Practice routine for a serious drummer

Exactly! Precisely! That's what my teacher told me to do. I'm still working on technique, simply not on repetitive exercises like do purely Stone Killer or Finger technique, which are important, but not necessary to do 3h a day.

I started today Sticking Patterns and I'm loving it. It's a good challenge to sight read together with figuring out the stickings to use with Moeller and such.

I'm also going through the Time Functional Patterns which I did in the past and love it.
Cool. Your teacher knows far more than I, but I did study with one of Chafee's long-time students post-grad at Berklee and picked up what I could.

Yeah sticking patterns introduced a new way of approaching playing and helped sight-reading. Just the first single-quad accents pages helped a lot for me. jmo be sure you lead with your left hand as much or more than right, really exaggerate the moeller whipping motion and keep the low strokes as low as possible. That's probably where I got the most out of moeller and patterns, the extremely slow practice and exaggerated motions.
 
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Buddy didn't practice...LOL. I heard that long ago and was actually a little disappointed. Not in Buddy, but people accepting it.
 
Cool. Your teacher knows far more than I, but I did study with one of Chafee's long-time students post-grad at Berklee and picked up what I could.

Yeah sticking patterns introduced a new way of approaching playing and helped sight-reading. Just the first single-quad accents pages helped a lot for me. jmo be sure you lead with your left hand as much or more than right, really exaggerate the moeller whipping motion and keep the low strokes as low as possible. That's probably where I got the most out of moeller and patterns, the extremely slow practice and exaggerated motions.

Yaps, this teacher I spoke studied in Berkley and was a student of Chaffee :)

That page is great, so simple, but helps a lot on sight reading and getting the motion right
 
I'm a found believer of studying and trying to master technique. You'll probably never master technique, because as drummers, we always love to try something new and learn things that we haven't tried before. As for the speed thing, I'm not a fan of it, too many of the newer drummers have that blazing speed, and that's great, nothing against it, but in my opinion technique is very important. I guess I'm just old school in that thinking alas Steve Smith and kats like him. The speed will come on it's own...
 
Don't over-think (my biggest downfall), the best approach is one that Mike Johnston was quoted "The biggest competition when drumming is yourself".... but at the same time remember that practicing technique is all good and well but it's all about the music at the end of the day...... That's why someone like Ash Soan is doing all the recording session work... his technique is pretty bad, but does it matter if he's made it as a living with top artists?
 
My routine:

-2 hrs- F*** around on the pad watching TV until the lady gets pissed and tells me where to put my practice pad. Suggested location inappropriate for family website like this.

-20 min- Roll my eyes and make a huge dramatic show of my willingness to appease her no practice pad at the dinner table or while watching TV rules.

-1 hr- Go down to the kit, screw around practicing blazing fills and crazy patterns that I will never use in music ever.

- Varies - Pull up the laptop to find some new practice material, end up stuck on DW writing inane things like this.

-15 to 30 min- Take a break.

-30 min- Go back inside and get rightly berated for spending so much time playing drums and not hanging out with the lady.


As you can see. This is a pretty serious regimen.

Ha! I second longgun's comment. This is hauntingly familiar. Especially this one...

"-20 min- Roll my eyes and make a huge dramatic show of my willingness to appease her no practice pad at the dinner table or while watching TV rules."

Except for me, add in constant interruptions from a one year old and three year old. Which of course only amplifies the problems created by your step #6 "-30 min- Go back inside and get rightly berated for spending so much time playing drums and not hanging out with the lady."
 
Are you taking this diploma for any specific reason, or just for personal satisfaction?

My brother has spent the last 7 years gaining a 1st in History with the O.U and is most of the way through his masters. This on top of working full time. He admits it is purely for his own satisfaction and will not help him in his career. He is the driven one in the family, by the way.
 
Hi guys,

I've been playing for around 15 years now and I recently enrolled on a Higher Diploma in Drums, which is a 1 year intensive course here in London.

I've decided to create a practice routine to make the best out of my time, but I'm not sure if it's the best one, so I would like to ear your opinion on it. I believe I lack on speed, which is something I definitely would like to build upon.

Typically I play from 3 to 5 hours a day, which brings to my daily routine:

20m - stone killer
20m - moeller
20m - push pull
30m - rolls or flams (alternate days)
30m - diddles or drags (alternate days)
30m - finger technique
1h - funk grooves
30m - Learning songs for the week in school
20m - subdivisions
20m - independence

Do you believe I'm focusing too much on technique? I would love to hear your comments on it.

Cheers!

I kinda feel like this is a lot to go on, when you can get more results with less effort.

I treat practicing like working out. If you work the same muscle groups out constantly, you're going to exhaust them and plateau. You can also work exercises where you workout more than one muscle group, and the same thing can apply with drumming. You can work on things like moeller, push-pull, and all that jazz in a regular warm-up. You should be paying attention to all this stuff while you're playing anyways.

For me, a typical routine is short. I'll play through a couple pages of Ted Reed's Syncopation (playing the 16th note exercises with the bass drum is particularly exhilarating). Then I'll move on to jazz swing and latin feel, also using Ted Reed's as a guide. Then I'll move on to trading 4s and 8s, which, again, you can use latin or jazz as your groove, and then incorporate all the rudiments and linear patterns that you used in warmup for. The most important thing is, all while you're doing this, is to pay attention to HOW you're playing, not just WHAT. And I generally finish practice in under an hour.

Usually, I beat out paradiddles and whatnot all day. Sitting at dinner, while teaching my kids, waiting at a traffic light, etc etc etc.

Just be careful that you don't overwork yourself when you're practicing!
 
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