Drum FillosOphy 101

“Philosophy is the highest music.” ~Plato

THE INNER GAME OF DRUMMING

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Across all professional disciplines, experts agree that performance is significantly reliant on a rock solid mental game. In Drum Fillosophy 101, I have included some of the most important philosophies I have learned from educators, clinicians, fellow musicians, books and my own experiences over the last 40ish years. I hope they inspire you to work on your drumming mental game so that you can attain new highs as a musician and educator.

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PRACTICE HABITS

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle

Make Your Practice Time "SIC"

“SIC” is the best acronym I could come up with for helping my students remember the 3 ways to maximize practice efficiency – besides, my kids tell me it is cool to spell slang words wrong.

“S” stands for Slow it down. Practice slow, and you will learn fast! As common sense as this may seem, we all have a tendency to prematurely practice difficult exercises/grooves at the goal tempo (and often times faster) – which is incredibly inefficient for improving. Slow things down, get them perfect, and then gradually increase the tempo, again getting it perfect at each tempo increase. Getting difficult exercises up to tempo will usually take multiple practice sessions, so don’t rush the speed up process! Also make sure to record yourself periodically to ensure you sound good before increasing tempo.

“I” stands for Isolate – specifically your limbs. It can be extremely helpful with some grooves or patterns to isolate what each hand and/or foot is doing on its own within the exercise. If you can’t play each part separately, there is approximately a 100% chance that you can’t put them all together!

“C” stands for Chunk. Another great way to make difficult grooves/patterns manageable is to practice them in chunks – meaning practice only 2 to 3 beats at a time (or 1 if necessary), and gradually add a beat or two at a time once you have the 1st chunk perfected.

All of the previous practice methods can also be combined in different ways to maximize efficiency and reduce frustration. For example, If you are working on an 8th note rock groove with a challenging bass drum part, 1st slow it down, isolate and repeat the parts the hands play. Once that is solid, “chunk” the bass drum part by gradually adding in one beat of it at a time.

Metronome Practice

Your feel and groove will benefit more from using music recordings as your “metronome” when practicing, but when working on new challenging exercises, a metronome is a less distracting, tailorable source of time reference. While it is good practice (and training for studio click track playing) to put the metronome on quarter notes, you must not become too reliant on having the metronome "spoon feed" you every beat if you want to develop good time feel.

With the advent of metronome apps, there are many ways to practice with a metronome that can keep you challenged, yet give you the necessary reference of time for training. When practicing swing, I like setting the metronome to the half note and visualizing the click as being on 2 and 4. Many other times I will set the metronome* to play the first two beats of every other measure. The first two beats give you the tempo, while the 6 beats of silence force you to be more accountable for the time. Try different ways to challenge yourself when programming a metronome, but as a general rule, strive for leaving more and more space between metronome reference clicks in order to develop a better sense of inner pulse.

*The app I like to use to customize which beats the metronome plays is Pro Metronome

Dynamic Practice

In general, drummers don’t practice enough playing quietly. I get it – it isn’t nearly as fun or cathartic, but taking the time to add super soft practice time to your practice routine will not only expand your dynamic range and improve control, but it will also give you a fatter groove when playing loud. This is because at softer volumes, a “fat” groove/pocket is more reliant on beat placement and attitude than volume. So if you can make a soft dynamic range groove hard, it feels comparatively easy to groove once you really start hitting the drums.

There are certainly gigs that require you to play loud and hard, but for a gigging drummer, many jobs require you to play impossibly quiet, and you can’t expect to sound good playing softly if you haven’t spent a significant amount of time honing the muscle groups and techniques required to do so. If your current practice situation doesn’t allow you to practice late at night, try using some of that previously unusable practice time to play as soft as you can, and expand not only your dynamic range, but your gig range as well!

Always Groove

Looking back on my practice routine over the years, I spent so much time trying to just play things correctly, that I would often lose sight of the most important thing: how does the music feel? As the philosopher Aristotle said (and I concur), “We are what we repeatedly do…” So if you spend the majority of your practice time trying to make exercises groove and feel good, grooving will become habitual (conversely, habitual apathetic practice routines leads to apathetic performances). I say the majority of your time because there will be instances where you are working on something that requires all of your mental resources just to play it correctly, but the sooner you can start shifting some of your focus (and your student’s focus when teaching) to how each exercise feels/grooves, the better chance you/they will have of always grooving.

Always Phrase

“The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.” ~ Amadeus Mozart

If you want to be considered a musical drummer (and keep gigs), you will need to leave space for other musicians to contribute, and musical “breaths” are also essential for keeping your listeners interested. Ipso facto, you need to spend the majority (if not all) of your practice time using rest phrasing (click for more info on phrases and phrasing).

I firmly believe that in no small part, the countless hours I spent practicing exercises from books contributed to my own habitual overplaying when I was younger – because most stick control/chop building exercise books have approximately zero rests! This is where I bang my own drum, and mention that for this very reason, every exercise in my book Melodic Stick Control was written with phrases, rest phrasing and accent phrasing in mind, so that you can develop your stick control and sense of phrases & phrasing at the same time.

INTEGRITY

"The strongest thing that any human being has going is their own integrity and their own heart. As soon as you start veering away from that, the solidity that you need in order to be able to stand up for what you believe in and deliver what’s really inside, it’s just not going to be there.” ~ Herbie Hancock

Punctual Integrity

Being on time for gigs seems like it should be a “gimme,” but I am constantly amazed at how many musicians don’t sink this putt! Ok, so I would be somewhat of a hypocrite if I didn’t admit to being late to probably 3 or 4 gigs in my life, but that’s not too shabby over the course of 25ish years. Even still, I know those mistakes cost me future work and money. There are some outlier musicians that sound so good that they seem to get called no matter how many times they show up late, but I don’t recommend testing that theory for your self.

“Early is on time, on time is late.” There are several variations of this quote, and it’s origin is disputed, but it certainly holds true for musicians. Planning to arrive at least 30 minutes early (on time) for every gig will give you a cushion for the unexpected (traffic, going back for your bass drum pedal that you forgot to put in your hardware case, etc.), and it will earn you a reputation of punctual reliability that makes band leaders want to call you (often before they will call a better drummer who lacks punctual reliability). I am speaking not only from the sideman experience, but also from the band leader perspective. Whenever I have to book a band, I pick musicians that I know will sound great and will surely be on time (early), and sometimes bypass better musicians that aren’t as reliable. Being a band leader can be stressful, and you never forget (and never call) the guys that add to that stress by constantly trying to set a world record for the least amount of seconds needed to get there axe out and make the downbeat.

Some crucial factors that you should consider when planning to be early (on time):

• Number of gig commute miles – The longer the distance, the more chance of delays.
• Time of day – Is it rush hour(s) during any part of your gig commute?
• Is it a new gig? – Give yourself extra time for unfamiliar roads/parking/load in.

Excellence Integrity

Have you ever half-assed, or some fraction of-assed any job or project? Putting 100% effort and focus in to everything you do might seem unrealistic, but approaching all tasks with that mindset can create a pattern of excellence that will bring you success in both your professional and personal life. You must realize however, that giving 100% of your effort will not always yield the same results as someone else’s lesser, or even possibly worst effort. For Example, I couldn’t beat Tiger Woods in golf lets say when he is giving 50% effort, even if I could somehow find a way to give 200% effort. Point being, while we can learn from others, excellence should not be measured in terms of achievement comparisons, but rather in individual effort, which can only be measured by you. If you can say that you put 100% effort into everything you do, then you have “excellence integrity.”

Musical Integrity

For some musicians musical integrity means starving before playing music that betrays their notion of musical artistry. While other musicians are labeled “sell outs” for having no musical integrity, and pandering to the lowest of “musical common denominators” to make a buck. Musical taste is entirely subjective, and you should never let others opinions determine for you what you enjoy listening to and/or performing.

I personally don’t judge any musician for what they choose to play or why, however I do get bugged by musicians who have a crappy attitude on the gig. For me, musical integrity is defined by only taking the gigs that you can do with a positive attitude. Besides being a pet peeve of mine, it is also an important factor for getting called for future work. So if your disdain for a certain style of music (or the musicians themselves) prevents you from even acting like you are having a good time, have some musical integrity and stay home to protect your attitude reputation, but also as to not ruin the gig for everyone else.

Human Integrity

“Integrity is doing the right thing. Even when no one is watching.” ~ C.S. Lewis

I think most of us want to be good human beings, but have you ever taken a moment to define your own moral code/beliefs? Thinking about it, defining it and (maybe most importantly) writing it down is crucial to raising the self awareness (and the resulting cognitive dissonance) necessary to hold your self accountable for being a good human being – and being a good human being will definitely help you stay employed as a musician (or in any career for that matter). If you are dishonest/shady, or speak disparagingly of others, IT WILL catch up to you at some point and affect the amount of work you get as a drummer. I can sum up my integrity code (which serves me well when I don’t blow it) in 3 categories.

Honesty Integrity– Always tell the truth. Lies have a way of catching up to liars, and rationalizing any lie can be habit forming. Even white lies such as “you sound great man” will undermine your honesty integrity when a musician you have said it to, hears you say it to another musician who objectively did not sound good.
Moral Integrity– Rationalizing actions that you know are wrong for any reason (maybe because you are sure you can get away with it, or because you believe those affected by it deserve it), is a slippery slope that can chip away at your moral foundation, and ultimately your musical employment. It may seem trite, but to quote C.S. Lewis “Integrity is doing the right thing. Even when no one is watching.”
Gossip Integrity– This is the one I struggle with the most. I am often too quick to join in discussions that are negative or making fun of others. But I am working on it! When my mom died, something was said about her by others that truly resonated with me: “she never said a negative word about anyone.” I still have a long way to go before people will say that about me, but that is my goal, and I highly recommend it for your musical career. If you gossip negatively about other musicians, those that you are gossiping with will eventually wonder what you are saying about them when they are not around, and that simple observation can translate into less calls for work. More work shouldn’t be your motivation to be a better person, but if you struggle with gossip integrity, you might want to take an existential introspective moment to decide what you want people to say about you when you aren’t around. Especially after you die – which in turn could inspire others that were close to you to be better human/musician beings.

Cross-Training:

The action or practice of engaging in two or more sports or types of exercise in order to improve fitness or performance in one's main sport.

"The Good Stuff"

One day when chatting with Paul Johnson, a great drumming friend/co-worker at Disneyland, he asked me if learning to play the banjo had helped my drumming, and if so, in what ways? At the time, I hadn't really thought about it much, and although I had many musicians telling me that my musicianship as a drummer had improved significantly, I told Paul that I did feel it helped, but I couldn't quantify or articulate exactly how. Paul's answer had his typical zen/mentor insight: "and that's the good stuff." While I will suggest some of my favorite cross-training endeavors and how they will help you in the subsequent tabs of this section of Drum Fillosophy 101, know that sometimes you won't necessarily know all of the benefits you are getting from cross-training - "and that's the good stuff."

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Pro Advice

"Music is not a profession. Music is a way of life - one that requires much professionalism." ~ Daniel Barenboim

10,000 Hours of Practice

There as been a great deal of research done on how many hours of practice it takes to become an expert at any chosen profession. Anders Ericsson is credited with first suggesting the “10,000 hour rule” in a fascinating research paper entitled “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance.”(click on the title link if you would like to read it) While many researchers have reached the consensus that 10,000 hours is the magic number for true expertise, Ericsson’s paper actually discusses other important factors that can significantly affect the actual number of hours it takes, such as natural ability, and the quality of the practice time.

Wherever your opinion may land on the amount of hours it takes to become a professional drummer, most experts agree that it takes A LOT – many that I have talked to recounting a period in their lives (ranging from 4 to 8 years) where they practiced up to 8 hours a day. I can confidently say that it has taken me more than 10,000 hours to become an expert, and I would say that it is partly due to many hours of sub par or misguided practice. So if you truly desire to become an expert/professional drummer, be prepared to work hard, but even more importantly to work smart in order to get the most out of every hour that you practice. Make sure and read through all of the suggestions in Drum Fillosophy 101 to best improve the quality of your practice time, so that you can reach your drumming goals in hopefully less than 10,000 hours!

Shown below is an estimated breakdown of how many years it will take you to reach 10,000 hours of practice if you commit to practicing a certain amount of time daily:

30 Minutes a day ----- 54.8 Years
1 Hour a day ---------- 27.4 Years
2 Hours a day --------- 13.7 Years
3 Hours a day --------- 9.2 Years
4 Hours a day --------- 6.9 Years
5 Hours a day --------- 5.5 Years
6 Hours a day --------- 4.6 Years
7 Hours a day --------- 4 Years
8 Hours a day --------- 3.5 Years

Goal Minded Consistency

The two most important things you can do to reach your goals is write them down, and consistently work on them. I recommend making a list of your drumming goals, and putting it where you can see it every time you sit down to practice. Make each goal as specific as possible. For example, don’t just put “Jazz Drumming” on your list. Is it your jazz independence that needs work? Brushes? Trading 4’s? You may want to work on all of these, so include them all under the heading “Jazz Drumming.” Be prepared for your list to evolve and some times change entirely – hopefully because you can check something off after reaching a goal, but often times because your priorities will change. Regardless of why or how often you need to amend your list, acknowledging your goals with a list is crucial to staying on track and budgeting your practice time.

The consistency quotient of reaching your goals requires you to attack your goals daily. This may require you to prioritize and possibly limit the number of goals on your practice list depending on how much daily practice time you plan to commit. Another option if you have a disproportionate number of goals verses time, is to practice in a “round”. This is where you imagine your list as a circle, practice around the circle as far as you can, and then pick up where you left off in your next session. This can help practice routines from becoming stagnant, and also help you consistently hit everything on your list at least semi-daily.

Perseverance

Besides the hard work, and lack of instant gratification associated with practicing to become a professional musician, another significant factor for most people giving up is the inherent amount of failure necessary for improving. You must persevere and learn from mistakes and bad performances (which you would just assume forget). The whole process seems so bass-ackwards at times. In order for you to improve, you must first become aware that you - for lack of a better term – suck. There is no improvement with out sucking awareness, and sucking awareness makes you want to quit.

The solution? For me, I try to view each moment that I gain awareness (realize I suck at something) as empirical proof that I am improving (helpful for most of us who feel like we are never getting any better), as opposed to the more common (and more natural) assumption that I am getting worse. Hopefully you too can learn to view your drumming shortcomings this way, and use it as a motivational tool to persevere in those moments of perceived failure, that are actually more likely to be moments of heightened awareness. If outhustling the competition doesn’t lead to early success for you, then combining it with perseverance will certainly lead to outlasting the competition, and your eventual success!

Don't Just Copy, Steal!

I have yet to run across an accomplished drummer or musician who said they never copied anyone. On the contrary, most great musicians are quick to give credit to their musical heroes, and one of the best questions you can ask your own musical heroes is who did they listen to.

Listening to and copying your favorite players is the most natural and effective way to learn, because it is the way we all learn from birth. We watch, listen, and emulate - and just like babies, there will be a great deal of trial and error. Your music may sound like nonsensical baby babble at first, but with years of persevering emulation and practice, you will eventually speak music on the drums fluently.

I recommend that you copy as many drummers from as many different genres as you can. The pioneers of any genre of music are constantly building on the inspiration of their heroes and predecessors, and often those inspirations come from multiple genres of music. Somewhat ironically, it is this dedication to copying so many different great musicians (combined with your uniqueness) that leads to a fresh and original drumming approach/sound. To ensure your own originality, keep this T.S. Elliot quote in mind, only substitute the word poets with drummers: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.”

Active Listening

Putting some music on in the background can significantly enhance your enjoyment of any given moment, but being a great musician and drummer will require you to find time to listen to music in the “foreground.” This means studying music by listening intently to specific attributes of your favorite artists, which will provide essential insight that can’t be conveyed in words. I like to say that teachers and books can provide you with the how to drum, but dedicated listening to music can provide you with the why. Below are a few suggestions to start your active listening journey.

When listening to your favorite drum grooves, listen to the bass drum pattern of the drummer and how it relates to the bass players rhythms. Does the drummer play the same pattern on the bass drum? Less notes? More notes? This will be incredibly informative for making good musical choices when creating your own grooves.
When listening to Jazz drumming, pay close attention to when and where the drummer plays his swing pattern. When does he/she choose to be on the hi-hat, the ride cymbal, or brushes. This will make more sense if you understand Jazz song forms. Keeping your place in the form of tunes is also an incredibly valuable way to actively listen.
When listening to rock shuffles or swing music, examine the drummers swing interpretation. Is it fairly straight, tripletized/rounded, or tightly swung closer to 16th notes? The amount of swing used in a swing based time patterns varies from drummer to drummer, and often varies as a function of tempo – the faster the tempo, the more the pattern is typically straightened out.
Don’t always make your active listening about the drummer. Listen to your favorite songs many times, but each time focusing on each of the instruments individually. It will give you further insight as to the “why” of what the drummer played, and it will expand your understanding of any given genre, which may in turn lead to the desire (and competence) to compose your own music.

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Drum Fillosophy 101

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THE INNER GAME OF DRUMMING

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PRACTICE HABITS

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle

Make Your Practice Time "SIC"

Metronome Practice

Dynamic Practice

Always Groove

Always Phrase

“The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.” ~ Amadeus Mozart

INTEGRITY

Punctual Integrity

Excellence Integrity

Musical Integrity

Human Integrity

“Integrity is doing the right thing. Even when no one is watching.” ~ C.S. Lewis

Cross-Training:

"The Good Stuff"

Learn a New Axe

Pro Advice

"Music is not a profession. Music is a way of life - one that requires much professionalism." ~ Daniel Barenboim

10,000 Hours of Practice

Goal Minded Consistency

Perseverance

Don't Just Copy, Steal!

Active Listening

Video

Audio

Lesson Materials

Drum Fillosophy 101

Get Notified!