Can y'all tell me what you like and don't like about my playing? (Constructive criticism) :) Any tips for improving would be greatly appreciated!

May I suggest you record playing along to a drumless track you dig and post that. That way people can tell more where you are at in your drum journey and you’ll get more useful critiques. And remember people critiquing you want to help you grow into a better drummer so a wealth of knowledge and drum wisdom to be had here. Just not from me LOL but I can offer general advice. You have basic elements just need to see it applied.
 
drum teacher/band director of 30+ years here:

you have pretty good sense of time, and your technique does not look too bad; the pattern itself is sort of "noodly", meaning that it sort of doesn't have direction, but it is not bad.

What styles do you like to listen to/ want to play? You have the ability to take on quite a few, it just needs direction. Like @GetAgrippa mentioned, maybe post an example of you playing along to a song, or an example of what you like

definitely a good start though!!!
 
I would also suggest playing along with a drum-less music track, and do something simpler. You're very busy on that video sample. Not that it was bad, but keep in mind that as a drummer, you need to play very simple time when the music dictates it. Give us something with a "Money Beat," which is eighth note time on the hats, 1 & 3 on the kick, and 2 & 4 on the snare, and then put in some appropriate fills.

Also, I noticed that your bass drum is stuffed with something I couldn't identify. We've largely gone past the days of stuffing drums with lots of laundry. There are pre-muffled heads available that remove the need to fill your bass drum with who-knows-what. There's also old school felt strips, a time-tested way to cut down on ring, but they are still a viable choice. Gibralter sells them and they're inexpensive.

If money is tight for you and pricey pre-muffled heads are not an option, a medium size foam pillow that sits neatly at the bottom of the BD shell can be purchased from Walmart for a few bucks. Maybe your family even has an old couch pillow you could use. Good luck.
 
You sound pretty good. Are you in a band now? I think it would help you to jam with other musicians.
 
What you played was a nice drum break, say playing along with a band and then a quick 4 or 8 bars where only you play solo.
Playing a nice tight tasteful groove is what most other musicians will want from you.
My only constructive criticism, and its very minor, is your bass drum foot seemed overly busy sometimes. Placement of the bass drum stroke with less notes can be quite an effect.
Its all a journey......
 
My only comment is to take some of the laundry out of the bass drum LOL. It sounds a little cardboardy... Though it could be partly the mic not picking up everything.

Also mirror the suggestion above, try playing to a drumless track to give context so we can see how you handle changes and how well your playing fits the music!
 
Topochico03 said:
Click to expand...
I would say just play that same pattern with a metronome (or even better, use a metronome over the video you posted so you can see where you speed up and then slow down ....we al do it, this is not a criticism just a suggestion to improve). Other than that (and that you were mostly improvising), I would try to come up with a part that could be used in a song context, it doesn't have to be fast or super slow, but it has to be usable.
Usable as in come up with the intro, then (assume there would be singing, a singing part) then the chorus or a pre chorus, and so on and do maybe a one minute and an half sample (usually on a 3 min song a lot of the parts repeat so you don't need to do a whole song just enough to have all the components of a song), then play that with a metronome. I should follow my own advice as I have never used a metronome other that once in a studio, but I do speed up when I get excited so not immune to speed changes either.
 
Xstr8edgtnrdrmrX said:
drum teacher/band director of 30+ years here:

you have pretty good sense of time, and your technique does not look too bad; the pattern itself is sort of "noodly", meaning that it sort of doesn't have direction, but it is not bad.

What styles do you like to listen to/ want to play? You have the ability to take on quite a few, it just needs direction. Like @GetAgrippa mentioned, maybe post an example of you playing along to a song, or an example of what you like

definitely a good start though!!!
Click to expand...
The reason I suggested he plays the same thing he played vs playing along to a song (my favorite thing to do) was because when you play along you have the original drummer as your guide, which makes it really hard to mess up timing. On the other hand when you play a drumless track, you are the timing (unless you are using a metronome). Playing his own composition (the noodling) will reveal how much or how little deviation from the proper timing he has.
 
BobC said:
I would also suggest playing along with a drum-less music track, and do something simpler. You're very busy on that video sample. Not that it was bad, but keep in mind that as a drummer, you need to play very simple time when the music dictates it. Give us something with a "Money Beat," which is eighth note time on the hats, 1 & 3 on the kick, and 2 & 4 on the snare, and then put in some appropriate fills.

Also, I noticed that your bass drum is stuffed with something I couldn't identify. We've largely gone past the days of stuffing drums with lots of laundry. There are pre-muffled heads available that remove the need to fill your bass drum with who-knows-what. There's also old school felt strips, a time-tested way to cut down on ring, but they are still a viable choice. Gibralter sells them and they're inexpensive.

If money is tight for you and pricey pre-muffled heads are not an option, a medium size foam pillow that sits neatly at the bottom of the BD shell can be purchased from Walmart for a few bucks. Maybe your family even has an old couch pillow you could use. Good luck.
Click to expand...
If simple is NOT your thing... I challenge you to this:
Play the money beat (say Billie Jean or Madonna's Papa Don't Preach/Like a Virgin) and keep that going while adding some tom accents every few bars WITHOUT stopping any of the original beat parts (as in play the accents in between the original notes). This does 2 things:
1 It challenges you to concentrate on your playing
2 Besides being a lot of fun, it promotes you thinking ahead of the next measure, in order to be able to execute the extra notes properly without breaking the beat.


Now to clarify when I say without breaking the original beat, it doesn't mean you can't use say your snare hand to switch to the hats while your hats hand does some simple tom pattern. The point is to keep the original beat as intact as possible (and with the proper timing) while also adding extra notes to make it much more full and challenging. This is something Steve Smith does in Don't Stop Believing which to me is great but a lot of people think it's too busy. Who cares the point is to develop limb independence.:

 
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