find a teacher who can help you out. If its an incredibly difficult and fast tune, you are aloud to have as much trouble w/ it as you want haha.

One tip is to play along with music of course.

The other is to listen to alot of music. Just listen to a bunch of every genre out there. The more you lsiten to, the easier and more natural it will be to just sit down and play a song with little practice.