Supposing you’ve read part 1, and you’ve identified what you want to learn and practise on the drums, the next thing is figuring out how long to spend on it exactly, what particular elements you should work on, and how to stick it out over the long term. Again, I want to emphasise that this is a massive topic, and there are many valid ways of approaching it, and this is my humble two cents 😀
How Long Should I Practise for Exactly?
This one is kind of a case of “How long is a piece of string?”, and there’s no set guide for it. Everyone’s different, and you have to experiment a bit to find out what is the optimum amount of time for you to spend practising one thing in particular. But here’s a few pointers from my own experience.
You might have identified a particular phrase, technique, coordination exercise, or a few bars of a song to work on in particular. Once you’ve learnt how to play it slowly on a technical level, you could then try spending 2-10 minutes per day on it, possibly divided up into sets e.g., 3 x 2-minute sets. I would also emphasise playing it at a tempo that is manageable but that also requires your concentration to maintain. Too slow, and it will be too easy and you won’t be challenging yourself and improving your drumming. Too fast, and you’ll fall apart whilst you’re playing it, and you’ll struggle with consistency (side note – there is a value to playing fast in small bursts then stopping, but many beginners usually struggle to do this in a productive way, and I’ll probably write another blog about how to do this). Suppose there are 5 particular things that you have identified to practise on the drums, then you’re looking at approximately 10 – 50 minutes per day depending on how much time you want to devote to each exercise and how much you feel that it calls for.
I personally would say to then give it about 2-3 weeks of sticking to this routine and then review your progress (but this is only a very rough guide and my own personal view). Slowly increase the tempo slightly depending on how you’re getting on, and then see if you’re improving with it or not. If you are noticing improvement and it seems to be working, then consider increasing the speed and/or complexity of what you are practising (e.g., if you’re practising single stroke 16th note triplets on the snare, then you could start developing patterns with this across multiple drums). If you seem to be struggling and you’re not noticing improvement, then go back a bit and get better acquainted with it on a technical level at a much slower speed, or if you’re finding that it’s just way too difficult for your current skill level, then park it for now and come back to it further down the line. There is no shame in this, and you might also find that it can help to wipe the slate a bit and tackle it afresh after leaving it for a while and working on other things.
As for measuring your progress – sometimes it’s obvious when you’ve improved e.g., you’ve learnt to play a song all the way through comfortably without making any mistakes, but for other things, progress can sometimes be slow and incremental, such as when you are working on technique conditioning, and you might not be sure that you are actually improving. For these circumstances, it can be really helpful to work to a metronome so that you can measure your average speed increasing over time, or you could even record or film yourself drumming, and then compare it with your current level a few weeks later.
Breaking it Down into Manageable Chunks
Earlier we looked at identifying what to practise on a broader scale, e.g., a style of drumming, a particular drummer, the drum grades etc., and now let’s look at how you go about learning and practising on a smaller specific scale.
Once you are clear on what your goal is and what particular thing you want to learn, it’s really helpful to break it down into smaller manageable chunks or elements and work on these separately first, and then gradually piece the whole thing together when you’re ready. It might be best to identify if there are any techniques required that you are less confident with and work on these first, then look at the coordination of playing each individual part, and then finally work on structure and playing longer phrases, or the song in full if this is what you’re learning. E.g., I learnt a Slipknot song a while back because I hadn’t done much of this kind of drumming in a while, and I thought this would be a good challenge (and I’m a big Nu-Metal kid at heart) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9EPXFQSz1Q
I started by working on developing faster double pedal speed first (technique), then learning each individual drum part of the song one part at a time (coordination), and then finally piecing the whole song together and playing it in full (structure). You don’t have to work on things in this order, and you can work on each element separately within the same practice session, as well as allocating more or less time to each element depending on what you feel requires the most work at that point. My main recommendation with this is to simply try and work on each element separately, because when you are attempting to learn something new that is challenging and outside of your current skill level, it is unlikely that you’ll be able to get to grips with the whole thing in the early stages, and I think it’s important to take a targeted and methodical approach to tackling difficult challenges. By way of analogy – if you’re attempting to assemble a wardrobe from Ikea, you’ll make your life much easier if you follow the instruction manual one step at a time, rather than just ‘having a go’ by throwing the parts together and hoping for the best.
A key thing is to have patience – you might start trying to play the first line of a new song and then realise that there is already a lot within this that you have to work on, and then that an hour or two of working on it has gone by with not much immediate progress to show for it, and you start feeling deflated and overwhelmed thinking about the other remaining pages of the song that look complicated that you haven’t even started on yet, and you might feel that it’s probably just too hard for you. I know I said earlier that sometimes you might need to accept that something is too far beyond your current skill level and to try leaving it for a while, but please don’t confuse this with quitting early because you find that you can’t do something in a short space of time. Break the problem down into small elements to work on separately, and stick with these for a good while first before taking a step back and reviewing where you’ve got up to. I frequently find that I’ll sit down to learn something new that challenges my drumming and that I just can’t do it very well to begin with, if at all, and that I need to work the problem for a while before it starts clicking. It usually does eventually, and what previously felt near-impossible became possible after breaking it down and working on each element separately, and having a bit of perseverance and faith.
Finding Balance in Your Practice
I personally feel that it’s a case of finding a balance between being reflective and flexible with your practice versus persisting with something that you find difficult and being patient with it. It is important to pay attention to your own development, and avoid stagnation by finding new challenges and exercises to work on that broaden your skill level as a drummer, but it is also equally important to persist with difficult things, and to not give up or drift away from them too easily just because you can’t play them immediately.
It’s worth trying to be honest with yourself about whether you’re practising in a productive way, and then adjusting it if required, whilst also not being too brutal with yourself or jumping ship between different things too frequently before you’ve made much headway with them. Sometimes by reflecting and paying careful attention to your drum practice, you realise that it might just need a little bit more of one thing and less of another, and that you’re halfway there already but just need to make a few micro-adjustments and stick it out for a bit longer. You might also find that when you concentrate and focus intently on practising something that it becomes more manageable, and that you can then start challenging yourself further, and the thing that you previously found difficult becomes easy for you.
Sometimes learning or practising something new on the drums isn’t always straightforward, and it can get a bit ‘scrappy’ in the way you go about solving the problem, and it requires a kind of holistic approach. There’s been things that I wanted to learn before that I initially found very difficult, and I’d spend weeks or even months banging my head against the wall trying various things, seemingly making progress one week then feeling like I’ve gone backwards again the next week, and generally being unsure if I’m heading in the right direction with it. In these circumstances I’ve found it best to stay patient and take the long view, and I’ve usually found that I can get there eventually, and that all of the time that I spent figuring out what doesn’t work helped inform me on a deeper level as to what does work.
Have Fun!
Most importantly of all, enjoy the time that you spend practising the drums and have fun with it. It’s good to challenge yourself and strive to increase your skill level, but don’t stress or injure yourself! You’ll get better over time if you’re patient and put the practice in, and putting yourself in a headspace where you’re focused and enjoying the process of learning and practising will help you get there a bit quicker. You might also surprise yourself at how quickly you start seeing noticeable improvements if you stick to a good practice routine, and eventually you can get a kind of ‘snowball effect’ where the progress that you are making shows that the practice is worth it, and this then motivates you to keep going further.
I teach drums in Brighton, and if you are interested in having lessons with me, you can find out more here.