Drummy Tip #5-Practice One Thing

For now, forget about practicing X number of exercises out of this or that book. Don’t make it a goal to get through an entire drum book. Try this-take ONE thing, and practice it 20 different ways. Spend a month on that one thing, if that’s how long it takes. If you get bored, take that thing and do something interesting with it. But do not deviate from that idea, only experiment with it. So, instead of your goal being to learn all 20 exercises on page 1, make it your goal to play 1 exercise 20 different ways. Make grooves out of solo material. Make solo material out of grooves. There are no rules, other than stick with that one thing. Only move to the next exercise when you feel you have completely exhausted the possibilities. This will help you tremendously.

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Drummy Tip #4-Orchestration:Flavoring What You Already Know

Sometimes, we listen to other drummers and feel like we have no idea what is going on, and that can have a negative impact on our confidence. However, almost always, the cool thing they are playing is actually a simple idea that has been orchestrated around the kit. Try taking something you already know how to play, even something very basic, and try moving just one of the strokes to another instrument of the kit. It can be a groove, fill, or solo motif. Going back to the tried-and-true paradiddle, you can experiment with placing one note of each paradiddle on a tom, or perhaps a cymbal. Once you have have tried this with every note of the paradiddle, try moving TWO notes. Then three. With just a simple paradiddle, you will wind up with something that sounds very cool. You can do this with anything. You will also be able to answer the age old question “how on earth did he/she come up with that?.” 

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Drummy Tip #3-Understanding Accents

A common misconception among less experienced drummers is that accents are played by hitting the drum harder. In fact, the most effective way to play an accent is to play from a higher stick height. Perhaps at Mezzo Forte, you are playing 6 inches off the head. An accent would then be maybe 10 inches off the head. The way to achieve a nice accent without affecting the unaccented notes is to be deliberate about when you lift the stick in preparation for the accented note. A good general rule is to lift the stick for the accent immediately after that hand plays its last note before the accent. For example, if we are playing 8th note paradiddles, RLRR LRLL, and we are accenting the first note of each paradiddle, we would lift the left hand immediately after the stoke on the & of 1, and we would lift the right hand immediately after the stoke on the & of 3. This allows us plenty of time to prepare for that accented note. This may be a bit of a confusing Drummy Tip, so please feel free to ask me questions if you get stuck.

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Drummy Tip #2-Metronome Practice

 
Many drummers are able to sound great when playing with the click, but they fall apart when playing with a band, because it now falls upon the drummer to keep steady time. (Assuming the band doesn’t play with a click, many do.) Here is a way to manage that: Put your metronome on a really slow setting, perhaps 30 beats per minute. If you can, mute every beat except beat 1. Most metronome apps for iPhone have this function. I use an app called Time Guru. Time Guru lets you play X number of beats, followed by X number of rests, and that’s the goal here. You don’t want the metronome to hold your hand the entire way. You want to create the time yourself and have the metronome verify that your time was steady. Take whatever material you are practicing and play it at multiples of your BPM setting. For example, if your click is set to 30, practice at 60, 120 and 240. Putting this space in between clicks will force you to keep the time steady on your own, and you will see fast improvement.

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Drummy Tip #1-The Hihat

Be conscious of your hihat volume. Drummers often play the hihat far louder than necessary, resulting in the hihat ringing out over the entire band. Cymbals naturally cut through the band at any volume, so if you bring the volume in your right hand down, you will let the snare come through and you will have a nice mix. 

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