Hi , i wanna make my practice routine. First i go with weak side of mine.Like my left hand,foot.But i realize my right hand goes weaker . But i just cant find a way to make my routine.I know theres not just weak hand , foot kind things.Theres combinations , rudiments , note readings , stick controls .. can you guys help me to make my practice routine?
Practice routine
- Thread starter reDrum
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Odd-Arne Oseberg
Platinum Member
There's no way to be general about a routine, you need a teacher for this sort of thing, but...
# 1 If you have an idea of your goals, keep a log and use that to refine your practice. It won't take long to get an overall picture.
# 2 For the weak foot/hand you can easily choose to work on ostinatos that put focus on those limbs. You won't have much luck if you exhaust yourself, so if presed for time or energy, do them instead of, not in addtion to other stuff.
# 3 Focus on stuff you don't know and focus on only one or a few things at a time.
# 1 If you have an idea of your goals, keep a log and use that to refine your practice. It won't take long to get an overall picture.
# 2 For the weak foot/hand you can easily choose to work on ostinatos that put focus on those limbs. You won't have much luck if you exhaust yourself, so if presed for time or energy, do them instead of, not in addtion to other stuff.
# 3 Focus on stuff you don't know and focus on only one or a few things at a time.
beyondbetrayal
Platinum Member
Need to know where you are at, your goals, types of music, strengths, weaknesses, how much time you have, how often you practice.
For myself I usually work on the stuff that needs improving. When you fix that stuff, it ALL gets better.
Start off with a warm up. You don't run or go to the gym without stretching. I stretch before drumming even for a few minutes.
I usually do about 5-10 minutes on the pad with a click. pick one rudiment a month even, that's 12 in a year. or every 2 months and get REALLY good at them.
Next, take that rudiment and apply it to the kit for 10 minutes or so. Use it as a groove, use it as a fill, move the accents around, play it as 1/8 notes, triplets, 16th notes, displace it. You can spend a year making the paradiddle sound different.
then i'll take some time, set up an environment, like 3 bars of groove, start a fill with the rudiment and improvise the last half. See how long you can go without repeating yourself.
after that I tend to have something I have been working on like independence or linear chops or groove.
finally to end a practice play to a few songs.
at the end of the day, use a metronome for practice and keep things tight. If it's not tight slow down.
For myself I usually work on the stuff that needs improving. When you fix that stuff, it ALL gets better.
Start off with a warm up. You don't run or go to the gym without stretching. I stretch before drumming even for a few minutes.
I usually do about 5-10 minutes on the pad with a click. pick one rudiment a month even, that's 12 in a year. or every 2 months and get REALLY good at them.
Next, take that rudiment and apply it to the kit for 10 minutes or so. Use it as a groove, use it as a fill, move the accents around, play it as 1/8 notes, triplets, 16th notes, displace it. You can spend a year making the paradiddle sound different.
then i'll take some time, set up an environment, like 3 bars of groove, start a fill with the rudiment and improvise the last half. See how long you can go without repeating yourself.
after that I tend to have something I have been working on like independence or linear chops or groove.
finally to end a practice play to a few songs.
at the end of the day, use a metronome for practice and keep things tight. If it's not tight slow down.
Thanks for the answer. But i wonder when i focus on a new lick , groove kind things.I just feel like leaving the standart things.. like single stroke , double stroke , paradiddle exercises. Before the start new licks grooves warming up is enough? Or additionaly have to work on standarts?
BonsaiMagpie
Junior Member
Check out Mike Johnston's youtube videos on 4 part practices. It brings in elements like creativity, rudiments, focus and, most importantly, fun.
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rebonn
Senior Member
After watching another local drummer's band video and noticing how fine his meter was, I turned on my old metronome, practiced a little and fell asleep with the metronome on. I'm gonna just leave it on when I get home from work and hopefully improve my meter and not develop a tic or something.
Todd Bishop (aka Cruise Ship Drummer) suggested playing a few versions of Three Camps every day. I've been doing that for a few months and I gotta say, that exercise is brilliant. If you look at the transcription (link below) and play it using only accented single strokes, that's a good exercise. Then slow it down and replace the accents with flams. Slow it down some more and replace the accents with ruffs. Then play accents normally, but replace the unaccented strokes with doubles.
The idea, as Todd suggested, is to memorize the piece and then throw away the transcription. You can play the single stroke, flam, ruff and roll versions in not much time at all, and then you've covered the core rudiments.
There are different versions of it online (for paradiddles, etc.), and I've started writing my own versions to work on different things. Great exercise. I use simplified endings instead of putting a little flourish on the end.
Here's the link. You can find other versions on the same site or other sites.
http://www.cruiseshipdrummer.com/2017/06/three-camps-isolated-parts-and-complete.html
The idea, as Todd suggested, is to memorize the piece and then throw away the transcription. You can play the single stroke, flam, ruff and roll versions in not much time at all, and then you've covered the core rudiments.
There are different versions of it online (for paradiddles, etc.), and I've started writing my own versions to work on different things. Great exercise. I use simplified endings instead of putting a little flourish on the end.
Here's the link. You can find other versions on the same site or other sites.
http://www.cruiseshipdrummer.com/2017/06/three-camps-isolated-parts-and-complete.html
Odd-Arne Oseberg
Platinum Member
It's good to have a routine and just getting used to having one when we're young, but there is an issue with thinking you have to do the same stuff religiously every day.
Let's take e.g. the first page of Stick Control.
Every day you go through the page, a minute each, some wamping or whatever way you choose. For some reason you aways have issues with exercise # 13 and #19. After doing this for days, weeks or months you sort of get better, but those two exercises never get clean. Wouldn't be better to focus moe on those.?Better yet, just skip those others until they're all up on the same level?
Now, SC was just used as an example.
My main point with my first post was really to focus on one or teo things you don't know or can't play so well. Things overlap and manuy things you can do once a week or really not at all anymore.
We do not have unlimited attention spans or learning ability.
What are your actually drumming and musical goals?
Building independant chops is in general not that hard.
Making something an intuitive part of your playing or aquiring new musical skills is something that generally takes a bit more focus.,
To me, warm-up is something you do before a gig. When practicing thngs on the kit at home I think it's better to just go for it right away, just keep things at a comfortable tempo, or whatever. That long warm-up is taking time and energy you'd probably be wise to spend on something else.
There's no way to practice everything every day, but if you really spent time with something and got it into your playing it's there. It's easy to get back to whenever you want to or the gig demands it because you learned it on such a deep level.
Now, there was a period where I did nothing but practice and my method then was to divide my day into about 8 different stylistic sessions. The focus was to play inside that style for 30-45 mins just slowly adding more stuff to it. I got plenty of rest inbetween and even then this is a marathon. You can't practice that way or live that way long term. It's someting to do for short periods. There's also stuff that's not really possible to practice that way as it's either too physically or mentally challenging. When I did this I still did only half on Saturdays and took Sundays off. Because of therapeutic nature you're not likely going to suffer any sort of burnout from this, but you will end up needing a linger period of rest from it.
When practicing a single new thing, there's also much to be gained by just thinking about that and practcing it mentally when not at the kit. Focus on that one thing all the time, one thing at a time and you'll løearn it wway faster and better than if trying to do everything at once.
When to move on?
When it's second nature.
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Larry
"Uncle Larry"
My suggestion is to pick something you have trouble with to work on, and work on it. Just one thing. Focus on it until you're happy with it.
Some people like to work on multiple things at once. I find it works better for me to focus on just one thing at a time. YMMV.
Learning one thing on a deep level has proven to me to be a much more effective use of my time than me touching on half a dozen different things. I get a bigger ROI working on one thing for an hour. If I learn something deeply, it transfers over to other parts of my playing that I wan't really working on. Whereas if I skip over a few things, I will have learned none of them deeply. Deeper is the way to go for me.
Some people like to work on multiple things at once. I find it works better for me to focus on just one thing at a time. YMMV.
Learning one thing on a deep level has proven to me to be a much more effective use of my time than me touching on half a dozen different things. I get a bigger ROI working on one thing for an hour. If I learn something deeply, it transfers over to other parts of my playing that I wan't really working on. Whereas if I skip over a few things, I will have learned none of them deeply. Deeper is the way to go for me.
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Thanks for the great answer. I guess i better move on new things
Bovine Joni
New Member
Right now I practice mostly on a pad. I save some YouTube vids on stick control and other exercises that I play with. I also have some stuff written down, but I go through all my basic rudiments/strokes at different tempos with metronome and then work on different accents when I play them. This has quickly improved my hands and everything really. I'm not an advanced drummer, just trying to get better control all the time, sitting on the couch with a pad is easy, you'll be surprised how many hours can rack up just watching TV etc. Imo there are some really good YouTube channels for drum education that are fun.