Free Flowing Practice

jazzerooty

Junior Member
I refused to learn to read or take lessons when I was a kid. I taught myself via two methods. One, was sitting and playing the drums, working out the beats
from the latest Rascals Album. I spent a lot of time with James Brown's "Cold Sweat." When Cream and Hendrix busted out, I aped every song I could. In my first band, we covered James Brown, Junior Walker, all of Motown, and later, Blood Sweat and Tears. The other method was to just noodle on my drum kit. Trying out shit. I didn't know what a paradiddle was. But I played Cream's "Toad" while a senior in high school. I took lessons, learned reading in my 20s. I still practice from books. But I've mostly returned to my routines as a kid. I mess around on the drums. I attempt stupid moves. I throw caution to the wind and may slow down for a certain passage, speed for others. A few days prior to a gig, I play along with records and even improvise with a metronome. Butt most of my practice now consists of exploration, improvisation. I think every drummer needs to explore this aspect.
 
I went to the Jamie Aebersold jazz camp many years ago, and jazz bassist Rufus Reid was the director of my jazz combo. Anyways at the camp they set up a store that sold tons of jazz method books, and jazz CDs. One day I went to the store and I bought a bunch of books and a few CDs and as I was leaving I ran into Rufus, and he told “me more of these” (pointing to the CDs) and “less of those” ( pointing to the books)

Of course there’s nothing wrong from learning from books, and traditional methods such as rudiments. But the art form that we practice, is an aural one, and because this, we must put in the time listening to music. The listening and exploration you did as a kid, and later the traditional learning you did, sounds like a good way to go to me.
 
I encourage all of my students to use a method of practice that I call "Searching"

A continuous exploration where you sit down and play what comes to your mind and try to expand on it without stopping injecting ideas and recovering from "mistakes" while continuously searching and challenging yourself

I think musicians while learning get too caught up in the technical abilities of their playing and often ignore some of the most important aspects of playing an instrument ... three of them being recovery, adjusting and inserting ideas on the fly... not "licks" ...ideas

If you cannot do those three things your technical prowess will not get you very far.

"Searching" practice is as important if not more important when developing as a musician than anything else you could possibly practice alone.

I'll argue even that it is important to do even as a fully developed musician ... like keeping a muscle conditioned
 
Jamming=playing=experimenting=searching=noodling on the drums. Just applying what you’ve learned to your style. Put the books away now and learn to play to music.
 
I find improvising to drumless loops is a great way to do this. I’m not mindlessly copying what some other drummer did. I need to listen and play at the same time which is critical to being an effective musician.
 
I find improvising to drumless loops is a great way to do this. I’m not mindlessly copying what some other drummer did. I need to listen and play at the same time which is critical to being an effective musician.
Sounds like a very good idea. Where do you get your loops?
 
I am a firm believer in even doses of both noodling, and structured technique development. In my mind, and my experience of teaching for 30+years in all situations:

both types of practice will only get you so far in and of themselves.

If all you do is "noodle", and NOT develop some kind of defined technique and strength work, you will hit a wall of not being able to execute what you "hear in your head" b/c you don't have the physical ability to do it.

If all you do is work out of a book, you have no platform to apply what you are learning, and to modify and adjust to what you hear in your head. You also limit yourself to certain kinds of (well paying) easy jobs if you can't read.

personal experience evidence: I started out as a kid as the guy who just noodled, and figured out songs by ear. It made feel like a "god" immediately...until I encountered some pattern that I could not execute with "natural ability" physically. Then I would get frustrated and "cheat" the technique to try to pull off the pattern. By way of this, I ingrained TONS of bad physical habits that it took years to undo - after starting lessons and learning how to utilize my muscle groups correctly. I had wasted a bunch of time by not taking lessons sooner b/c I was under the impression that since I could play along to The Jackson 5, The Temptations and Gladys Knight and the Pips, that I was already a great drummer...

and to counterpoint:

my sister was a phenomenal piano player...until you took the music away, and then she was stunned. I remember wanting to jam with her when we were young, and it floored me that she could play Rachmaninov stuff note for note, but could not just jam and make stuff up. So I got to see both extremes in action while growing up.

so in the end, I think that actively shunning one mind set for the other is super detrimental to any musician, and like everything, a moderate dose of both are needed to be really solid.
 
There was an interview I saw a long time ago with Steve Gadd. He said, "I learn from everyone, even the kid playing paint cans on the street." That said, I think we all need to keep an eye on our technique. However, it is playing music which we do and need to practice that as well as "book learning."
 
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