Your practise schedule - Tips and tricks!

Zorlee

Senior Member
Hi everyone!
I don't know if there have been threads like this before, but I thought it would be great to come together and talk about our practise schedules. How do we practise? And better yet - how can we practise better? How do we motivate ourselves, what do you do if you're not inspired, push through it or lay off the drums for a couple of days? These questions are all relevant, and I think it can be very helpful for a lot of us drummers to get some input on how to do what we do every day - practising! =)

I'll start with my practise schedule... Personally I just graduated from school, and I'm taking a year off from school, before I start to study at a university (probably a bachelor's degree in music). Therefore I have a lot of spare time, and I'm dedicating this year to drumming, and that means - a lot of practising.
I practise for 1,5 hour sessions, divided into two 45 min sessions.
My day is usually like this:

- 1 session (1,5 hours)
- 30 min break
- 1 session (1,5 hours)
- 1 hour break
- 1 session (1,5 hours)
- 30 min break
- 1 session (1,5 hours)

I start at 8 am, and I'm finished around 4 pm. I take the rest of the day off, chilling, working out, hanging with friends - just relaxing.

NOW - over to what I actually practise. You might look at this, and say - hey, this guy only cares about the hours of practise, but not the effect of the practise. Well, think again. I've only divided the day like this, because it's the best way for me to practise. This is very subjective, but I find that doing 45 min sessions is better than 30 mins and 1 hour sessions. 30 mins is too short for me - I really don't get the time to dig into the material. 1 hour, on the other hand, is too long. It starts to get boring, and my motivation starts to go downhill. Again, this is just based on my own experience.

I try to think 50% groove/feel/time practise, 40% technique and 10% theory/ear-training.
At least I try, because I don't want to fall into the "trap" of only practising one thing - and the trap is usually to ONLY practise technique, thus turning into a technical genius with NO feel/soul. I want groove, time and feel to be nr. 1, but I find that to be able to make things groove, you need good technique. And in the end, I have to set of some time, even though I don't like it, to practise that ear and the theory. I know it will help me, if I decide to study music, and compose music!

Today, for example I did the following:

- Warm-up
- 45 min Moeller (Technique)
- 45 min Beyond Bop Drumming (groove/feel/time)
- Break
- 45 min Finger Control (Technique)
- 45 min Dennis Chambers' grooves practise (groove/feel/time)
- Break
- 45 min Jazz ride technique (Technique)
- 45 min Contemporary jazz listening/transcribing/practising (groove/feel/time)
- Break
- 45 min Brushes (groove/feel/time)
- 45 min Ear-training (theory/ear-training)

It was a GOOD day!! :D

I write this, so that you might check this out. You may apply this 1,5 hour session thing to your own practise schedule, and see if you like it. You can practise for only 45 mins or as long as you want, it's up to you. I just practise for this amount of time, because I want to practise a lot this year. But if you're in school/working during the daytime, maybe try a 1,5 hour session divided into two 45 min sessions, and see if you like it? Or maybe two sessions, if you have the time to do so?

Also, if you try out my way of practising, then you MUST take breaks. You can't practise for 6 hours straight - that will kill everything - your motivation, drive, inspiration, passion and whatnot. I find that the breaks, and the "breathers" in between the sessions really help to make this practise schedule very good, and very efficient.

NOW - Post your own practise schedules! Post your own tips, tricks and whatnot! =)
I'm really looking forward to reading some good posts about how to develop our skills behind the kit, and how to grow as a musician!!

Yours sincerely,
Zorlee
 
My practice schedule goes something like this...

I practice when i have time.
I don't practice when I don't have time.

Seems to have worked well so far.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I just play the
drums because I enjoy them - not to be the best...
 
I sit down, check that my throne is secured in it's fully upright position, take 2 deep breaths, and proceed to beat the hell out of everything within arm's reach for 1.223 hours (give or take).

I then celebrate the success of said practice with multiple iterations of a little something I like to call the "Gin & Tonic Method".

I find rapid articulation of swizzle stick with my left hand does wonders for improving weak hand balance. I'd transcribe it if I knew how.....

Cheers!
 
Wish I had that much time to practice.

Winds up being about 2 hours a day, sometimes up to 4, often less.

Got about 5 groups of stuff I work on.

Groove
Latin
Jazz
Technique
Improv

Obviously they aren't exclusive (Jazz and Improv overlap a lot) but they're the basic things I work on.

Generally spend about 15 warming up on a technical piece, then 30 on one of the groups (maybe some Jazz Comping ideas from Art of Bop Drumming). Take a 15 minute break, work on transcribing something (such as a drum solo/groove. I take entire albums and transcribe them over a month period to work on. Currently doing Stanton Moore's III album). I find I need a break every so often to keep concentrating. Take a walk, eat an apple, transcribe, then go back to it.

Another 15 minutes of tech stuff, maybe the same piece, maybe a certain group of rudiments (flams for example) then onto another group, maybe working on grooving with a metronome or a cd of funk tunes.

I tend to repeat the same practice session 2 days in a row, that way the material sinks in better. Then I change to another set of two groups, so it works on 2 groups of 2 day cycles.
 
2 hours a day! i would kill for 2 hours a day!

i practice about 45 minutes a day because that's all i have time for. i'm trying to get better at jazz so i start out playing free jazz improv, trying to incorporate all the ideas and things i've learned from my teacher. after about 10 minutes of that, i turn to something from the art of bop drumming (lately). i'll play along to the cd from that book or work on the exercises. after about 15 minutes of that, i start working on the latest songs from my band, which plays straight ahead rock. i play along to recordings of them. sometimes, if there's a difficult fill or beat i want to pull off in one of our songs, i'll just play it over and over again to a metronome for about 5 minutes. by then i'm all hot and sweaty, so i stand in front of the fan for a couple minutes. that's it!
 
Cool stuff going on here, people!
You know, my problem is to get efficient practise when I'm practising grooving/feel. I would kill for Benny Grebs feel, and I'm really striving towards that feel, BUT it's so much easier to practise technique, and you REALLY have to focus to practise feel. "Feel" is such a relative word, and many (like myself) tend to start practising some independence stuff or other technique related things after a couple of minutes practising sound/feel/groove. But I believe that one should focus on the feel and groove, and if you can't pull off a certain groove, make it simpler - when you're practising feel/groove, not when you're practising technique/independence...

Hmm... Just thinking out loud here, I guess! Haha! :D
 
Personally I like Sticky-Widget's swizzle stick approach! Works for me as well.

I'd love to have 1 hour per day to practice! My schedule:

Wake up,
make coffee,
get ready for work,
leave for work,
commute for 1 hour in horrible traffic,
arrive at work,
work 8 hours at least,
leave work - usually cussing as to why I'm in this job in the first place,
commute 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours home cussing the horrible traffic,
arrive at home - exhausted,
feed cats, check mail, eat dinner, relax,
look over the place to make sure it's not too cluttered or dirty,
decide if I am not too tired to practice,
practice,
open beer,
practice,
open another beer,
chill in front of TV,
answer phone call(s) from snotty ex wife,
fall asleep on couch.

And I wake up thinking the grass is greener on the other side of the fence!
 
1-2 hours per day, usually Fridays I have "off" but sometimes I'm at drum lessons so that's practice anyways. And Wednesdays are band rehearsal.

I usually play on the kit mainly, but will use the practice pad late at night if I feel the urge to play more.

I've been deeply inspired by seeing many drummers at clinics and such lately, so I mainly work on solos and rudiments and combinations around the kit. The "old me" would simply play along to the iPod for 2 hrs.. I still do once in a while but not as much!

If I have assignments from lessons, of course I work on those too.
 
rogue_drummer:

It's good to see you factor beer into your practice time.

Do you do anything while commuting to work? Is it by train or car? If you get a seat on the train it's good time to transcribe drum stuff. If you're in the car it's a good time to listen to songs over and over, trying to catch the feel, or analyze what's going on.
 
My practice schedule goes something like this...

I practice when i have time.
I don't practice when I don't have time.

Seems to have worked well so far.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I just play the
drums because I enjoy them - not to be the best...


haha thats pretty much just how mine goes too.
 
You know, my problem is to get efficient practise when I'm practising grooving/feel. I would kill for Benny Grebs feel, and I'm really striving towards that feel, BUT it's so much easier to practise technique, and you REALLY have to focus to practise feel. "Feel" is such a relative word, and many (like myself) tend to start practising some independence stuff or other technique related things after a couple of minutes practising sound/feel/groove. But I believe that one should focus on the feel and groove, and if you can't pull off a certain groove, make it simpler - when you're practising feel/groove, not when you're practising technique/independence...

But you're making the mistake of isolating "feel," see. Feel is about how you're playing with other musicians. Feel is the whole thing, the whole song, the entirety of the event. Everyone, no matter what instrument they're playing, contributes to and makes the feel. The trick, in my opinion, is to find and own your place in all that, to take from and give back to the people you're playing with, and that can only be learned in the field, in real life.
 
But you're making the mistake of isolating "feel," see. Feel is about how you're playing with other musicians. Feel is the whole thing, the whole song, the entirety of the event. Everyone, no matter what instrument they're playing, contributes to and makes the feel. The trick, in my opinion, is to find and own your place in all that, to take from and give back to the people you're playing with, and that can only be learned in the field, in real life.

Can't say I agree completely. I do agree that you learn a whole lot when playing with others feelwise, but I also do believe that you can learn a lot from making things feel great by yourself. It's not like you need other musicians to make your drumming feel nice.
When I hear Dennis Chambers play a groove, with no other musicians, it feels extremely good. And I believe that you can practise, at least to some extend, feel alone as a drummer.
 
Greetings from Argentina!
Sorry my english in advance!

I practice (i found the word practice written like that or sometimes "practise"... dunno...)
So, I practic/se like 1-2 hours daily, my rutine goes like this:

- 15 min warm up, playing grooves, fills, chillin'
- 30 min of playing first page of lawrence stone - stick control reading in 16th
playing 20 times each exercise, this are patterns RLRL, RRLL, paradiddles,
RRRL, to... RRLL RLRR LLRR LRLL (the last on the first page)
With metronome, set at 86 right now, and increasing tempo by 2 bpm in
2 weeks periods aprox.
- 10 min playing doubles in a pillow with this formula: its a measure of sixteens in 4/4
I start plaing 32s from back to front like this:
rlrl rlrl rlrl rlrl - rlrl rlrl rlrl rlrLL - rlrl rlrl rlrl rlRRLL - to RRLLRRLL - RRLLRRLL, etc
then I take out the 32s and play 16 in the same manner.
With metronome, set at 75 right now, no increase of time.
- 15 min same rutine of doubles but in the snare.
With metronome, set at 100 right now, and increasing tempo by 2 bpm in
2 weeks periods aprox.
- 10 min paradiddle rutine, formula: 16s, 32s, 16striplets, para-paradiddles,
para-para-paradiddles in 16s, 32s
With metronome, set at 75 right now, and increasing tempo by 2 bpm in
2 weeks periods aprox.
- 10 min pyramid rutine, quarter, quarter triplet, eight, 16s, 5tuplet, 6tuplet, 7tuplet, 32
and went down.
With metronome, set at 60 right now, no increase of time.
- 20 min groove practice and transcription, like 2 measures of funk beat
- 20 min of art of bop drumming by riley
- 20 min of escense of afro-cuban rythms - by ed uribe

this last 3 without metronome.

So, there it is, hope was for good.

keep the amazing job!
 
Wow Hercraft, your playing must be cooking. I wish I had the application to be so organised in my practice. You're sure to see results with that kind of routine.
 
Wow Hercraft, your playing must be cooking. I wish I had the application to be so organised in my practice. You're sure to see results with that kind of routine.


Yeah, sounds great. The fact is that I play drums for almost 10 years now
but right now i begin to study in that manner.
I was the kind of unorganized drummer, and I hope to change that right NOW!
LOL

My band and my compositions if you wanna listen:

www.myspace.com/crustaceomusic

Greetings!
 
I have two schedules wich I follow each other day.

Schedule 1:
Technique 45-60min
Break
Latin 40min
Fills 20min
Break
Art of bop drumming 30min
Improvising to jazz music 30min
Break
Cross-sticking 30min
New Breed 15min
Future Sounds 15min

Schedule 2:
Same as the first but after the last break I practise to Tommy Igoes "The groove essentials" 60min or so.

I think it's great to have a practise schedule because it will surely make your practise more effective. BUT, you shouldn't follow it like a slave. Some days I pick one session out to work with brushes or something else instead. And I'm in the last year of high school so it's sometimes hard to practise all the four sessions due to homework and then you have to pick to maybe only do too.
 
Hmm I used to practice technical things all the time but I rarely do anymore. I always keep my technique in mind when I play, but I don't obsess over it. These days I'm always focused on groove. I listen to a LOT of music. I almost consider listening practice. I spend a lot of my practice time borrowing ideas from my favorite drummers. I practice about 1 hour a day and its really all on jazz. I figure if I can play jazz than I can play anything.

I do a short warm up and then I practice comping, trading fours, working on tunes, playing along to music and free grooving with no set time for each. After practicing this way for sometime now I find my playing has improved a lot more than when I was always practicing the technical things. I enjoy playing more and I feel more like a musician and less like a drummer. Also I find that jamming with other musicians is crucial because it brings out new ideas in your playing that you wouldn't think of by yourself. Unfortunately I haven't been doing enough of this lately because all the musicians I know mostly play rock, and right now I really just want to play jazz. Nice schdeule though, good luck with it, keep up the hard work it will definitely pay off.
 
Can't say I agree completely. I do agree that you learn a whole lot when playing with others feelwise, but I also do believe that you can learn a lot from making things feel great by yourself. It's not like you need other musicians to make your drumming feel nice.
When I hear Dennis Chambers play a groove, with no other musicians, it feels extremely good. And I believe that you can practise, at least to some extend, feel alone as a drummer.

Ya but Dennis Chambers always said that he learned to play drums from playing in the nightclubs. He's been playing with bands since he was like 5 years old. How do you think his feel is so good? He wouldn't have that feel if he just sat in a room and practiced all the time. HIs playing is musical because he always plays music. Same like Buddy Rich, the man never practiced! I really think playing with other musicians in crucial in developing your feel.
 
My practice schedule looks like this (4 hours a day with 1 day off in a week):

45 min - Jim Chapin "Advanced Techniques..."
45 min - John Lombardo and Charles Perry book
15 min - exercise by Steve Smith for bass drum (playing continious heel toe - heel down - heel toe - heel up)
15 min -playing doubles between snare and bass drum with different techniques (heel toe, heel down, slide)
30 min - preparing exam program for my musical college (play-alongs, solos etc.)
1.5 hour - hand technique (both traditional and german matched grip), which consists of:

10 min - finger technique
10 min - wrist technique (continious full strokes and taps, controlled strokes)
20 min - single stroke roll
20 min - double stroke roll
10 min - moeller
20 min - playing 10 rudiments a day (so it takes 4 days to play all 40 rudiments)

My main problem is that I study using this schedule for about a year, and now I'm loosing my motivation and sometimes I can`t proceed with this schedule (I don't really want to change it because I believe it has all the elements I need to study now). And so I can't increase my practice time (I`d like to study for 5 or 6 hours a day). Maybe it`s better for me to divide this schedule in 2 or even 3 schedules so I can spend more time on each exercise but not playing them each day? If any of you shared the same problems please leave a comment :)

P.S.: Sorry for my English, I`m not a native speaker (as you could notice).
 
holy god, completely irrelevant, and i have no idea why this is bugging the crap out of me but Zorlee... practiCe is spelled with a C not an S.

i kinda count my 'rap tap tapping' all over the place as my practice. i haven't gotten to actually sit down behind a set in several years now so it's what keeps me going. but i typically focus on perfecting the moeller technique. since I'm of the mentality that the moeller is not based on rebound, practicing with no sticks on a surface with no rebound (like a table) ensures that I get my wrists and forearm moving properlly. ...well, i'm going into a completely different subject now so i'll stop.
 
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