The drumming world is inundated with practice materials. There are resources available for every style, every technique, and every famous drummer. This cornucopia of information leads to what Barry Schwartz calls “The Paradox of Choice“. Basically, too many options can make the chooser overwhelmed with choice, cause mental anxiety, and maybe keep you from taking action at all.

The options are truly limitless, you could spend your entire life trying to conquer the drum educational market, and new materials would come out faster than you could absorb the old one. The truth is, no one person can ever practice “everything”.  But if we want to get better, we do have to practice. Some things you’ll want to practice be a much larger time commitment than others. Furthermore, if you try to practice too many things each day, or flounder about week after week never sticking with any routine, you risk diluting your focus and energy. So how do you choose?

Decision

The word decision comes from the same word as incision, it means to cut away other options leaving only what you’ve chosen. It is true that decision means limiting yourself, and that is a good thing. For progression as a musician it is far better to have few options and massive action than to have mountains of options and be frozen in indecision or self-doubt. The way I simplify the choice of what to practice is by deciding what I “need” to practice, and what I “want” to practice. These categories can also be divided into “music” and “skills”.

Needs

-Music

For utmost confidence and to put out the best music that I can, I need  to practice the music that I am currently playing with in any band that I am in, and I need to learn new music that I will be playing in the future. Repetition is important here, the more I know the material the more confident I will be in performance, which is why I practice my repertoire daily.

-Skills

There are some fundamental skills which are necessary for every working drummer, and not developing them to a high level will hold you back from success as a musician. These are the skills that you need to develop. Examples include having great time, knowledge and facility in various styles, having command and fluency around the drumset, and injury avoidance through proper technique.

There are tons of “skills” in drumming, so you could easily burn yourself out trying to master them all. The key to determining which skills you absolutely need is to take stock of your current playing, and to identify and assess your greatest weaknesses. It won’t necessarily be enjoyable to practice this stuff, because you’re not very good at it, and that’s the point. If these skills are truly holding you back from success than it is essential that you work on them and that you develop them to the point where you are no longer being handicapped by your own lack of ability.

Wants

-Music

This category includes any songs I really love and want to learn the drum parts to, as well as drum videos, grooves and fills by my favorite drummers, and solo transcriptions. Practicing this stuff is inspiring and motivating, and is one of the main reasons why we play the drums. How do you pick out of the myriad of choices available? Whatever music is most exciting, whatever really speaks to you, you should learn it.

-Skills

Here is one of my favorite things about drumming, learning cool techniques and rhythmic concepts. These can be learned from books and video programs as well as self-development. Assuming you have a fairly broad base of fundamentals, it is really exciting to challenge yourself to hone your skills with more specialty products like Jojo Mayer’s “Secret Weapons for the Modern Drummer” for advanced technical facility, or “4-Way Coordination”  for some intense mental tongue twisters.

These kinds of materials cover techniques far beyond the basics, and can be intellectually stimulating as well as help to make you a more profound musician. These are skills which may not be used constantly on the bandstand, but having these abilities under your belt will increase your facility, confidence, plus learning them is just plain fun!

So choose material from each of these 4 categories, and practice! Don’t pick too much and burn yourself out, just enough to keep you stimulated and challenged. In future posts I will discuss when and how to know when its time to move on to new materials.

Playing a musical instrument is an inherently multifaceted endeavor. Because there is so much going on at one time, much of the “behind-the-scenes” action gets taken over by your subconscious mind. Improvement in any area of drumming involves analyzing the interconnected parts of your drumming, dissecting, and finally synthesizing new skills into your arsenal. Some aspects of your technique that this model applies to are hand technique, foot technique, and coordination.

Hand Technique: My Journey

For a long time I was under the impression that if you play drums enough, your hand technique will take care of itself. I do think that this approach works for some people, but for me it was ineffective. I simply didn’t develop a strong awareness of my own hand technique, and therefore fell into patterns of motion and mechanics that were holding me back. In effect I was technically stunted without really knowing why.

At a certain point it became obvious that if I wanted to progress as a musician on this instrument, I needed to gain awareness and control of my own hands.  Having not come up in a rudimental or orchestral background, many of these techniques were foreign to me. The key for me was to devote conscious effort and study to the practice of hand technique in isolation.

In all honesty I initially found this kind of “technical” practice dull, and tended to avoid it in favor of more cerebral or creative challenges in my practice sessions. Having always been drawn to the creative and intellectually stimulating aspects of music and drumming, I found focusing on my hands and the physical nature of motion to be, at first, simply dull. This helps to explain why I had never really developed any sort of depth in my technical facility up to this point, working on technique was tedious, so I didn’t spend much time on it.

Starting on this new path towards technical facility, I found myself quickly losing interest and focus in my practice sessions, and it took me time to find my groove in this department. Some things that were helpful for me including taking private skype lessons with Bill Bachman, a fantastic drummer with unbelievable rudimental chops and knowledge. Having expert guidance on what I needed to work on and how to improve in this technical arena was invaluable for me. The practicing still felt boring, but I knew that to make any sort of progress I had to really put in the work, so I needed some way of ensuring consistency and quality in my technical practice.

Getting into the Groove

Tommy Igoe’s “Great Hands for a Lifetime”  was extremely influential in the next stage of my drumming career. I had worked through Bill Bachman’s books, which are great, and I had worked many of the exercises from Jojo Mayer’s “Secret Weapons for the Modern Drummer”, another terrific resource, but what really got my momentum going was working with Tommy Igoe’s materials (along with spending hours on a practice pad each day over winter break watching Battlestar Galactica with my friend Chris).

Tommy Igoe comes in, as usual, with a no-nonsense approach to improving your drumset skills. Just like in his acclaimed Groove Essentials, this lifetime warmup program focuses on what’s practical, and what works. His educational philosophy is telling: “Playing simple things at a high level” He goes through a bunch of simple hand exercises and rudiments, but for me the best part was the included play-along mp3s on the DVD. I had honestly never been that into play-along tracks, but I loaded them onto my ipod and figured I’d try it out.

I was quickly hooked. At first I could only get through the beginner warmup, and it was pretty sloppy, but I practiced with the track all the time. I even loaded it onto my iPad and using a program called MiMiCopy I was able to loop sections that gave me difficulty, as well as slowing down and speeding up any part of the track. I quickly progressed onto the intermediate version, and was faced with new rudimental and technical challenges. I am now in the process of getting the advanced lifetime warmup up to speed, the paradiddle variations section is a killer!

Why were these play-along tracks so effective for me? I think it has to do with learning curve and compliance.

Learning Curve

There is a kind of yoga called Bikram Yoga that is performed in a room heated to 105 degrees. The postures are performed in the exact same sequence, for the exact durations, in every single class. This might sound rigid or boring, but in actuality it is freeing, because your mind quickly comprehends the patterns and is able to focus on the practice itself, not the initial learning process.

In the same way, having a pre-recorded track with an exact sequence of rudiments sped up the learning curve considerably. Once you’ve got the order and the stickings figured it, which is relatively quick and painless, your mind is free to divert its focus from the parts you are playing to the actual motions and mechanics of your hands. You become aware of the tactile sensations of your hands through this series of rudiments, which is how you discover technical shortcomings and correct them. 

Compliance

By loading these tracks onto my ipod, I ensured success in my practice. The great thing about a playalong track is that it is a self contained practice session that removes any need for self discipline, freeing up all concentration for the task at hand, improvement. I am only able to speak for myself, but I know that in many cases, as soon as I start practicing or any other hard work, my mind immediately starts to sabotage me by bombarding me with distractions. Keeping up the willpower to maintain a practice session can be emotionally exhausting. The beauty of a practice track is as soon as you hit play, you’re committed! At least through the end of the track, when you can take a break or move onto another track.

By tricking yourself into eliminating the possibility of quitting, your mind will give it up as even being an option, and be better able to focus on presence and the task at hand. They say practice is the master of all skills, but I say habit management is the master, practice is simply a habit that must be managed. These play-along tracks greatly assisted in my implementation of the hand technique practice habit, and I have seen tremendous results from this program. I hope these ideas can help you as well!

Practice

Practicing the drums, or any musical instrument for that matter, is an activity which requires immense focus, concentration, and creativity. It could be stated that there is a direct correlation between the amount of concentrated focus you can muster to the effectiveness of your practice session.

The Mind

The human mind has only a finite amount of concentration available each day. The more decisions you make, and the more strenuous those decisions are, the less mental and emotional energy you will have to continually make good focused decisions. This can sap your mental energy and creativity. So with that in mind wouldn’t it be a great idea to try to preserve as much of that focus as possible for practicing itself, and not squander it on extraneous mental output?

Automation

By automating your practice session, you can cut down on the amount of mental energy that it takes to decide when to practice, what to practice, for how long, you should practice, etc. All of these decisions should be made intentionally, well before the practice session begins. I like to devise the blueprint for my practice sessions once a week on Sundays, and then execute it the rest of the week.

Execution

The most effective tool I have found for automating your practice sessions is Apple’s GarageBand application. I like to program a track into garageband for each song or exercise I am going to be working on for the week. Sometimes this means simply programming a click to a certain tempo with a specific amount of measures and reading along with a book or improvising. Other times I actually program the entire drum part into GarageBand and play along with it verbatim. I have found this approach to be extremely helpful with memorizing drum parts.

Benefits

There are many benefits to programming tracks into garageband with which to practice. Having a track with a set duration gives you built in time limits for each exercise, which can improve focus. If you have many things to practice in your practice session, it is important not to spend too much time on any one exercise, in order to prevent stealing from the success of another area in your practice goals.

Memorization

• Playing along with the exact drum part for songs can be extremely helpful in memorizing drum parts. The drum part is played over and over again, and you get instant feedback when you play the wrong part, or when what you play is not perfectly synchronized. By only having the drum part to listen to, you are not able to rely on the other instruments parts or lyrics to know where you are in the song, which forces you to memorize the song and sing it in your head while playing. This strengthens your confidence in your parts and your ability to play when you bring the music back. Being able to devote less conscious energy to remembering your part and where you are in a song gives you that much more power in focusing on being in the moment, and being able to respond quickly and easily to whatever is happening in the performance.
• When memorizing parts, I like to start by listening to the song a couple times to get a feel for how it sounds. Then I go ahead and start programming the drum part into garageband. This can be a little bit tedious and time consuming, but another benefit is that it forces you to really analyze and dissect what’s going on in the drum part. By the time you’re done programming it in you will have a really good understanding of everything you need to play before you even begin playing along.
• Once the part has been input, and I can basically play the whole thing, I then move on to playing along with the sheet music and the original audio, if possible. If there are any tricky parts, I can break them down and go over them very slowly, by changing the tempo in garageband and looping that section. I will do this with any part that gives me trouble, gradually speeding up each sticking point until I have confidence I can play the entire piece without much difficulty. Once I have a good feel for how the song goes and how the parts fit together, I will play along with the GarageBand file, reading the sheet music. I will slowly wean myself off the sheet music, memorizing in sections, possibly 8 bars at a time. As I memorize the parts, any mistakes I make are immediately brought to my attention by the GarageBand file playing the correct part. A few times through this process and the memorization process is finished, smoothly and with minimal stress.

Repetition

Once your parts are basically memorized, I feel it is important to revisit them daily. The heavy lifting is complete, so all thats left is a quick play through of each one to keep it fresh in your mind and in your muscle memory. This will ensure a high degree of facility and confidence in parts that you keep in your practice rotation.

Inspiration

I first got this idea from Tommy Igoe’s “Great Hands for a Lifetime” educational product. This DVD comes with MP3s of Tommy Igoe’s Lifetime Warmup: a beginner, intermediate, and advanced hand technique playalong track, both with Tommy playing along and with the click exclusively.

I noticed that after a few times of practicing with these MP3s, I was able to put a lot more focus and concentration into the exact motions and mechanics of my hands through the exercise. The parts themselves had become automatic. I was focusing less on “what” I was playing and more on “how” I was playing ,which is essential for improvement in practice. Playing along with these tracks caused a swift internalization of the actual parts I was playing, freeing up more mental energy for focusing on improving my technique and relaxation. Furthermore I found that within a short amount of time I had no trouble at all remember what to play in any of the sequences I tackled. After a few iterations playing through while reading the music, I found I no longer needed to read the parts to play along, I had it memorized.

Practical Application

I’ve been stationed at the Army Band in Korea for 2 years, and I’m transferring to a new band in Oklahoma. The band sent me some music to memorize in preparation for my move. I have been developing and using these techniques myself over the past few weeks, and have had a lot of success in smooth memorization. Let me know how these techniques work for you, and I welcome any thoughts and feedback!