Learning How to Practice

Many of my students have had trouble learning how to practice while sitting down behind the drum set. Quite often, they play the things that they can already do and don’t spend enough time on new challenges. Instead of telling them not to “play” at all during these practice sessions, I actually encourage playing the drums as a part of their practice routine. That being said, it’s only part of the routine and I let them know that it’s not the main part. For me, playing the drum set is such a powerful experience and can be so much fun that I don’t want to do this only at gigs!

So, learning how to practice takes, well… practice! I’m a big believer in having a routine (which can be varied), and using that every time. Here are my thoughts as to a nice routine which can modified for things such as time constraints and individual factors. (Warming up is always first, and then the other parts can be reorganized as necessary. The warm down is last.)

1. First, dedicate a specific time of day and a set number of minutes/hours. Consistency is key and I’ll dedicate a blog post along those lines soon.
2. Warm up. Various exercises can be used and varied depending on the student’s level. The main point is to make sure you start with this. Learning how to warm up is important – don’t start blazing fast!
3. Sight Read. Make sure to always have some snare drum books, drum charts and lead sheets available. Reading is such a cool thing for so many reasons.
4. Work on specific exercises that have been assigned. This can vary week-to-week, so it’s best to have an blank manuscript book that your teacher writes in during your lesson. Refer to the current week’s assignments.
5. Work on past exercises! Please don’t forget things simply because they were written down and worked on last week, last month or last year.
6. The majority of your practicing should be done with a click track or metronome. Get used to doing it sooner rather than later.
7. Play! Have some fun. Put on a recording, e.g., and play along or simply put on a click and go to town! Turn off the click and go to town again!
8. Learn harmony and theory while studying a melodic instrument.
9. Learn tunes and transcribe them – either the drum part or the entire composition.
10. Warm down.

There is a lot here, but it’s something that can be done. It may help to have some sort of timer so that after ten minutes of warming up, e.g., you’re reminded to move on to the next part of the routine. You may have a shorter time frame, so you may only get six minutes of a warm up before having to move on. Play around with this and enjoy!