The Importance Of Practicing

“The more you practice the better you will become at playing drums”

This is a simple but true statement and students should be aware that their technical
expertise with the instrument will be directly related to the time spent practicing.
In fact in this respect playing drums is no different to playing any other instrument.
What you need also to do is to utilise the time that you have to practice in the best
possible way. Your practice routine is liable to develop as you become more
proficient but is liable to be made up from similar basic components.
It is suggested that your session should normally finish with playing along to music as
for most people the object of the exercise is to play in a band with other musicians and
you need to be making sure that the practice you do is assisting in this.
There may be a fill or groove that you have had some problem with and perhaps after
some practice you are able to do it. This confirms that you are on the right course as
you go.
So what form should your practice session take ?
Lets put together some samples, one for beginners and one for beginners/advanced.

Suggested session for beginners.

• single strokes
• double strokes
• rudiments
• stick control
• groove studies
• fill studies
• current exam/score piece
• jam to chosen music of your choice (have fun with what you’ve learned/practiced)

Suggested session for intermediate student

• as above plus;
• Drum set warm ups (preferably and professionally at the start of your practice from now on.
• snare drum site reading studies
• independence exercises
• Multi-genre specific studies; eg, Funk, Jazz, Latin
• (Double) Pedal work
• Coordination and polyrhythms

There is an element of psychology in the way that this is put together, you save ‘the
best’ (in terms of your enjoyment) till last and do the ‘hard work’ eg. on things which
require some concentration, beforehand.
It’s also a good idea to ‘warm up’ before going into the more complicated stuff.
Perhaps doing single and double strokes with different stick heights and tempos is a
good one to start with.
(Really think about hand position, grip, control of bounce etc. during this part of the
practice routine).
As long as you play the drums you will be striving for perfection in the control of the
sticks, bounce etc but no-one is ever totally satisfied. There is always room for
improvement, so people who have been playing for a number of years will still return
to single and double stroke roll exercises.
NB. For at least some of the exercises make sure you play along to a metronome.
Each time you sit down to practice just think about the structure of your session and
determine how many minutes you are able to devote to each element.
If you have one hour say, take off some time for playing along to a cd and then divide
the remaining time by the number of elements of the session so that you know just
how much to devote to each.
You get out of playing drums precisely what you put into it, so commit yourself
to practice and you will be surprised just how much progress you make.

Listening as a part of practicing
You can be ‘practicing’, or at least developing your drum skills, while listening to
music. (See previous lesson notes on the subject of listening.)
What you need to do is listen not just to the particular type of music that you are
interested in at any one time but also other types.
The following table gives some ideas on what to listen to but don’t treat this as
exhaustive. You will derive benefit from listening to any good music.
(Its a good idea to see what they have at your local library first before buying any
CDs).