You've Got Time To Practise (part 1)

Greatness may not be conferred upon every drummer who picks up a pair of sticks, far better to be the 'best you' with the talent that you have. That's not to say you shouldn't aim high, absolutely you should but be sure you know what it is you are aiming for. Quite a while ago I gave up on scoring the winning goal in the FA cup final, or being formula one champion. I'll probably never play the O2 arena either, but the point is I'm happy where I am. Equally importantly I know where I'm going and have strategies in place to make that happen insofar as I am able.


The key to successful dreaming is to target things you believe you are potentially capable of achieving, which reminds me of a very funny moment from The Sopranos.  Ambition needs to be thought through and ruthlessly planned. A friend of mine is determined to win an academy award and whilst the odds are long I can't help but admire the conviction, because without that you might as well go and do something else. 

So the job in hand is to get as good as you possibly can, as efficiently as possible. To grow as a player you need to have targets and a practice routine in order to hit those targets.

The first thing I ask a new student is what they practise. How much time is spent and what sort of content . I get some quite interesting answers to these two questions you won't be surprised to learn. 
The question that more often than not leaves a student stumped is 

'Why are you practising that?"

An hour of doubles and singles is a popular answer, but could that hour be better spent? Without a doubt it could, about which more later.
I have given this a great deal of thought and I believe that the type of practice we do falls into three categories.

Type 1

Maintaining the skill set.

Match fitness in other words. Taking a broad view of all the different areas of playing you might be called upon to cover in terms of tempo, feel, style, dynamics and such. You never know what the next phone call is going to bring.

This is a particular area where drum books that deal with specific music genres can be highly valuable. You'll find a couple on the list in part 2 of this post. Don't play much latin? Lacking in the jazz department? Give it a try. You are adding to your range as a musician as well as enhancing your usefulness to potential employers.


Type 2

Creative Development

This I find endlessly fascinating. I'm always on the lookout for new and different approaches, be it specifics of technique, co-ordination, motion, improvisation; you name it I can't get enough.
Some players will self criticise and deem this to be mere 'messing about'. Never underestimate the value of messing about. Virtually every valuable, original idea I have ever had on the instrument started life as messing about.
Most importantly whenever you have a good idea, write it down. You might not need it today or tomorrow, or even have time to fully develop it, but who knows how much use it might be in years to come.
I've been doing this for decades and have a personal collection of notebooks containing every half way decent idea that has ever occurred to me. Bob Monkhouse would have been proud.
Remember it is your original thoughts and musical concepts that will mark you out as an individual, just like in any field of endeavour.

A direct consequence of our information age is that there are more very good players than ever before, but a great many of them are playing similar sounding ideas, but buying auxiliary snare drums or remote bass drums in an attempt to be different. It's when I hear and see something completely new, or a fresh take on something that has been around a while that I really sit up and take notice. So, learn by copying, but look beyond the lick, reverse engineer it, take other players' ideas apart and remodel them in your own image .

This brings us on to the third and final type of practice.

Type 3. Time wasting. 

Let me make it clear that I am not one of those drummers who advocates that you should never spend practice time on things you can already do. That's completely absurd. Things you can already do are a key part of type 1 practice. You need to make sure that you can still do them and improve upon them if possible.

Time wasting is spending hours and hours working on material with no outcome in mind. 
Practice needs to have a purpose otherwise you are merely running the clock down in order to self-validate. You might have spent four hours playing rudiments with the only achievement being to have ingrained bad habits still further. 

One of the drummer buzzwords du nos jours is 'muscle memory'. Muscle memory is frequently offered up as an excuse for endless, mindless repetitive practice.

Here's where muscle memory will let you down.
Just the other day I was prepping some college drum students for end of year exams. Part of which involved reading and playing some intermediate level 8th and 16th note funk grooves. The students would make silly mistakes on relatively easy phrases and the reason they did was that they were being asked to read something slightly different from a pattern in their muscle memory. The muscle memory would take over and cause them to play something they had previously internalised rather than what was actually required.

This is a widespread problem which is relatively easily cured. More about that in a future post.

Also there can be a fine line between attainment and time wasting. Many of us have spent many hours applying pages 38-45 of the Syncopation book, playing each page from end to end usually in the context of an independence study. The likelihood of a professional situation arising where you would have to execute a 32 bar 'melody' in this way is infinitesimally small, so be honest, how good a use of time is it? Better to spend 15 minutes on a couple of 4 bar or 8 patterns, the kind of stuff you might actually use, and then move on to something else. We're not practicing a concerto for snare drum! (If you are get yourself a copy of Portraits in Rhythm by Anthony J Cirone).

I remember the late, great Kenny Clare talking about practice. This was back in 1977 and he was of the opinion that 15 minutes well spent was better than two non-productive hours. Smart guy. Great drummer. Even then he was on to something.

(To be continued)


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