DRUMMERS: Advice for a beginner

I was there a few weeks ago. Then I started doing a RLRR LRLL type paradiddle with the kick and the HH peddle alternating beats. Doing that for a few hours was really helpful for getting my limbs working independently.

www.drumbum.com/lessons

I like this one:

www.webthumper.com

Please explain.

Ahhh Drummer Jokes.

alternatively, spend years and years doing rudiments so you actually improve your technique rather than skipping them and being a total failure like me

Rudiments and exercises are great and everything, but in my opinion HOW you practice things is a lot more important than what. Get a teacher to teach a good grip and stroke, these are really the most important things. If you don't want to do that, there are some good videos/dvds out there (esp. the Steve Smith and Joe Morello ones).

Andrew is OTM, staying relaxed is the key. Good technique means not having to tense up or force things (which is very unhealthy, esp. over the long term) to play fast or play what you want to play. Make sure your shoulders and arms are relaxed and hanging naturally, all the necessary movement comes from the wrist and fingers.

http://primrosehill.250free.com/medrumtea.jpg

I agree that playing with some good headphones on is the best way to improve your timing, etc. Of course, music with drum machines are super-reliable, otherwise how do you know that the drummer you're playing along with doesn't have shit timing him/herself? Obviously, however, you can have no doubt if you are playing along to Stephen "Popcorn" Adler.

Booo! Realize that 80% of getting your drums to sound good on record is due to how their mic'd and eq'd.

How I started was to do the simplest beat: hi-hat or ride hit on 1234, kick kicked on 1, and snare snared on 3. Then just gradually change it, ie put another kick on 2, move the snare ahead to 2 1/2 etc.

Also, smoke cannabis.

getting a teacher is very important, even if it is just 30 minutes every two weeks.

get a teacher to find you a good book that covers basic snare and stick control technique (cant remember what i used) and for rock beats, i like Carmine Appice's Realistic Rock Drum Methods. It covers all the basics, and has a "disco" section too. if you are lucky, you will find a copy with a huge foldout poster of appice in all of his latin-fro glory behind a 25 piece silver sparkle drumkit from the 70s (he is the guy futzing around in the background of Rod Stewart's "D'ya think Im sexy" video).

after you have mastered those two, look for Stick Control, New Breed (Gary Chester), Ted Reed's Syncopation book and the Art of Bop Drumming (Riley). New Breed and Syncopation will require a teacher's help as they cant be played through like other books. New Breed can be especially abstract and complex (you might be playing a pattern between your right and left hand, and your right foot, while reading and playing parts on your left foor, while speaking quarter notes too). Art of Bop is one of the best drum books out there... there is a lot of text about approach and attitude, and you will learn some real independance. its not as hard as new breed, but just as essential (even if you never play in a jazz band ever).

lastly, if you have half an hour, practice, if you have one hour, practice for half an hour, fuck around for the rest, and always remember to work on things that you dont know how to do.

Dude, he's the guy that WROTE "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy"! One of the funniest/most cringe-inducing drum performances I've seen was at this joint where he and Ed Thigpen (Oscar Peterson's drummer) had both done clinics. They did a "duet" afterwards, which was mostly Thigpen gamely playing a nice little rock beat and Carmine Appice steamrolling over him with both bass drums. Ed was a good sport though. His head looks like a peanut.

Good advice about the pillow, and the John Riley books. They're some of the very few drum books that I've actually had the patience to really work through.

I have a teacher, and he gives me all the rudiments to work on. He went to some kind of music school, and he seems kind of old-school in his approach. We spend a lot of time on rudiments and seldom just let it rip. I've only gone about 5 times, so he may have a lesson progression in mind. He's French.

I have a practice pad that I bought a few weeks ago. I used to just use a pillow or my leg, so it's amazing how different the practice pad feels. I still struggle to find the bounce with every stroke. It's really odd how the bounce sometimes isn't there. Looking for the bounce seems really helpful, because I am forced to think about my grip and the angle of the sticks.

i stress all of this basics stuff not because i am some hard-ass classicist, but really because a lot of this will have to do with your physical health over the years. take care of your back and your wrists and you can play forever.

And your ears, of course.

5 lessons over a couple of months. I really am a beginner. I started messing around on a kit about 5 months ago.

I always use ear plugs when I play.

I would also add that paying attention to your sound is hugely important. You can get so many sounds of the snare drum, like rimshots with different lengths of the stick, playing in the center for a dead tone, near the edge for more ring, cross-sticks of different pitches, etc, and the same is true for everything on the set. I think experimenting with sound is one of the most fun parts of being a drummer, and being aware of your sound leads to control over it.

in 2 hours i am going to pick up my very first drum set. i have convinced myself +/- that i am not too old or too stupid. i finally have time and a basement and in 2 hours i will have some drums of my own, if this transaction doesn't somehow get screwed up. for a while i was looking for approval to go ahead and do this, but soon enough it became evident that i was just being a chicken. now i'm just going to finally see what i can teach myself in my oodles of spare time. this is one of the most self-indulgent things i have ever done in my life and i just have to get over that because i think it will be super fun and also good for my general health.

i play punk music and am self-taught, open hi-hat is part of the equation afaict

it was mostly a personal choice due to inability though, pre-being able to do more intricate hi-hat work, has a huge presence in a mix bc hi-hats cut through everything

i don't play splash cymbals almost at all on the record we just made, i mostly wanted to do everything via the hi-hat and the ride. i liked it way better but some of my favorite drummers get extreme musicality out of an elaborate cymbal set up

splash

er, crash*

Open hi-hat and crash cymbals are great and very useful when playing with others who are very loud.

My tendency is to dislike what I perceive as trite gambits that other drummers/percussionists do -- like if I see/hear a lot of people doing the same thing, I tend to avoid doing it myself. So, for me, it's cymbal swells w/mallets.

ooh but cymbal swells sound so good sometimes

good to see you sarahell!! :)

Sarahell and the Cymbal Swells sounds like a cool band name

i don't think it has ever occurred to me to ride the open hi hat
i also do not like hair metal

i think that just like just about any other sound, the open hi-hat can be perfect for one song and absolutely awful for another. sounds pretty sweet on "i want to hold your hand", for example.

that makes sense
for all the time i have spent watching youtube videos of people playing drums, there is always something new to learn

ok tonight i played SOLO solo (without accompaniment) in front of an audience for the first time and (by design) the set was only 5 min (all sets for the evening were only 5 min) but guess what
i loved it
the feeling of doing it was excellent and i enjoyed it a lot. i only played the small tom and snare <3

That is awesome!!!

Congrats! Standing-up setup?

heck yeah!

xp - no i decided to sit down. i kept the snare and tom where they normally are, i was sort of sitting off to the side, not in the middle of the stage. if i were being uncharitable i'd say it looked like a drum phallus but why would i do that to myself. if anyone else thought that they didn't say so to me. i don't think i have any photos but all of the sets were recorded so that's cool.

also? i carried everything up in one trip. it was glorious. hardware on my back, a drum on each shoulder, and my purse bag in the front. this was on the third floor too!

Yesss. I recently had a gig at a new jazz club a block from my house, where there is a house drum kit. I walked there with a cymbal bag, stick bag, and pedal. It was the best experience of my drumming career.

yesssssss
the limitation made it interesting too. i would normally pack the car with whatever i could stuff into it but this was just like 3 bags. that's it.
huge thank you to karl malone for letting me repeatedly borrow his snare bag!

in 2 hours i am going to pick up my very first drum set. i have convinced myself +/- that i am not too old or too stupid. i finally have time and a basement and in 2 hours i will have some drums of my own, if this transaction doesn't somehow get screwed up. for a while i was looking for approval to go ahead and do this, but soon enough it became evident that i was just being a chicken. now i'm just going to finally see what i can teach myself in my oodles of spare time. this is one of the most self-indulgent things i have ever done in my life and i just have to get over that because i think it will be super fun and also good for my general health.

― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Saturday, June 15, 2013 9:22 AM (six years ago) Bookmark

happy drummiversary to me! i'm 6!

many happy returns 👍

🎂 🎁 🍰

yayyy!!!

I forgot an emoji or two: 🥁🍗

I’m in first grade now! Still so much to learn. I’ve made a lot of loony decisions but that drum set & the ensuing years of practice have not been among them.

😀🎵🥁❤️

I used to play drums in bands, but have not played drums in ... 10 years? 15 years? But I sort of feel like with a week of practice I could get back up to speed. It's like riding a bike, but with calluses.

You don’t need calluses! I’m sure you’d be right back in the saddle. Once you know you know.

I’m in a recording studio rn!! On my birthday 🎂 🎉

happy drumming birthday!

to clarify, i did not go there FOR my birthday, i just happened to find myself there bc of kismet with birthday and scheduled recording time for band i recently joined as local drummer. this was my first time in a recording studio and i just did the tiniest of parts but that did not take away from the experience at all. very illuminating! felt educational. it also reminded me not to feel TOO good about myself/get too comfortable if i want to continue to advance in my skills; i feel like i have checked a lot of boxes but am also still a beginner in so many ways. that's good, lots to learn. still posting itt :)

funny thing happened tonight that i feel like sharing to this thread because it's my baby book:

i have been filling in as local drummer for a band whose actual drummer lives out of state. it is super fun and i know i don't play exactly what he plays, that much is plainly apparent and totally ok.

tonight i finally saw him play the same songs i have been playing (as recently as last night) with the same people. he wanted to play this show for some reason, so (since I wasn't playing) i went to check out what he is actually doing (like to see it visually), hang out w pals. and several interesting revelations occurred to me:

first, i realized that i learned his parts entirely by ear. therefore tbh i had no idea what he was actually doing bc i was limited to the recordings for my source material. seeing it was super helpful. i def learned something about the way he intended the parts to sound and also finally saw with my eyes how he did it. i enjoyed seeing him play. also, i realized that i definitely have my own style and intentions for how the drum parts sound and that, while different, my parts are very much my own!

also, it was a revelation considering that i am 6.25 years old in drumming years and he is 20+. i talked with him afterward and it was really fun and hilarious to compare notes and talk about drumming. we also talked about dancing and it was interesting to me to think about how we had the same aptitude for rhythm and i was filtered into one track and he into another (i took dance lessons from age 4). dance was primarily how i processed rhythm until i (finally) started playing drums.

weird night! enjoyable in every way in spite of my minor apprehension that i would feel bad at how much better he was than i am at playing rock music. instead of feeling bad, i actually had a great time and enjoyed seeing what he was doing that i wasn't doing (and knowing on certain songs what i was doing that he wasn't doing)

in sum: STILL AT IT :)

It's been a very long time since I played drums in any situation, but back in the day I was in a couple of bands, one that had room for flashier stuff and one that (by intent) I kept very simple. I remember a release party for the former band, where other bands covered us. (We were not big or that special at all, so who knows why.) I do recall another, slightly younger/newer drummer apologizing for her performance, because she couldn't figure out or do what I was doing, but I thought it was cool to see someone do something else. Counterpoint: once the members of the other, simpler band were at a party, and the guys got to play a few songs with a different guest drummer sitting in. That was fine with me. But the other guy was not just better than me (which I knew, I was a fan of his other band), but a lot flashier on a song where I was intentionally not flashy, which made me a little miffed, because not only did he overplay an adaptation of a part I played simply on purpose, it made me seem even less good than he was, since he played so much more and more interesting stuff than I did on the song.

Anyway, shifts in perspective are good.

xp Finally SEEING a drummer that you listen to a lot always gives a lot of insight. I actually wish I had spent even more time watching drummers live when I was younger. Youtube gives the current generation of drummers a huge leg up. OTOH all kinds of interesting creative accidents and even the development of a style can come out of incorrect approximation of recordings.

I’m 100 years old, I need a leg up!

Seeing is super important for me — I had a great time talking w him too. He was friendly and cool.

So cool that you got that perspective. I feel like motion is undervalued in drumming. Keith Moon, Art Blakey, Elvin Jones, and Milford Graves are probably the only drummers whose motion, for me, matched the sound perfectly. Like, yes, of course they're moving like that, because that how it sounds / of course it sounds like that, because that's how they're moving.

But I remember when I got heavily into PJ Harvey's Rid Of Me, I had this incredibly clear picture of how I imagined the drummer moved, with a loose, flowing, swinging quality, but without sacrificing the agitation. When I saw the band live in 1993, I was stunned: I have never, before or since, seen a drummer move so painfully stiffly. It was the exact polar opposite of what I imagined his movements to be based on what I was hearing.

heh this reminds me of this show about 11 years ago where Zach Hill played solo, and there were about 40-50 people up front, many of them drummers, watching his hands. Meanwhile I was standing behind Zach w/my friend/drum teacher because the thing that is really technically impressive about Zach Hill is his kick drum technique, so we were watching his feet. At one point, a few other friends, who were also drummers, migrated to where we were -- probably wondering why Weasel was standing in back, rather than in front, and being the very loquacious "avant-garde" dude he was, he must be onto something here that the majority of people hadn't picked up on yet.

ha! i did that once when the necks played here and i sat behind tony buck. i was like lol i see everything i need to see, envy me you fools. they're coming back soon, gotta remember to check the date...

tarfumes otm about movement. i wrote a big post and it got eaten by my terrible internet service but the tl;dr was that the difference in what he played was partially his interpretation of his parts and also just how he plays vs how i play. it never fails to amaze me how a person's voice becomes rendered in drums! i love it.

how's everyone doing? i spent my 7th birthday as a drummer up to my neck in work-related drama and didn't realize it had passed because, for the most part, my musical life has ground to a complete halt. i'm glad i got some good time in there while i could, glad i started when i did even if it was like 20-30 years later than it should have been. i had 6.5 good years! am i intermediate yet?

i bought an electronic drum kit just as the pandemic hit and have been playing along with records every day. i'd say i'm 1000x the drummer i was even just last year. still a long way to go. also i need to stop playing along to records instead of practicing the actual exercises my instructor gives me

Yes!! Same only I have my drums in my basement and they’re not electronic. I’m so much better than I was even last year. Still do my 18 min practice pad warmup routine. I could use some new exercises but I’m not sure I have the mental bandwidth to learn anything.

What is your routine?

5 min single stroke on both hands (l then r) and then 8-1 strokes on each hand for 1 min each
8L-8R for 1 min
7L-7R for 1 min
Etc down to singles again

It takes 18 min total but really 20 bc I take little breaks

I was once as good of a drummer as I wanted or needed to be, but I haven't played in maybe a decade. Yet some lizard part of my brain thinks that it's a bit like riding a bicycle, and that if I started up again I would be fine in a week or so, calluses aside. I wonder ...

lol you said the same thing last year!
I used to play drums in bands, but have not played drums in ... 10 years? 15 years? But I sort of feel like with a week of practice I could get back up to speed. It's like riding a bike, but with calluses.

― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, June 15, 2019 6:56 PM (one year ago)

Ha, so add some time to it!

i don't believe you need calluses btw -- my tender tiny ladyhands are soft and smooth. Muscle strength in fingers/hands/wrists/forearms absolutely but calluses not required imo/ime

If you look at the dates of those two posts you will see that my time is impeccable. Nailed it within less than a week!

and yeah i am 100% positive you could sit down to play no problem if you had played in the past

it was timely because i bump on my birthday every year ;)

the only reason i posted late this week was bc work hijacked my birthday
i take my development extremely seriously!

happy birthday!

thanks!
i'm 7
i feel like i am getting old! that is why i asked if i get to graduate to low-intermediate at this point

or maybe i have to wait til i'm 12 or 13 to go to junior high

i mean i am kidding about asking permission
mostly i am curious where other drummers were at 7

for old time's sake, my original post itt
look at me now

in 2 hours i am going to pick up my very first drum set. i have convinced myself +/- that i am not too old or too stupid. i finally have time and a basement and in 2 hours i will have some drums of my own, if this transaction doesn't somehow get screwed up. for a while i was looking for approval to go ahead and do this, but soon enough it became evident that i was just being a chicken. now i'm just going to finally see what i can teach myself in my oodles of spare time. this is one of the most self-indulgent things i have ever done in my life and i just have to get over that because i think it will be super fun and also good for my general health.

― free your spirit pig (La Lechera), Saturday, June 15, 2013 9:22 AM (seven years ago)