Just copy every detail of this photograph and you’ll be fine— KIDDING!!! I see this question on line pretty often: “How do I get my snare drum chops together? Which system do I use?” I have a […]
Category: practicing
Very occasional quote of the day: practicing eight hours a day
“Do it ’til you get to a certain point technically where you don’t do it.” — Jack Dejohnette, unpublished interview with Scott K. Fish
The elements of playing well
Oh, yes, and typically it’s done in the nude, or loosely swathed in a bolt of lustrous fabric. That’s key, actually— forget the rest of this stuff. If you were wondering what goes into being […]
Very occasional quote of the day: remember this
“The obstacle is the path.” — Zen proverb, via the Zen proverbs Twitter feed The “purpose” of Zen is not to be a performance-enhancer, but this is a good one to remember in the practice […]
Drumming myths
A decent piece from the Modern Drummer site— 12 Drumming Myths Debunked. Here are the entries that interest me, with my comments on them: 2. Mistakes are always bad. Honor thy mistakes with repetition—I think […]
What to do with a beat
Don’t know how to make a variation? Any of thesecould be a variation of the first beat. Why not. If you ever get bored looking at some page of rock beats you’re supposed to be […]
Advice for beginning drummers
Obligatory inspirational picture 1. Play every day. Consistency is the main thing. At some point in your playing career, you will need to put in many hours every day, for several years at least, if […]
The useful from the useless
Here’s something I’ve been meaning to get to. This question— edited slightly— came up on the Drummerworld discussion forum today: I keep finding tons of new material on line, YouTube in particular, and am constantly […]
Pad practice fodder
In a dream world, a perfect world, we would all do our “pad” practice— I call it snare drum practice— on an actual drum, and giving it our undivided attention. Somewhere along the line I […]
On playalongs, pt. 2: play exercises
Stuff like this. Anything. Why not? Back from tour and easing back into blogging, here, with part 2 in this thoughts on practicing along with recordings series. Today we’ll discuss the value of not just […]
On playalongs, pt.1: use real music
That’s the idea. I was working on a single post about practicing along with recorded music— something I’ve been doing a lot of lately— but it was running long on me, and taking forever to […]
Additional tom moves
If like me you’ve been working the hell out of the pages o’ coordination (me, I’ve been hitting the Afro 6/8, the 6/8 Rumba clave, and the page of Mozambique) you may be getting a […]