How would you break up a 2 hour practice session?

3rd Wheel

Junior Member
What it do Fellas!?,

A little back ground. I'm 44 yrs. old, been drumming since the Summer of 1984, just a few months before I turned 12. My divorce will be final on December 2nd, 2016. I have no children. I have a great 40-50 hour a week job. I just moved into a practice studio last week. Having said all that , I can finally just play and practice. I need to work on my dynamics and tempo, so the metronome will be in heavy use. I've always wanted to play somewhat fast double bass/pedal just for the fun of it, so I will working on that.

I've realized as much as I love all styles of music, deep down I'm a rock player, so I will be focusing more on that and getting better at it. Right now Matt Gartska is a huge influence, so my head is in that space.

How would y'all spend two hours a day practicing?
 
You are almost the same as me.. i started at 44 though and am 46 now.. no kids or wife and time to kill..

My setup is in my basement and i have a old projector that i use with a old computer to project videos of lessons or just bands on the wall in front of my kit. Of course you could just use a tv or whatever. But that has helped me not get bored.. just messing around on youtube with suggestions on the right side bar has opened up a ton of things to try.

As for the time aspect.. i spend 1 hour doing lessons (usually from my downloaded drumeo pdf's.) Independence or triplets or whatever i'm in the mood for that night. then 2-3 hours of playing with bands or whatever music i like. I find that splitting the time up like that keeps me from getting too bored. If i were to just sit at a kit and do rudiments or whatever i would have just quit in 3 weeks. :)

I still do 1-2 hours per night every night and alot of nights it goes to 3-4 hours.. i feel bad if i don't do at least a hour though.
 
There are lots of threads of practicing.

Practicing is individual and depends of exactly where you are and where you wanna go.


I generally break my practice into sections, usually 30 mins long, that represent different things.

I try to focus on things I don't know and incorporate that into my warm-up and also into my day when I'm not at the kit.

I work quite a bit at my double bass chops, but I've never gone for, or have any interest in blinding metal speed. I want control and pretty much what I do is do the same exercises as with my hands, within reason. I work all 4 limbs as they were the same + offcourse snare/rudiment stuff in the hands.

Getting fast singles on DB isn't necessary the same as aving freedom and control do execute anything in other situations.

If you're into Matt, there's a Drumeo vid on youtube where he breaks down his method pretty clearly. It's nothing new, very standard way of working on stuff, he just modified to fit his needs.

I offcourse use Stick Control and reading texts like Syncopation as anyone else, but personally I'm quite fond of using the basic accent sheet that many methods like Chaffe fat backs, Benny Greb and also the new DiCenso book build on.

Really, it's just all possible accents in a group of 4. It gives a clear defined line and can be interpreted in any possible way. There are basic ways and then there are ways I got inspired to do by some etude or soe lick I heard.

I think the idea is to kep a log of sorts and be aware of what you're actually doing.

See where things overlap and see if it has any actual value.

As long as you got some basics down, you get your goals on paper first, then the method.

Everything works and has a purpose, but have a clear vision of what you're going for and then work towards that.

I work on many different things, but that's because I have a lot of time.

Working on one thing at a time until you really got it is probably the best.

I'd add in some sort of fundamentals/conditioning exercise every day, but that doesn't have to be the same every day.

If you go through a set of exercises there will be places you get stuck and the best practice method is to make a note of that and do extra work there, not just keep going through.
 
There are a lot of threads on practicing here, with tons of great ideas.

I like to do rotating rudiments... I don't know if I made that term up or not.

Basically, I'll go through the rudiments with both hands, but then start switching up limbs. Right hand, left foot. Left foot, right foot. Right foot, right hand... et cetera. This not only improves your technique and playing ability, but it gets your limb independence going.

I don't have a drum set in my condo, so I just use a practice pad and tap my feet, but it's helpful to do on a drum set as well.

After the rudiments, you can take some exercises out of a book (I like the Ted Reed book) and do the same thing, rotating limbs. Next you can set up an ostinato (rock pattern is fine) and then have one limb go through the exercise, and pick a new limb each time.

I never practice beats or grooves, but if you want to save it for the end, and not as long a your technical exercises.... that's more for fun, and to incorporate some of the ideas you learned from your technical exercises.
 
These are all great suggestions, thanks! I did realize last night I need to have a plan and need to keep note of what I'm working on. It's funny how you can do something for so many years but still need some guidance.

This morning I decided to treat my new journey as though I'm a beginner. I'm really excited!
 
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