10 THINGS I Wish I Knew As A Beginner Drummer

in the early days of drumming there were a lot of steps that i had to take to go from beginner drummer to where i am now like in the early days it was hard to make simple transitions like from beats into fills but over time these difficulties can transition into bad habits but if i could transition back in time and give myself some words of wisdom as a beginner drummer this is what i would say starting with number one one of the biggest things i wish i would have done as a beginner drummer is taking time to intentionally practice i'm highlighting the word intentionally because i practiced by just playing along to as many blank 182 songs as i possibly could now i think it's awesome to be able to play along with music it's such an important part of drumming but it's not always the most effective practice i think most of your growth is going to come from intentional practice so let me give you a quick practice framework that i call the dbo practice framework number one is plan out the time that you are going to practice putting it on the calendar is so important so i'd recommend at least three days a week for a minimum of 10 minutes per practice session but again these are minimums you can do much more if you want to step number two is to focus dedicate 70 of your practice time to focusing on a specific exercise beat or fill then number three is explore this is going to be 30 of your practice time where you are dedicated to working on your creativity and exploring the kit so this is when you can work on playing along to songs and work on creating your own beats and fills point number four is important and we will get back to it and that is reflect and track your progress each step of the way but the second thing that i really wish i would have known as a beginner drummer is using a metronome for basically any and all practice i just use this one on my phone it's by frozen ape tempo it's not the best one in the world but it definitely works you can use free ones any type of metronome is good and this is really important because as drummers we are the time keepers so we need to know how to keep steady time so you can play along with songs so you can play with other musicians so that your beats and fills are all in time and sound nice and clean if you're having a hard time playing with a metronome here's an exercise that i think will really help set your metronome at quarter notes at a slower bpm like 70 and what you're going to do is you're first just going to try to hit your hi-hat along with each click so just one two three four it's like target practice and you're trying to get closer and closer then the next measure you move up to eighth notes so one and two and three and four and then the third measure you move up to sixteenth notes one e and a two e and uh three e and uh four e and uh but the metronome is staying the same the whole time so if we put it all together here's what this timing exercise would sound like point number three is don't be afraid to make mistakes and to be patient with yourselves making mistakes is all part of your drumming journey and this is how you learn there are so many different avenues of where and when you make mistakes and there are different ways that you do want to navigate it so if you're playing live and you make a mistake you want to move past it you don't want this to happen [Music] [Applause] and if you do make a mistake you want it to happen quickly like this [Music] this way the audience and yourself are not dwelling on the mistake it happened in an instant and you are moving on however if you are practicing you want to do the opposite if you experience a mistake it's better to pause and try to explore the mistake and try to get down the details of what's tripping you up rather than moving beyond it because that is how you learn and grow from it so when running into a mistake work it out kind of like this [Music] the fourth thing that i wish i would have done as a beginner drummer is focus more on technique control and groove rather than purely thinking about speed i think as beginner drummers we really want to play something impressive and flashy for our friends and family but the reality is this isn't nearly as practical as playing beats and grooves you're not just going to bust out stuff like this in a song [Music] that's just not really going to happen but if you can play something like a simple groove with a lot of control and a lot of feel like this [Music] that is going to take you so much farther and then the more control and the more technique and groove you have then you will be able to gain speed over time and trust me it will be a lot cleaner than it was when you were just focusing on it as a beginner drummer now let's put it into context of a song where one drummer is focusing on speed the whole time the other one is focus on their control and groove let's check out the difference [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] point number five is understanding that the more uncomfortable you are in your practice time the more you will grow as a beginner drummer i really avoided doing anything uncomfortable on the drum set and this just resulted in me playing the same beats fills and exercises over and over and over which as a result made me not make any progress as a drummer at all i think as drummers we avoid being uncomfortable because it makes us feel like we aren't actually good drummers but this isn't the case this is the sound of progress the more that you can dive into those things that are uncomfortable the more comfortable they will become over time and the more your skill will grow and improve now point number six is to work on your rudiments but to also make them practical when i was first starting off drumming so many people said all you have to do is play paradiddles for hours on your practice pad well when i was listening to blink 182 in green day all day every day that did not sound fun at all but if someone would have told me that rudiments can be practical on the practice pad and on the drum kit i think this would have opened up a lot of new possibilities to me at a really early stage which would have been awesome for example taking the paradiddle right left right right left right left left sounds pretty boring on a practice pad but when you throw it on the drum set with the right hand on the hi-hat and the left hand on the snare drum it sounds like a really groovy beat [Music] if i would have started working on this in the beginning stages my doubles and my patterns would be really pretty awesome now the seventh thing i wish i would have stopped doing as a beginner drummer is comparing myself to other drummers i think so often we see a really cool drummer play something awesome and we pick up our sticks right away and we sit behind the kit and we're discouraged when we can't play that exact same thing within like two minutes time but what you don't see is the hours of slow dedicated practice that this drummer took to be able to play this complex pattern now allow this to be motivation for you to be diligent in your practice time to work slowly to be able to eventually pull off a really cool beat like this because the reality is this drummer couldn't play it right away either it took a lot of time and dedication now that would be like me watching this really sick skateboarder jumping off a roof after skateboarding for years and thinking that i can do it actually i can probably do it point number eight is to slow everything down in your practice as well as track your progress so as drummers a lot of us want to just play things up to speed but with anything i want your starting bpm to be at the most 60 bpm whether you are working on a cool beat a groove a song a rudiment 60 bpm is always gonna be where you start out and that is exactly what i do and as i get comfortable at that bpm then i'll move it up either five or ten and then you work on the next one for a little bit and you slowly speed up over time now why do you do this so that you can gain control the magic word of the day the more control you have the more speed you will get over time and the more clean your playing is going to be and i promise you slowing things down is going to be the fastest way to speed it up now along with this is i want you to track your progress after every single practice session so if you're starting off your paradiddles today at your practice session write down the starting tempo whether that's 60 bpm or lower and then at the end of your practice session where did you end up was it 100 bpm was it 70 bpm wherever it was write it down and then the next time you practice it you have a little goal for yourself to beat now this is how you make progress quickly on the drums now speaking of practice one of the ultimate practice tools that you have is actually your phone because you can record yourself now sometimes when you have your headphones in and you're jamming along to a song you might think that you're playing flawlessly but really what you can't hear under the song are quite a bit of mistakes [Music] now one way you can help yourself in this situation is by recording yourself on your phone this is a great way to get some instant feedback to see what things need a little bit more attention what things you have to work out a little bit more and plus it's a great way to celebrate those small victories you can watch back the videos of you continually nailing that beat or fill and that's an amazing feeling the 10th thing i wish i would have known as a beginner drummer is coated heads and gaff tape are your friends now the reason for this is because when you're beginner drummer you most likely don't have a super sick kit i didn't at least i had like a 300 kit and i wanted to know how to make it sound good now that's where the coated heads come in these are going to control the sound of your drums the most personally i love remo emperors for the toms and a coated remo ambassador for the snare drum but like i said everything coded because it controls the sound you get less ringy overtones and what you're hearing is a lot of the head which sounds warm rather than hearing whatever weird things are going on with your drum kit and that's where gaff tape and moon gel also comes in to reduce even more of those overtones in your drums so you can get a pretty darn decent sound out of whatever type of drum set you have okay so those are my 10 things that i wish i would have known as a beginner drummer i think it would have set me up for a lot of success behind the kit i think it would have saved me a lot of hours of wasted time and just in general would have helped me become better faster so hopefully this video is helpful for you if you want a free course for beginners i have a course called the beginner's guide to independence helps you out with your coordination has a lot of really cool beats in there you can check that out right over here but in the meantime let me know which one of these points resonated with you the most in the comment section below thank you so much for watching stay true and i'll see you very soon bye

Channel: Drum Beats Online

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Keywords: 10 THINGS I Wish I Knew As A Beginner Drummer, easy beginner drum beats, easy beginner drum lesson, basic drum beat, beginner drum tutorial, drum lessons, online drum lesson, free drum lesson, drum beats online, drums, drumming, drummer, drum, zach grooves, meinl cymbals, zildjian, byzance, Vic Firth drum sticks, pearl drums, remo drum heads, drum fills, paradiddle, rudiments, best drummer ever, amazing drum video, learn to play drums, chops, groove, drum to songs, learn songs

Id: JOUTL9gSATk

Length: 13min 34sec (814 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 30 2021