Drum Practice Routines, Exercises & Techniques

Video Transcript

Hi! My name is Frank, and in this clip we’re looking at playing with a practice pad, and using a mirror, obviously. What we want to use when we’re practicing on the drum set all the time—there are many different variations, but it’s just a simple idea—a metronome, something to keep a steady tempo. I do this for my students all the time, but I can’t be there all the time, and so they want to get used to practicing with a metronome. With all styles, and almost all music, the drummer’s number one job is holding a steady tempo: not going faster, not going slower, but the tempo you start at is the tempo you stay at, no matter what you play. Unless the music dictates otherwise, you hold that pattern rock solid. Practicing with a metronome and a practice pad, that’s the stuff that really forces you to internalize that metronome sound, you can feel…….that feel, that grove, that rock solid repetitious…..sound. So we want to be able to make those sticks do what we want them to do. Make the sticks your slave; don’t allow the sticks to tell you what to do on the drum set or on the practice pad. And even though there’s only one clip on Expert Village about the practice pad, I spend a lot of time on the practice pad. It’s very easy to transfer from the practice pad to the drum set because your wrists and your fingers are doing the same thing on all the other instruments. If you can do that, you can go around the kit doing the other things; but if you can do it on a practice pad, you can play it on a kit: it’s just a matter of moving your hands to each different instrument. So let’s take a look at what it is to practice with a metronome…it’s just giving me a steady beat, and there so many exercises to play, this book stick control is a foundationally strong instrument—I use it for my feet too. Just eight strokes per hand, and I’m having to think about lining those up with those beats. Practice on the metronome with all the grips—French, German and American—with all the techniques and all the exercises, and then go apply it to the drum set. It surprises me how little some drummers practice, when I know that there so much to practice, there so many areas to improve. I encourage you to take a listen, listen to a lot of music; but probably more importantly, practice a lot and listen to yourself, find your sound. The metronome forces you to think about that internal pulse. The mirror is a fantastic tool, because now you see what the audience sees. So you can work on technique from here, looking down on your hands, and then you see a totally different picture, and you’ll learn so much. If you’ve ever bought an instructional video, or seen another one like online, like you’re seeing now, now you get to see what those other people are seeing out of you. How’s your technique? How’s your facial expressions? How’s your posture? How’s your drum height? All of this stuff will reveal. Am I playing too hard? Am I working too hard to get the sound out of the instrument? Am I not working hard enough? It’s amazing how different things are from the front; use mirrors, use metronomes and practice with practice pads.

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