Bit overwhelmed - what should I ALWAYS practice?

M

MouseyBrown

Junior Member
So I maybe got a carried away and bought quite a few practice a while back, and I’m worried I’m spreading myself too thin over stuff.

For example, I’ve been trying work on Four Way Coordination, Bailey’s bass drum book, and also Bill Bachmann’s stick technique. But doing each for half and hour a day doesn’t leave much time for practicing songs.

One problem is that I’ve tried to let what I’m working in guide me, so when my bass was too slow for a song, I got the Bailey book.

But is there something you guys would say I should always, always work on, no matter what? I’m thinking Stick Control. But anything else? Is there one book that is absolutely fundamental for building bass and coordination?

I’ve also got Syncopation, and I’ve heard New Breed is really good. With all those, I’m always gonna have something to go to when I need to work something specific, but would be good to know if there is one or two I should be practicing every day, regardless.

Thanks!
 
Without actually seeing you play to see what you may think you're deficient in, it's hard to tell. A lot of pros say practice should be for things you don't know how to do, which seems obvious, but you should also do what makes drumming fun for you as well, otherwise, what are you doing this for?

There's this other part of me that also says that playing with other musicians and making music should be the thing you work on the most. You're not going to get hired by how well you can play one of Gary Chester's Systems, but those are a means to an end. I suggest trying to keep that mind. If you can have friends over and play songs, I think that goes a long way to the ultimate goal of making music with others (if that is indeed your goal).

Continue to study what you can, and play a bit every day, but make music whenever you can.
 
Bo Eder said:
Without actually seeing you play to see what you may think you're deficient in, it's hard to tell. A lot of pros say practice should be for things you don't know how to do, which seems obvious, but you should also do what makes drumming fun for you as well, otherwise, what are you doing this for?

There's this other part of me that also says that playing with other musicians and making music should be the thing you work on the most. You're not going to get hired by how well you can play one of Gary Chester's Systems, but those are a means to an end. I suggest trying to keep that mind. If you can have friends over and play songs, I think that goes a long way to the ultimate goal of making music with others (if that is indeed your goal).

Continue to study what you can, and play a bit every day, but make music whenever you can.
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Yeah sure, I appreciate that. It's actually cause just the other day I got to play with a band for the first time, with really opened my eyes. Made me realise I'd been focussing maybe too much on Four Way Coordination page 3 than actually playing music.

So like you say, if I have a sing to learn that has a tricky bit in it, I can pull some book out and work on that part. But I don't want to go to far the other way and not have any sort of regular technique practice, you know.
 
MouseyBrown said:
Yeah sure, I appreciate that. It's actually cause just the other day I got to play with a band for the first time, with really opened my eyes. Made me realise I'd been focussing maybe too much on Four Way Coordination page 3 than actually playing music.

So like you say, if I have a sing to learn that has a tricky bit in it, I can pull some book out and work on that part. But I don't want to go to far the other way and not have any sort of regular technique practice, you know.
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Do you have a private teacher? Maybe he can help you in a direction to go. Personally, what I've done throughout my career is to try to read something at least every other day, after running a few warm-up exercises for both hands and feet. I remember when I was in high school and when I got through to the end of Ted Reed's Syncopation, somebody suggested I flip the book upside down and read through it backwards, so I did that too. Gary Chester's book blew my mind and even to this day, I'll break it out and make my attempts at playing the first few pages. I think as your reading progresses, get books that have pieces to play, and read through them. I know several people who go through books like reading the newspaper - they're excellent readers. Couple that with knowing how to play with and for a band, then you should be well on your way to becoming a working drummer.
 
I would say that you should practice the free stroke every day, along with 8 on a hand and Irish spring. Correctly done it will get you a long way, more focus on control than speed is the way to go imo.
 
blinky said:
I would say that you should practice the free stroke every day, along with 8 on a hand and Irish spring. Correctly done it will get you a long way, more focus on control than speed is the way to go imo.
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Yeah I feel like I should practice Stick Control type stuff as standard, and work in whatever I seem to need around that.

I guess the thing is I actually like working on ALL the different stuff. Just need to be bit more focussed.
 
Bo Eder said:
Do you have a private teacher? Maybe he can help you in a direction to go. Personally, what I've done throughout my career is to try to read something at least every other day, after running a few warm-up exercises for both hands and feet. I remember when I was in high school and when I got through to the end of Ted Reed's Syncopation, somebody suggested I flip the book upside down and read through it backwards, so I did that too. Gary Chester's book blew my mind and even to this day, I'll break it out and make my attempts at playing the first few pages. I think as your reading progresses, get books that have pieces to play, and read through them. I know several people who go through books like reading the newspaper - they're excellent readers. Couple that with knowing how to play with and for a band, then you should be well on your way to becoming a working drummer.
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I do, yeah, I'll see him Wednesday and ask what he thinks. Funny you mention those two books - part of the reason I posted this was cause I saw a Stephen Taylor youtube vid where he said Ted Reed, New Breed and Stick Control are the best books. So I wondered if they are the ones I should work through no matter what.
 
Music or simply musical application for the stuff you're workiing on is the only real thing always needs to be practiced.

Going through the mostions is fine, when watching TV. lol

But, everything you work on should be mastered and understood in a way that you can pu it naturally into use as soon as possibe. That wil hapen quicker if you just work on one or two things at a time.

Put up a list of things you want to be able to do. You will learn those things much quicker one at a time than connstantly overloading yourself trying to do everything at once and probably not getting much out of it at all except some conditioning, stress and headaches.

This is why I always stress the log. Start doing things that make sense to you in regards to what you want to learn. You will get the whole picture and be your own best teacher very quickly. Every day you see what you have done and how it's working. It's the #1 "trick."

We shoold certainly work on technique and conditioning our hands most days, not every day. We need a break sometimes, both physically and mentally. But keep a log there also. Maitenance doesn't take much once you got something down.

Be aware of what you do. Do you e.g. sit there and work our 8ths and 16th and push yourself to extreme tempos but wonder why you can't play a decent shuffle?

Many things can be worked on or more ingrained without any gear in your mind, with your hands or whatever. If your kit time is limited and precious it's worth thinking about that. Memorizing a rhythm can be done anywhere. You don't need your sticks or an instrumemnt to do that. It might take several days, a week etc...with certain things. That doesn't matter. That's not mucvh time in the grand scheme of things. The point i that you eventually got it done.

There are no absolutes as it depends not only on level, but also the drummer you want to be. There are many ways to practice the same thing and it would be wise to do it in a way that inspires you, that keeps you going.
 
blinky said:
I would say that you should practice the free stroke every day, along with 8 on a hand and Irish spring. Correctly done it will get you a long way, more focus on control than speed is the way to go imo.
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Absolutely. I do all these every time I practice, plus the paradiddle variations. Very slowly to start, big motions, focusing on form, playing effortlessly, and listening.

I also usually do this going back and forth between air drumming and the drum or pillow I’m hitting. Air drumming has really helped my stick control.
 
Well you deserve kudos for efforts. I agree with much said, and dont get too focused on technique and having “great hands” that you miss playing along with other musicians keeping good time, and groove. But I’d also add it takes time- things you can’t do effort after effort till one day it clicks-personally I think it’s your brain integrating the motor patterns, changes in muscles, etc..to finally fine tune our physiology to address it. During my research years I had to learn to dissect fine arterioles 100 um or less then loop two fine wires ,barely visible to the naked eye, through the lumen to mount on wire myographs to measure contractile responses. I traveled to Burlington Vermont to learn the technique and use of apparatus. The first day was a disaster cause everything you do is through a dissecting microscope so it looks as like viewing an earthquake because the lack of a steady hand and coordination. They commented many of those who try never get it. Well the next day within a short time I mastered it. I think it took my brain time to put it all together.
 
GetAgrippa said:
Well you deserve kudos for efforts. I agree with much said, and dont get too focused on technique and having “great hands” that you miss playing along with other musicians keeping good time, and groove. But I’d also add it takes time- things you can’t do effort after effort till one day it clicks-personally I think it’s your brain integrating the motor patterns, changes in muscles, etc..to finally fine tune our physiology to address it. During my research years I had to learn to dissect fine arterioles 100 um or less then loop two fine wires ,barely visible to the naked eye, through the lumen to mount on wire myographs to measure contractile responses. I traveled to Burlington Vermont to learn the technique and use of apparatus. The first day was a disaster cause everything you do is through a dissecting microscope so it looks as like viewing an earthquake because the lack of a steady hand and coordination. They commented many of those who try never get it. Well the next day within a short time I mastered it. I think it took my brain time to put it all together.
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Yeah absolutely. I actually believe that the brain isn’t capable of learning pretty much anything, given the time. To an extent, anyone could be a professional musician, sports person or whatever given the time. And one of the things I love about drumming is the feeling of things starting to click slightly.
 
Everyone here's already given good advice. To add my own two cents, I'd say you should always practice singles, doubles, triples, accent taps, and crescendos/decrescendos. In my experience, pretty much everything you're gonna play comes from these basic strokes. I remember intensely practicing these basics early on when I was a teenager and everything else after came pretty naturally.
 
I practice the stuff i need to improve the MOST.. We can all work on 1000 things, but try and get REALLY good at a few things. Go into each practice with a plan, and a metronome. I write stuff down so if I wan't to work on say 2 or 3 things I divide my time accordingly, sometimes if I make good progress I will omit one and stick to what I am working on.

I am guilty of spreading too thin, but I don't know your current level or your playing.

Playing with musicians or tracks is good, but I consider that more jamming than practicing, but still needs to be done... Practice for me is stuff that if people hear it I am not proud of how it sounds. That is why I am working on it.

As far as always, i am always changing up what I need to work on... a few tips though.... As far as independence, if your working on bass drum or stick patterns, why not keep time on the left foot and add independence at the same time. Do it to a metronome and work on your time. Right there you are working on 3 things at once..

I practice all my independence stuff with a gap click and kill two birds with one stone, If I am doing bass drum speed exercises I turn it into independence and time.


100% warm up and spend some time on a pad.. It will do wonders for your playing, but, use a click :)

The simple stuff for me, fast singles, doubles, diddles, and some time on the double pedal to keep endurance up are what I PERSONALLY do every day because the music I play requires stamina and endurance. After I do that I'll go to the kit and do other stuff. I usually change gears when my band doesn't jam and play slow and work on my grooves.

Sometimes I'll work on things like posture, how hard I am gripping when playing really fast, hitting the center of the drums, heck you can practice tuning your drums and improving at that. (most of these can be done at the same time too once you really get into it, it will feel natural eventually)

Find out your personal goals. Set a one month, 6 month, one year etc. What do YOU want or need to improve at. What kindof music are you planning on playing / or are into. A person wanting to join a cover band needs good time and to learn a ton of music. A person wanting to solo most likely needs really good rudiments, A person wanting to get into metal is going to work on his double bass compared to a jazz player has different goals.

My last thing i'll say is, the more you learn, and better you get, the more you realize how little you know and how much more there is to learn.. I started digging into beat displacement and modulation and you can dedicated years to just paradiddles if you want. Take it slow, and realize you can do this for a life time. Don't compare yourself to others, just your previous self and keep improving.
 
A quick opinion on technique......

Early on (year 1), I subscribed to Bill's site. It did a great job of teaching me proper grip and stroke.... Which I would almost completely ignore the moment I started playing with other people.

I'd get through two songs and my hands would really hurt. I'd say to myself... "Self, you're a dumb-ass, just hold your sticks like you learned on Bill's site. If you don't, you're not going to make it through the third song". I'd change up and play proper. The pain would subside, and I'd make it through the night. These days, I usually go into things with proper form. My hands occasionally let me know when I start doing something stupid for too long.

What was my point? Oh yeah... The instrument has a way of forcing you to use good technique if you're going to play it for more than ten minutes. You don't really have to 'practice' proper technique in the contemporary sense of sitting down with a pad blazing rudiment permutations beyond the first month or three. You have to learn it, and 'practice' good technique when you play in the same sense that one "practices what they preach". The take-away lesson is to consciously remind yourself to use good technique all the time until it assimilates into your intuition. If you play and your hands start hurting, snap out of it or resub to Bill's for another month.

Know that you'll probably end up revisiting most of the rudiments down the road individually. You'll want to open up your flams for some song, or go on some Gadd bender and reconcile para-diddles. Don't worry about getting cerebral about it now, the context will come. You'll hear something, and say "That's a swiss army triplet!", and you'll try to play it at tempo, and fail, and you'll realize.... Damn, I really need to work on my SAT's, and woodshed the part for a week or three.
 
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Other than maybe some ritual warm up to get your head in the game or loosen your limbs, I don't think there's a be-and-end-all set of books you ALWAYS practice. But you should ALWAYS have an intense focus when you do -even if it's for a short time- and try to play at the edge or just beyond the edge of your comfort zone. As long as you do this consistently you shouldn't have to worry about missing out on anything.

You need an overriding goal of where you'd like to be, but unless you have a teacher to give you an exact homework schedule, you're going to run into a bunch of variables. You may jump around from one book to another, so you'll want to keep track of what works. One time it might be to understand a concept you can practice later. Another time you might zero in and break an exercise into bite sized chunks. You may have to push when you're struggling until you hit that breakthrough or hit that point of diminishing returns and cut your losses. A good teacher will help with that, but even they won't necessarily show you how to prioritize your day to day practice. Just realize that most exercises have skills that are directly transferable to others and those that don't, have a discipline that certainly is.

So as long as you consistently practice and keep a balance between desire and focus, you should be in good shape.

P.S. If you push me to pick two books, it would be Stick Control and Ted Reed. They both can be used in endless ways and compliment each other.
 
I sometimes get caught up in the more advanced stuff I'm working on, and forgot to practice the basics.

For some reason I tensed up while playing a very basic fill with a cover band just yesterday (Fleetwood Mac, Dreams, around 3 mins 8 seconds in). Just a basic single stroke fill around the kit. Granted I'd never played the song before, but heard it a million times and it's still a basic fill.

Things like that can affect your confidence.. so best to keep it all in shape as a warm up maybe.

I have Rod Morgenstein's drum kit warm ups somewhere which I think I might be breaking out again after that!

In my case, it may be partly down to my tendency to overthink too. You know what they say about thinking about walking up the stairs.. you're liable to fall over.
 
Muscle driven single and double stroke rolls.

I use a practice pad that has very minimal bounce so it forces me to use my muscles to move the stick rather than rely on the rebound.
Paradiddles round out my usual regimen.

When I can get the singles nice and smooth and fast with loose hands, I know I'm well on my way.
 
I have been drumming for over 30 years. I have been drumming professionally for over 20. It is my experience that the most important things to practice daily are the basics. Spend some time on a practice pad in front of a mirror to make sure your technique is solid. Work on your rudiments for a short period of time just to keep them in your hands. Then devote as much time as you can to READING!!!
Out of all the skills in a drummers arsenal, the ability to read is a real game changer. I know that there are many drummers who disagree with this sentiment but I can assure you that at no time in my career have I been asked to play four way independence exercises. Nor have I ever lost a gig because my hands weren't fast enough. But, I have been asked to replace several drummers who couldn't handle reading charts. Or couldn't keep a steady pulse, or couldn't play a variety of musical styles.
Technique is great...Technique is necessary! But in the end we are servants of THE MUSIC. Practice the things that are going to allow you to serve music in the best way possible.
 
At the moment, if I haven't planned my practice/don't have a lot of time, I am just doing '8 on a hand' at 3 different dynamic levels.

Trying to 'feel' the stick rebound as much as I can. It's a bit of a zen-like thing. Also, trying to match my hands as much as possible.

If I get just 10-15 minutes, I do that.

Happy drumming,

Andy
 
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