Today we’re going to discuss the art of drum practice, specifically keeping it fun. In just about any thing you’re trying to achieve in life, there is a certain amount of repetition involved. Becoming good at the drums is no different. I always tell my drum students that the most important part of drum practice is consistency. You need to practice the drums everyday, or just about everyday, if you’re going to improve your playing. The difficulty with this, is that eventually it can get really tedious and boring. When this happens, many drum students start skipping practice days. Because they’re skipping practice days, they don’t see any measurable improvement to their drumming. Then, they feel even less like practicing. Eventually, if this cycle continues, they will quit playing the drums altogether. That’s a shame, because it started out as something fun. That’s why we all got involved in drumming in the first place.
To me, there are two keys to keeping drum practice fun. The first is finding the right balance between technical practice and creative or musical practice. Some teachers would argue that all of your drum practice should be musical. While I agree that everything you practice should have a musical purpose, some things are clearly more for the purpose of developing control of the instrument, where others have more to do with expression or style. To keep drum practice fun, spend at least some of your daily time either playing along with recordings, creating new grooves, soloing on the drum-set, or just watching or listening to other drummers for ideas and inspiration. These activities are generally more creative and fun than doing exercises out of a drum book, and doing some of these, or at least one of these thing daily, will help you to keep from getting burned out on drum practicing.
The second key to keeping drum practice fun is similar to the first. Find a balance between variety and repetition. You need to stick with a drum book or exercise long enough to make progress with it. The same is true with drum practice that is more creative. If you’re working on jazz soloing, work on it long enough to improve it. This could mean several days or several weeks. Eventually though, you need to switch directions, and work on something else. Pull out a book you haven’t used in awhile, or purchase a new drum book about a different subject. Work on some funk grooves instead of the rock soloing you’ve been working on for the last two months. Not only will this make you a much more well-rounded drummer, but it will always keep your drum practice interesting and fun. If you’re always listening to other drummers, you’ll always find someone who can do something you can’t. Use this as inspiration to continually learn new things, and you’re practicing will never be boring.
Have fun!
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